Happy Lunar New Year from Austin, y'all! As some of you probably already know, the Lunar New Year was on Thursday, but in many places in the U.S., large-scale celebrations were held this weekend when more people have time to party. :) So how did this Austinite spend her Lunar New Year? Please read on after the fold!
Ramey Ko, the exceptionally awesome Austin-based co-founder of Asian Americans for Obama (also a U. of Chicago law school grad - see here for Ramey's perspective of Obama when he was a student) came up with the idea of passing out one-page flyers detailing Obama's record of support for the AAPI community during our local Chinese New Year celebration. We passed out flyers that were translated into English, Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean. All of the materials are available from the Asian Americans for Obama site under the Supporter Toolkit section.
We also passed out some New Year's signs as well as a copy of a New Year's greetings letter that Obama had written to the AAPI community that someone had helpfully translated into Chinese. (When passing out flyers, I tried to combine the New Year's sign along with the one-page statement in the appropriate language (with the sign on top) to catch the attention of those who might otherwise not be receptive to receiving political material.)
Three of us were supposed to be at MT Supermarket, one of the largest Asian supermarkets in Austin, but unfortunately only 2 people (including myself) were able to show up. (Ramey was unfortunately unable to attend due to illness. He was also going to be the one bringing a digital camera, so sadly, we have no pictures of the event with us in them. :( ) Despite our being down by one, we managed to go through all of the flyers with the exception of the Korean-language ones (there were not as many Koreans at this location, as there is a larger Korean shopping center further down along the same street, which we may wish to consider targeting in the future. However, I did run into two Korean women who agreed to take some flyers back to their friends and family members. :), and even had people asking for more of the English-langauge ones after we had run out (not to mention bumper stickers and buttons, which we told them to go to either the online campaign store or to DemStore.com).
In retrospect, we probably should have made more copies of the English-language statement (we'd only made 50) to give out to some of the many non-Asian people who came out either to do grocery shopping or who were attending the festivities. (Having only gone to MT a few times since it re-opened in its new location and being more used to the Fondren-Bellaire shopping centers in Houston, I was fairly surprised at how many non-Asian people were in attendance there.) I also wish we'd brought some Spanish-language materials with us, as we ran into a few Latino and Filipino families who we could have given flyers to, especially as someone from the Asian Americans for Obama listserv reminded us, Obama is a co-sponsor of the Filipino Veterans Equity Act.
This was also a valuable experience for me to be ready for the unexpected, as I had been mentally dependent on Ramey to lead the way and I'd just tag along, since he's the old hand at this. When he wasn't able to make it, the two of us who were there had to improvise and really take charge ourselves (and all in all, I think we did a pretty good job :). This is not meant to be a knock on him at all, as he's been sick all month, same as me, and he's been doing a phenomenal job running Asian Americans for Obama and helping out with the AAPI effort in the Super Tuesday states, but it really drove home the message of stepping up and taking ownership of the campaign to me, and to not to wait for somebody else to pick up the pieces. (In other words, to be the change that I hope to see.)
So although I have no pretty pictures to show you of us with our Obama sign (which one very enthusiastic Saudi guy begged us to allow his wife to take a picture of him holding it), here are some from the Austin American Statesman of the celebration itself for y'all to enjoy. :)