Welcome to the first installment of The Yappie’s new series featuring AAPI newsmakers, rising candidates, and lawmakers. If you’re interested in being featured, please email [email protected].
On a Tuesday afternoon, (RUN) Co-founder and Enfranchisement Productions CEO Brad Jenkins hops onto Zoom with his daughter by his side. (RUN) Political Director Linh Nguyen waves hi to the little one, a wide smile on her face. A few seconds later, Jenkins sends his daughter along her way. She ambles off the screen as Nguyen tells us the light is hitting our profiles just right.
From the moment we met Jenkins and Nguyen face to face, the warmth in their tone was clear. In our hour-long conversation, we covered everything from shared experiences of feeling unseen growing up to Hollywood’s silence, when comedian Chris Rock used three Asian children in the 2016 Oscars to reinforce caricatured stereotypes of Asian Americans.
For the team behind (RUN), connection is key. (RUN)—which stands for Represent Us Now and was founded by Jenkins, actress Chloe Bennet, and former Co-Chair of Obama AAPI Leadership Council Cate Park—is a civic platform aimed at growing Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) power from the ground up. The nonprofit’s three founders intended (RUN) to bridge the “huge” gap between politics and the media—to “be in the intersection of D.C. and Hollywood,” as Elle Kurata, creative director and senior producer, told us in a separate call with Park.
AAPIs are the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S. and are poised to be the margin of victory in a number of battleground states in this year’s elections. Young AAPIs will play a role in determining results. They overwhelmingly support former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a poll released by (RUN) in September. 1 in 3 unregistered young Asian American voters, however, does not plan to register to vote, and party outreach remains abysmal, with only 2 out of 5 contacted by parties this election.
(RUN) wants to target that 1 in 3. In a bid to drive young AAPI voter turnout, (RUN) announced a campaign titled The New last month. Its launch video, released on Sept. 25, picked up considerable buzz online. Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), Rep. Grace Meng (D-New York), “Joy Luck Club” actress Lauren Tom, “Agents of SHIELD” Co-creator Maurissa Tancharoen, “Crazy Rich Asians” actor Harry Shum Jr., former Bernie Sanders Political Director Jane Kim, Asian Americans for Yang, the AAPI Victory Fund, and comedy show “Asian AF” were among the users that circulated the video with the hashtag #TheNew. The video has reached more than two million views.
“Our goal is to create a culture shift,” Kurata told The Yappie. “To unite this Asian American identity and have that translate to cultural and political power. I think that this is a really exciting time in the world as much as it feels like things are burning, and I think that there’s finally an appetite for all of this.” (RUN)’s rapid growth, Nguyen added, is a marker of the community’s high existing demand for AAPI content.
The goal is to first and foremost convince the AAPI community that their voice matters, Jenkins emphasized—that’s the piece that’s key to mobilizing AAPIs and helping them shed the feeling of being an outsider in the U.S. For the (RUN) team, it’s ultimately about power: political power and cultural power. You can’t have one without the other, in Jenkins eyes. “Not to name-drop,” he added before proceeding to name-drop Marvel Director Joss Whedon, but the campaign has received love from a variety of prominent figures. A few days ago, Whedon had emailed Jenkins saying he was inspired and wanted to support (RUN).
The campaign also received support from a number of AAPI-focused organizations, including Asian Americans Rising, AAPI Progressive Action, the Asian American Engagement Fund, We Are Sikhs, National Sikh Campaign, and other community organizers. Since The New’s video release, the Biden campaign has announced a paid ad campaign targeting AAPIs.
RUN’s founders and staff launched the organization immediately after the 2016 election, naming it Operation 2020. Park described (RUN)’s beginnings as a “social club to invite people from Hollywood to meet with politicians to talk about the Asian vote and representation.”
To start, she called up Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California), who represents parts of western Los Angeles, and asked him to be her first guest. “That’s how we started, just getting people excited by listening to someone like Ted talk about the importance of AAPIs in politics,” says Park.
Young Asian Americans’ top priorities are the pandemic response; job, wages and unemployment benefits; and fighting systemic racism.
