Christopher’s Speech:
Good evening everyone, my name is Christopher Yu and I’m a junior at Northview High School. I served as a photographer for the Georgia Chinese American Republicans Community Outreach Event held last month. It was such an honor to be able to attend one of the largest Republican Asian American gatherings in Georgia history! I really want to thank all the organizers and featured speakers who spent countless hours working to set up the amazing conference we all got to enjoy. Being a photographer for the event allowed me to get up and close to all the featured speakers and to be around pretty famous figures like Karen Handel and National Committeewoman and Advisory Board member Ginger Howard and how can we ever forget, Governor Brian Kemp making his appearance with his video supporting our cause to reach out to more Asian Americans through grassroots, boots-on-the-ground activism. It’s honestly such a humbling experience to be able to meet some of the people who are responsible for helping make both Georgia and America Great Again. Some say to never meet your idol but hey, I did and only good things have happened since. We all heard Ms. Danielle D’Souza Gill talk about her and her family’s journey as immigrants living the rough life and despite being productive and contributing members of society, Asian American communities get very little say in politics and society. Having the Republican Party on our side, both her and I believe, is crucial in making sure our voices are all heard. Getting to hear Attorney General Chris Carr talk about major issues Georgians face such as the opioid crisis, the massive scale of human trafficking, and gang violence in Atlanta really opened my eyes to the disproportionate amount of discrimination immigrants and minorities face in their daily lives. One of the best ways to combat this is to vote, and most importantly, to vote Republican all the way down the ticket so that we can provide them with the support they need to further the conservative reforms and continue their amazing work. We as Asians make up 25% or about 21 thousand out of 85 thousand residents in Johns Creek. Our electing power is strong enough to maintain or switch any election in favor of the Republicans. Rob Woodall, our District 7th councilman, was only elected by 433 votes. Just last year, Karen Handel lost to Lucy McBath by just several thousand votes. Imagine if just a fraction more of Chinese or Vietnamese chose Republican? We would not have to worry at all about running such a close contest in previously deep red district. Another common issue these speakers brought up was voter participation and enthusiasm. Only about 12 percent of registered voters voted in the last November 5th election held a few weeks ago; getting this number higher and urging more Asians to go out to the polls is definitely one of the highest priorities for the Republican National Committee. Because traditional Asian values from Chinese to Korean and Vietnamese all are in tune with conservative values, simply just getting more Asians to be more politically aware and to go out and vote will lead naturally lead to more people supporting us Republicans. In my opinion, one of the best options we as the RNC can pursue is to expand the Georgia Chinese American Republican chapters throughout the city and into as many communities as we can. Being able to organize and mobilize more Asian Americans in support of our Republican officials is the best thank-you gift anyone can ask for to the party that got one of the greatest presidents in US History, President Donald J Trump, elected. We only stand to gain; just as Mrs. Sunny Wong and Mrs. Esther Lu spent tireless hours working on setting up these conferences, if we only even spent a fraction of the time on promoting, recruiting, and expanding our organization throughout the city and state, the results will show. I am confident that with hard work and good leadership, us Asian American Republicans will gain the voting powers we deserve and so desperately need. Thank you.