With the Nevada Democratic Caucus approaching on February 20 and big issues at stake in 2016, I know that we Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) voters will make our voices heard.
The number of AAPIs eligible to vote in Nevada has grown by 55 percent over 2000 to 2010 to 134,000 - a critical 7.3 percent of the eligible voter pool. In 2008 and 2012, AAPIs in the Silver State came out strongly in favor of Obama.
As the fastest-growing growing racial group in the country, AAPIs deserve a President who will actively engage us, one who recognizes us as leaders, and who will take action on the issues important to our AAPI communities. Hillary Clinton is that presidential candidate.
Hillary fought for universal health care far before we called for ObamaCare. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, one in six AAPIs were uninsured. This year, we expect 2 million AAPIs who would otherwise be uninsured to be covered or eligible to be covered, closing the coverage gap by 80 percent!
Hillary not only played a key role in the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), but also fought to restore access to Medicaid and CHIP to immigrant children and pregnant mothers. She will build on the progress we’ve fought to achieve over the past 25 years to expand access to quality, affordable care to all Americans and make sure that our AAPI communities are not left behind.
She has also been a consistent supporter of comprehensive immigration reform, and understands that we must pair a path to citizenship with fixing our outdated, broken family immigration system. We must fight to keep AAPI DREAMers and undocumented families together, while reuniting AAPIs with the 1.8 million family members trapped in the family backlog for years and even decades.
If Congress doesn’t act on comprehensive immigration reform, Hillary has vowed to use her Presidential authority to defend and expand President Obama’s current Executive Orders on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Deferred Action for Parents of Americans. Indeed, the refusal of Republicans in Congress to allow comprehensive immigration reform means that executive actions are a necessity—whether to bring undocumented families out of the shadows or to reunite Filipino American veterans with their loved ones.
Lastly, Hillary knows that we aren’t a single-issue country. To address the complexities of inequalities based on race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity, we must be thoughtful, deliberate and understand how those issues interact. As we give working class Americans a raise, we need to address the fact that on average, AAPI women earn 62 cents on the dollar when compared to white men doing the same job. As we remove cost as a barrier to a college education through Hillary’s New College Compact, we need to address the wide educational disparities within our AAPI communities. We must also end the bullying and discrimination faced by our AAPI students at school.
We have a lot at stake this election. No matter the differences between Senator Sanders and Secretary of State Clinton, their differences pale in comparison to the gulf between our party leaders and the Republican forerunners. When Republican candidates propose to ban all Muslims from entering the country, deny entry of refugees, dismantle our social safety net, and to deny the reality of climate change, it shows how much we need a leader with the heart and the head, the compassion and the strength, the boldness and a soulful pragmatism.
Our President recently said, “If the 99 percent of us voted, it wouldn’t matter how much the 1 percent spends on our elections.” The vote of each and every one of you counts so please exercise it. Hilary Clinton has long been a friend to our community and I’m honored to support her. I hope you will too, with your heart, your feet and your vote!
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