Viet Voices: Giving back the vote and power to Vietnamese San Diegans
By Hannah Psalma Ramirez
November 22, 2024
SAN DIEGO- According to the Pew Research Center, the United States has seen Asian Americans gain an edge as the fastest-growing ethnic group of voters during the past two decades. And from 2000 to 2020, those eligible to vote grew by an impressive 139%, the Pew research center also found.
Yet the paradox remains: despite the group’s fast growth, across the nation, data from the 2022 U.S Census has found that Asian American voters have one of the lowest voter registration rates.
With low voter turnouts, minority communities risk maintaining systems of inequality and legislation that fails to assure equity in resources. While reasons for low turnout and registration vary, one of the top reasons remains lack of outreach to Asian Americans.
In the heart of City Heights, Viet Voices is a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing civic engagement and voting in the Vietnamese community.
The organization, previously known as Viet Vote, was formed in 2017, after seeing the decline among Vietnamese voters. Despite a count of 39,000 registered Vietnamese voters in San Diego, only 9% actually casted a vote that year.
In two years, the organization was able to help increase the participation of voters to 12% according to their website.
Community organizations can fill in the gaps of government outreach
“You create a system where it’s not designed for us to participate for so long. Now you finally create a meal, set the table and wonder why no one is coming to eat… did you let us know?” said Jean-Huy Tran, Viet Voices’s Executive director, laughing at the memory of a city clerk questioning why no one was requesting translation tools for public meetings.
Tran has been with the nonprofit since its inception, starting as a volunteer, and building up to his current position where he manages the organization’s mission and funding.
In Tran’s experience, while resources do exist at the city level, it’s the outreach and creating awareness on local government's part that is the afterthought.
During Tran’s time working alongside another nonprofit, he would sit in on official city budget meetings. In 2020, the city’s housing commission approached him to ask for his help spreading the work about a rental assistance program application that would be due in two days.
“And I go… wait what? I'm in the meeting and even I didn’t know. What makes you think the public would know?” Tran said.
After the short notice, Tran asked the city if they could provide the documents to be language accessible for the next round of funding. After the documents were translated, Tran personally distributed the graphic throughout his community in City Heights which led to it receiving greater engagement than before.
This same experience also inspired him to open up an office space with Viet Voices to provide in-person assistance to community members for the rental assistance application.
Viet Voices fulfills many other needs of their community such as programming and resources to educate in the areas of environmental justice, civic engagement, LGBTQ+ issues. With their most popular cause being Arts and Culture.
Starting two years ago, Viet Voices has gone on to organize two art shows a year. Tran says that these events get the highest attendance.
“We got really receptive to the way that the younger generation felt like they have a space to say that they who they are more,” Tran said on their decision to do more Arts programming.
Cass Coomber, a San Diego resident who follows the organization, feels especially drawn to this type of programming.
“It blows my mind that they can put on such high quality shows that match the intersection of what I am really represented in, AAPI and LGBTQ [communities],” Coomber said.
Coomber also shared that with organizations like these, she feels that they can help build and bridge communities.
“I think I am often the only trans person when I hang out with Asians or the only Asian person when I hang out with trans people. So it can feel like I am an outsider even in my own communities.”
“So art that touches on that unique experience really resonates and inspires me,” Coomber added.
This representation is just one of the ways Viet Voices is able to bring education to their community. According to Jane Le, Viet Voice’s Administrative & Operations Manager, the AAPI community is still largely conservative leading to generational gaps and political views.
In one glimpse into the issue, The Trevor Project’s 2021 National Survey on LGBTQ+ Youth Mental Health found that only 20% of AAPI youth reported high levels of support from family.
By breaking down stigmas and raising awareness for LGBTQ+ community members, this is one way they can turn votes.
“I knew that our organization cannot just talk about voting to the people, you have to talk about the things our community needs,” Tran said.
With their expanded focus, Viet Voices still honed in on election season. By providing resources on online platforms in the form of infographics breaking down proposition information to conducting interviews with political candidates with questions geared for Vietnamese and AANHPI voters.
And by going door to door knocking to make sure residents feel ready to vote.
While Viet Voices is the only organization specializing in civic engagement and education, another resource at the county level exists.
At the Registrar of Voters, another lifeline exists for Vietnamese San Diegans
The Vietnamese Language Accessibility Advisory Committee has been creating official materials in Vietnamese since 2004.
The advisory of Vietnamese language accessibility was first formed after the County of San Diego was mandated by the Department of Justice to provide election materials in Vietnamese, along with other languages.
This transition followed a long wait despite a federal law declared in 1975, requiring state and local governments to provide voting ballots and other election materials in more than just English.
Su Nyugen, the language program coordinator, leads the advisory to make sure that based on guidelines provided by the law, they translate voter information guides and ballots properly. As well as provide bilingual poll workers at voting centers.
“The result is very clear,” said Nyugen on the impact of the advisory. “I think I remember when I started it was 8 to 7,000 voters, but now it’s 32,000 plus for voters.”
At the San Diego Registrar of Voters, they track the demographics of different registered voters based on requests for language tools during elections. Currently they provide data estimates on Latino/Hispanic voters, Filipino voters, Vietnamese voters and Chinese voters.
According to data from the 2021 and 2022 elections, Vietnamese voters still had the lowest representation in the county at 1.62%. Chinese registered voters came in a close second for the lowest number of registered voters at 1.7%. And Filipino voters measure up to 2.3% of registered voters.
As of now there is no specific data held on Black voters or those with Middle Eastern backgrounds.
