By Alysia Santo
“You just have to keep it cool,” says Rawan Toom, as she hangs up the phone and puts down her “Get Out The Vote” calling script. In between laughs and two slices of pizza, Rawan has been making phone calls from a list of registered Arabic voters living in Southwest Brooklyn, home to the largest concentration of Arab-Americans in New York.
At 15 Rawan isn’t able to vote yet, but she is helping the Arab American Association of New York (AAANY) located in Bay Ridge with their local voter outreach. On a typical Tuesday night, Rawan and five other local girls meet at the AAANY for Brooklynet, a female youth group that discusses what it’s like to be a teen girl growing up in Brooklyn. This week, Brooklynet is dedicating the two hours they usually spend talking to each other dialing the numbers of local Arabic voters and reminding them to vote.
The Arab American Institute estimates that 93,000 Arab Americans live in Brooklyn. This population is mostly concentrated in Bay Ridge along 5th avenue, where there are an array of Middle Eastern shops, eateries, hookah lounges, and a mosque. AAANY is also here, and a few of the Brooklyn high-school students making the phone calls live close by. Asil Rum sees her principal’s names on the list and leaves him a voicemail from her script, giggling as she hangs up the phone, “I’m not going to leave him my name in case he doesn’t like the message,” she says.
The calling lists that these teens are using were provided to the Arab American Association through the Immigrants Vote! Campaign, a statewide initiative coordinated by the New York Immigration Coalition. A new study released this month by the Immigration Policy Center says there are over one million registered immigrant voters in New York. Yet political campaigns and parties are not as plugged in to these voters. In the 2008 New York City Voter Exit Poll, 10% of foreign-born voters reported being contacted about the election, compared with about 20% of American born voters.
Last Thursday, the AAANY held a town hall style candidates night in Bay Ridge, where local leaders came out to address the Arab population here. U.S. Congressman Mike McMahon and his challenger, Republican Michael Grimm, were among the elected and prospective officials to attend. McMahon won the Congressional seat in 2008, and was the first Democrat to be elected in 18 years. While McMahon is favored to win, Grimm has had some momentum in this race, with the backing of Sarah Palin, John McCain and the Tea Party.
The mosque near Ground Zero was a hot topic at the forum, as audience members pushed the candidates on their shared stance that the Islamic Center should not be built in that location. One audience member brought up a strip club that is two blocks from the site, asking Grimm, “What about that?” Grimm said the structure should be built elsewhere, and that they could “agree to disagree while still respecting our views.” McMahon expressed his disapproval of the project, saying it “is not a question of religious rights, but of those whose hearts were broken.”
Chris Rominger, the associate director of AAANY, says this is what leads to the political apathy in this Arabic Community, “When people think purely about the issue of Park 51, they feel discouraged. It leads to a greater despair about politics.”
If someone asks for voting advice, they are given the address to the New York State Board of Elections site, where they can look up specific information about each candidate themselves. “When it comes to specific parties or candidates we don’t get in to that conversation,” says Rominger.
The goal of the immigrant outreach is all about action. “You have a million and one reasons to vote and probably just as many reasons to convince yourself not to,” says Rominger. “Just that little connection of recognizing this organizations name and hearing a young person asking you to vote on your voicemail, it goes a lot further than a poster stuck in someone’s front yard or an ad on TV.” Rominger says he might plan another call session on Monday night, one last reminder before polls close Tuesday at nine.
All the work this year is volunteer, but in 2008, the AAANY received grants for voter outreach, and they were able to pay for over 100 canvassers. Rawan was a part of that campaign as well, and says she was paid to go door to door and remind people to vote. She says she plans to volunteer again next year, but she is really looking forward to when she can vote along with the others that she is encouraging, “I’m really sad, because the next presidential election I’ll only be 17. I really want to vote, but I’ll have to wait.”
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