2011 CUNY Conference on Pipeline Politics: Civic Engagement Toward Social Change

AAARI’s 2011 Annual Conference expands upon last year’s theme of Asian American community civic and political engagement. This year’s core focus is on the evolution of civic and political engagement, and how to build pipelines for integrating New York City’s Asian American population of predominantly new and recent immigrants into civic and political engagement. What is already happening, and what needs to happen to build capacity towards community enhancement and social change within the Asian American community?

Elected officials, academics, and leaders from grassroots community, business, economic development and youth organizations, will present and discuss topics including:

• An overview of Asian American civic engagement strategies and experiments
• Recently released US Census data for New York City showing  Asians as the fastest growing minority over the past decade
• Need for redistricting to reflect changing neighborhoods and their needs
• Exit poll results of Asian American voters in 2009 and 2010 NYC elections
• Lessons learned from political campaign strategies
• How leadership in entrepreneurship and economic development evolved into civic engagement and championing social change
• How first generation immigrants are making significant impacts on civic issues and politics
• Direct action and youth leadership initiatives

Highlights:

• S.B. Woo, Board Member of the 80-20 Initiative, will examine “Does the Asian American Community Need A National Political Action Committee?”
• NYC Council Member Margaret Chin will share her thoughts on redistricting and her campaign strategies.

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