NAAPI Presidential Questionnaire
For Immediate Release:
October 10, 2008
Contact: HyunJoo Lee, 323.937.3703, ext. 202
Release of the 2008 National Asian American & Pacific Islander Presidential Questionnaire
Educating Asian American and Pacific Islander Voters Across the Country
(Los Angeles, CA) The National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC) is excited to announce the release of the 2008 National Asian American & Pacific Islander Presidential Questionnaire, a project that was produced in collaboration with the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA). The Presidential Questionnaire was sent to Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, and Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain with the purpose of using the responses to educate Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community members across the country on where the presidential candidates stand on important issues such as civil rights, education, healthcare, housing and community development and immigration.
NAKASEC has translated the responses in Korean so that community members can receive in-language information that will shape their confidence as voters and thereby allow them to fully engage in the election process. Translation of the questionnaire in Korean can be found at www.nakasec.org.
“We have already seen record voter turnouts by communities from all different backgrounds this year. NCAPA member organizations will be sharing results of the presidential questionnaire on the ground and together we will work to educate, engage and mobilize AAPI voters for the coming elections. The AAPI community is no exception; AAPI voters will vote and continue to make their voices heard in this year’s election,” said EunSook Lee, Executive Director, NAKASEC and Vice-Chair of Programs, NCAPA.
“In an effort to develop a more visible presence in helping the Presidential candidates understand the issues that are critical to our communities, NCAPA issued a questionnaire to the respective presidential campaigns. The response to the questionnaire was intended to give Asian Pacific Americans a view of each candidate’s solution to some of the problems that we face. Then we will have a basis for supporting one candidate or the other. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders no longer will be the invisible minority. We want to be heard and want our concerns addressed,” said Floyd Mori, Chair of NCAPA.
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NAKASEC was founded as a consortium in 1994 by local community centers that realized that only by coming together can we build and contribute to a national movement for civil rights. Its founding was the culmination of the base building work our affiliates had been doing for years in their respective cities. Our mission is to project a national progressive voice on major civil rights and immigrant rights issues and promote the full participation of Korean Americans in American society. NAKASEC is a nonpartisan, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. NAKASEC neither supports nor opposes any political party or any candidate for public office.
