Are you ready? Once again, time to meet another Angry Reader of the Week, spotlighting you, the very special readers of this website. Over the years, I've been able to connect with a lot of cool folks, and this is a way of showing some appreciation and attention to the people who help make this blog what it is. This week's reader is Bryan Lee, who almost shares the same name with a ninja.
Who are you?
Bryan Jong Keun Lee - not be confused with the million Brian Lee's out there or the lesser quantity of Bryan Lee's (whom I think are all facebook friends (rock on!)). I remember when I first learned of Lee Byun Hyun's (Storm Shadow from GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra) English name and was all excited to share the same name as a ninja. But then I learned that he spelled his with an "I." Dammit.
What are you?
I'm a 2nd gen Korean American with a slight obsession with technology and new era hats.
Where are you?
Live in Westchester, New York. But I spend most of my days in New York City or wherever my work takes me.
Where are you from?
I was raised in the back of a grocery store my mom and grandparents ran in Westchester until Stop n' Shop came around the block and put us out of business. I was one of a handful of Asian kids growing up in my town. I remember in high school the Korean American population quadrupled one year from one to four students. I was so excited.
What do you do?
I'm the Voting Rights Coordinator for the Asian American Legal Defense Fund (AALDEF) where I work on the beast that is AALDEF's Exit Poll and Poll Monitoring program. We work with numerous national and local community organizations to run a multi-state exit poll for Asian American voters in various Asian languages and to document and fix voter problems. We also work on election reform and improving our community's access to the vote. When some parties absolutely refuse to play nice... well, that's when the attorneys step in and... yeah.
Every year, voters are turned away from poll sites even though they've previously voted or recently registered. Oftentimes it's a registration to no fault of the voter. Other times it's a biased poll worker pulling some crazy stunt like splitting lines between Chinese American voters and "other" voters in Chinatown or making excessive ID demands from South Asian American voters because a poll worker believes "you never know who's a terrorist." These kinds of issues occur every year actually, and many more go unreported.
My other hat has to do with our Census 2010 project to make sure there's an accurate count of our community.
What are you all about?
I don't have any siblings and grew up in a neighborhood where nobody really looked like me, so when I'm working with people from the Asian American community I always see 'em as long lost relatives, haha. That pretty much drives my motivation... along with some of my next couple of answers.
What makes you angry?
- When Asians marginalize or take advantage of other Asians. UGH.
- All the annoying jerks who take the last Metro North train home back to Westchester.
- Racist poll workers - I remember when I first started my job and was wetting my feet in a primary election. This one poll worker started to tell me this wonderful story about how "all Asians are dirty" then yelled at an elderly Korean American voter to "SPEAK ENGLISH" when he was trying to use an interpreter. Minutes later when I tried to interview a Chinese American voter in Mandarin, this other poll worker walks over and yells at me to "SPEAK ENGLISH" (yes, poll workers shout in all caps in case you didn't know) . She then shared with me her thoughts: "all voters who can't speak English shouldn't have the right to vote." I'm pretty sure I clearly introduced myself to everyone earlier explaining that I was part of a legal organization present to document problems. As you can see, racism and ignorance aren't mutually exclusive.
Yeah that's just a small sample of what gets my goat.