The need for translated materials still exists as the most recent data from the 2023 U.S Census community survey found that 47.9% of Vietnamese San Diegans “speak English ‘less than very well.’”
But between translation processes that are extensive and a phone line staffed by only four staff members at most, the advisory needs more help than it can give.
When the advisory first formed there were seven members, Nyugen says they now usually only have three to four depending on the election.
Disclaimer: The totals on this report do not represent actual numbers. It is an estimate determined by (1) Voter has requested their voting material be provided in Vietnamese; (2) Voter’s birthplace matches a country designated as primarily speaking the respective language; (3) Voter’s last name (surname) matches a surname list provided by the Department of Justice.
“We go out there to every single community event we know but there’s events that we don't know. Because the community is spread out from MiraMesa, Linda Vista to City Heights,” Nyugen said.
“So we really need to collaborate with the community organizations.”
For Nyugen, it’s clear the needs for the community they need help addressing.
“Our office, we focus on voter’s education in terms of the election process, understanding the way to vote. And then how to register to vote… For people to understand about the measures, you know, I think there should be more room for the Community organizations to get people.”
One area Nyugen would like to see more help from community organizations is in recruiting more bilingual poll workers.
During this year’s election, the County of San Diego only had 33 active bilingual poll workers in vietnamese for a total of 213 voting centers.
An understaffing that risks further inequities for aspiring Vietnamese voters.
A lack of accurate data has historically been an issue for Asian Americans
“I noticed that when you speak about the AAPI community… there's not a lot of data on us. There's not a lot because we historically are such underachievers when it comes to voting,” Le said.
Through her previous experience in the public sector, she’s witnessed a trend of inaccurate data afflicting the Vietnamese community.
Government data continues to lump together Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities as one option on censuses and other surveys despite representing over 70 distinct groups in the United States, according to AAPI Data, a research and policy organization.
The consequence is the false assumption that these groups have the same needs, leading to inequalities and wider racial disparities.
Le believes that by fostering civic engagement through Viet Voices they can increase voter participation. An end goal that will bring more data to the government on Vietnamese San Diegans and in turn, invest back into the community.
“I do see civic engagement is not just simply about building political power, but it's also the importance of, how do we, you know, like, sure, like, you know, raise our voice and say that we are here,” Le said.
Aside from reaching out to voters, Viet Voices is also gathering its own data reflecting the housing needs of their community members in City Heights.
To expand available data and insights on how Vietnamese residents are dealing with rent increases, Viet Voices goes door to door conducting surveys. According to their website, over the years, they have been able to go up to 410 households and send 3,509 texts on housing surveys.
Tran, Viet Voices’s Executive director, follows San Diego’s annual point in time count, one of the biggest censuses of its kind that tracks homeless individuals in the county. After looking at last year’s data, which only tracked 2% of Asian/Asian Americans as unsheltered, Tran felt this couldn’t be the whole picture.
He is now in the beginning stages of creating his own count for Vietnamese residents
Based on his own insights of cultural norms not allowing loved ones to sleep on the street, Tran is conducting his own survey questions to determine the housing status of all residents in a household. He has planned to knock on 1,000 doors and so far has surveyed 250 this year; he plans to resume this work after the election season.
“The idea is, I give our government a different perspective about how our people live. And that the 2% in a homeless count does not negate the fact that our people are also suffering rent increase, and struggling,” Tran said, “They have to live communal with each other to afford rent.”
To have success in outreach, cultural considerations are key
An issue that has persisted for decades is the undercounting of Asian Americans in census work according to the organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice.
Prior to the 2020 official Census, the Census Bureau released a report that found that Asian Americans were the least likely to participate in the census than any other ethnic group. And the group most likely to believe that government data “will be used against them” at 41%
While research has been unable to pinpoint the exact causes of these challenges to Vietnamese participation in census work, Viet Voices has done their part to turn this around.
During the pandemic, Viet Voices created an educational video explaining how the census works and in order to dispel such fears and educate on the benefits.
Tran also attributed the lack of participation to political trauma from after the Vietnam War.
“In Vietnam after 1975 when the war was over, there was something similar to that,” explained Tran. “It's a roster for every single household.”
“So when we go around asking people for censuses, they are so triggered, they're like, Oh my God, you're counting on you keeping track of who we are.”
“Asking working class people to do this massive amount of research to vote is a lot of ask. And not just in the Vietnamese community, like migrants, a lot of them. Voting is, like, becoming more and more of a white privilege thing,” Tran said.
For the average resident, the process of voting can be daunting. For immigrants, the potential of not having previous experience or education on state and federal elections is higher.
In San Diego, Vietnamese immigrants outnumber those who are native to the U.S. According to a 2023 community survey from the U.S. Census bureau, 42,001 Vietnamese residents identified as foreign-born compared to only 19,952 residents who were native to San Diego.
When it comes to Viet Voices campaign seasons, a majority of their outside funds are dedicated to voter outreach. Tran hopes that in the future, donors and the government can help with their public education efforts.
In the meantime, Tran finds it rewarding seeing the reactions of community members finding out about the services that Viet Voices provides.
“Their eyes just light up and they go, wait, wait, I have an idea too. This is what I want to do for our community. A man was telling me how he wanted to build a free clinic for our elders. Another person, he wanted to do a retreat for males to address toxic masculinity…” Tran shared, smiling ear to ear.
“So it became a space that we built over the last four or five years, and became an infrastructure for a lot more work, development for a foreign community. So the response has been really positive,” Tran said.