—September 2019 AAPI youth poll by (RUN)
The organization hosts events every month, including letter-writing parties, phone banks, fundraisers, and speaking engagements. Before the coronavirus, in-person events were always full, well over the cap of 100, said Park. Leaders hope that (RUN) will become an established middleman, connecting organizations and causes with Asian American actors and filmmakers.
The (RUN) team intentionally broke away from mainstream campaign strategy for communities of color, which fails to recognize the discord between the messaging and what’s actually happening on the ground, Nguyen said. (RUN) focuses on organizing and storytelling simultaneously, creating content while organizing language translation, holding phone banks, and working with high-profile AAPI talent.
The New campaign aims to celebrate the different cultures of the pan-Asian identity—for a young Korean boy in Iowa to see vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris and recognize, “Oh yeah, she’s Asian like I am.” The team has made conscious efforts to ensure equal representation of the many AAPI communities in the campaign.
“We intentionally put South Asians first in the video,” Jenkins said. “We made sure to include Sikh Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
The campaign is also increasing awareness of and fighting against anti-Asian racism, which Jenkins and Nguyen say has not been adequately covered in mainstream media. Not many prominent non-Asian social justice activists have amplified the issue either. (RUN) released a video last week titled “We. Are. Not. A. Virus.” that challenges President Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric about the coronavirus, which includes calling it the “Chinese virus.” Anti-Asian incidents have surged since the pandemic began, nearly reaching 3,000.
Kurata, who grew up in a conservative part of Colorado, never met anyone like her growing up. She “obviously didn’t see them” in television or politics. But she wonders what her political journey would have been had she seen a video by The New as a young person. It makes the response to The New all the more encouraging.
“I've been really pleasantly surprised about how much organic excitement and engagement we’ve generated, [including my generation and the generation above],” Kurata said. “That was very important to us: we're trying to unify and also pay homage and respect to our elders.”
As (RUN) and The New take off, Jenkins and Nguyen note that a lot of the “heavy lifting work” will take place after the election. A year from now, Bennet wants (RUN) to have built an engaged and empowered base—enough that talent hoping to reach AAPIs will come to (RUN) themselves.
Right now, with less than a month until the election, (RUN) is focused on increasing the overall Asian American vote in addition to young AAPI turnout. Texas and Georgia are “case studies in increasing Asian American visibility,” Kurata said, highlighting two states with not only a growing Asian American population, but also a growing AAPI political presence.
The AAPI electorate in these states have a strong chance of turning historically red seats blue. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the entity charged with electing Democrats to the House, noted this emerging presence this past July when they rolled out Hindi and Chinese ads in support of Democratic candidate Sri Preston Kulkarni, who is running to represent Texas’ 22nd congressional district.
Jenkins and Nguyen both stressed the importance of recognizing existing AAPI leaders—people like Ai-jen Poo, co-founder and executive director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, and Amanda Nguyen, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder of civil rights nonprofit RISE. “We have to create pressure to show that there’s a whole community of leaders,” said Jenkins. It’s also critical to break down barriers to leadership, Nguyen added, and redefine what it means to get involved and stay involved.
“There are already so many robusted and dedicated AAPI people—they know what the opportunities look like. It’s all about inspiring that untapped energy.” Nguyen said.
In the immediate future, (RUN)is hosting events in Texas and Georgia, using storytelling to shine light on voter suppression and partnering with other AAPI-focused organizations to hold get-out-your-vote events. “We’re helping on-ground organizers drive the action and engagement to the real political insiders in these states,” said Nguyen. Their next event with Asian American Advocacy Fund on Oct. 21 will involve a virtual text bank to young Asian Americans in Georgia.
The team behind (RUN) has their work cut out for them—their efforts will continue well past the election as they seek to equip Asian Americans of all ages with the civic knowledge of political representation and the power of the vote. But, as Jenkins and Nguyen said on Tuesday, they can’t wait any longer for mainstream media or political campaigns to take the reins. It has to be them.
And it will be.
