Los Angeles’s new mayor will take his post July 1. Eric Garcetti won with 54 percent of the vote.
The troubling thing is that this election should have brought out the masses; it was a mayoral race to elect the person representing the most populated city in California and the second most populated city in the United States.
Although it’s been a few weeks since voters in Los Angeles cast their ballots, it’s still mind-boggling only 19 percent of registered voters actually voted.
Broken down further with a look at various ethnic groups, Asian Americans, unfortunately did not exercise their right to vote.
It’s a sad story, especially when, according to the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the city’s Asian American population has soared 19 percent from 2000 to 2010. During the 2012 election, Asian Americans made up 8 percent – or about 135,000 registered voters – of the electorate.
How do we ensure Asian Americans voices are heard? There’s no easy answer. However, it is possible.
California Forward recently attended the Silicon Valley Regional Economic Forum. The organization posed that question to a few attendees.
