My semester at DC so far has been a complex experience on so many levels. There were times when I was deeply inspired and moved. There were other times when my eyes were opened to the reality of what it means to be in the political realm.
Before my internship even started, my roommate, Xavier, and I had the wonderful opportunity to listen in on the oral arguments for the TikTok v. Garland hearing in the Supreme Court on January 10th. We slept and waited outside in the snow the night before in order to get inside the Supreme Court at 8 am the next day. The case was fascinating and it was then that I realized for the next few months, I will be in the middle of the action in the political sphere.
There were many highlights during my internship at APIAVote, a nonpartisan nonprofit that analyzes Asian American and Pacific Islander voter turnouts, as well as supporting and encouraging greater civic engagement from these demographics. On the second day of the internship, I joined a celebratory event where I had the chance to talk with the then Acting-Secretary of Labor, Julie Su. She talked about how she started her career fighting for labor rights for immigrant workers as a labor attorney, and about how she became an advocate for her people to fight against systemic injustices.
In terms of what I’ve been working on in my internship, one of the tasks I was assigned was to research the SAVE Act, which is scheduled to be presented on the Senate floor in March. In summary, the SAVE Act, if passed, would require proof of citizenship before voting in federal elections. I conducted analysis on the progress of the act, similar bills in the past, and arguments for and against the SAVE Act.
During my research, I had a slight disagreement with the publicity team. Having analyzed the voting patterns for states that passed similar bills that required presenting voter IDs before voting, I saw negligible differences in voter turnout because of these policies. However, in all of the publicity materials, they framed the bill as an “extreme voter suppression bill”. While this is a valid opinion, I feel that as a nonpartisan organization, there should be a responsibility to ensure that the materials can reasonably be acknowledged by both sides of the aisle. After discussing with members of the staff, they clarified why they became a nonpartisan organization. They would only be able to get into certain spaces that would have been restricted to partisan organizations, such as press conferences, if they registered as a nonpartisan organization. Strictly speaking, this internship has not been what I was expecting, since I thought that I applied to a nonpartisan organization. However, it is still a valuable experience in seeing the different techniques that organizations use in the realm of politics.
One of the classes I am taking, Race and Politics, has given me one of my best experiences while in DC. As part of the course, I was tasked with volunteering at a community based organization. I chose Bread for the City, and volunteered at its food pantry. After taking the bus from the metropolitan area to the majority African American low income neighborhood, it gave me a stark contrast to the income divide, even within the city of Washington D. C. As I packed the shelves with the daily necessities and passed them out to the residents of the area, I imagined myself more so as a social worker, combating the greater issues of food insecurity and poverty, and less so as an intern for a political organization. The contrast is stark between the metropolitan as the center stage of American politics, and the impoverished neighborhood just a few bus stops away, struggling to get by.
My experience at DC so far has been truly transformative and I am immensely grateful for having this opportunity. While people may experience this opportunity differently, my experience at DC has reshaped my goals for the future as I hope to serve the community as a social worker against societal injustices and poverty.