Get Ready. Register To Vote – Against Hate
By Shakeel Syed, Board Member, AAPI Equity Alliance
LOS ANGELES, CA – I remember 9/11, and the years to come, vividly.
My wife, Saira, and I sat frozen as we watched the attack unfold on national television. As a South Asian and Muslim family, neither of us were prepared for the senseless loss of lives and how this tragedy would impact us and our community.
In the days after, three South Asian Americans were killed in acts of hate: Balbir Singh Sodhi, a 49-year-old Sikh; Waqar Hasan, a 46-year-old Muslim; and Vasudev Patel, a 49-year-old Hindu. These swift hate killings produced immense fear, paranoia and distrust that pervaded our communities.
To show our patriotism, many of us bought American flags – red, white, and blue on our lawns, cars, and clothes. But all it takes is having brown skin and a foreign name to make Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim and South Asian communities permanent suspects and foreigners.
From the Patriot Act that allowed law enforcement and government agencies to spy on ordinary American citizens to the Special Registration program that interrogated 80,000 immigrant Muslim men and deported 13,000 – only for none to be connected to any terrorist activity.
In 2001, I made a choice to fight even harder for those unfairly targeted by the slew of policies that allowed mass surveillance, detention and deportation.
Unfortunately, not much has changed 20+ years later. With the atrocious war in Gaza, we once again see the same wave of Islamophobia here at home. However, this time, we’re prepared to fight back.
This November, we all have a critical choice to make. As the fastest-growing group of voters in the country, the Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) community can choose to use their power to vote for progress.
Get ready. I urge you to check your voter registration and, if you haven’t already, register to vote.
We all deserve to belong and to live our lives freely without fear. Now is the time to come together and rise above divisiveness in this beautiful nation we all call home.
Go here: https://vote.gov/register
