My element is Mercury (Hg) and the atomic number is 80. Mercury is the only transition metal that is at a liquid state of matter in room temperature. Mercury was used for thermometers. When mercury was first discovered in Egyptian tombs in 1500 BC. Later on, mercury was used for ointments by the Greeks and the Romans used mercury for cosmetics. In the past, we used mercury for thermometers, but today we don’t use thermometers anymore because scientists found out that mercury is dangerous.

I got the design of the print I made from where mercury is found. It was found in Egyptian tombs so the theme I chose was ancient Egypt to symbolize where mercury was originally found. The two symbols in the middle of the print are hieroglyphics and they means the letters h and g, which are the atomic symbol of mercury (Hg). On the top and bottom of the print is an ancient Egyptian pattern. The process of making this print was interesting because we didn’t use any machines to print the design, instead we used a baren to put pressure on the print and transfer the design.

I first drew out three different designs of the print and afterwards I chose one design and used parchment paper to trace over it. We used a plate and formed the design on it. We used printmaking ink to transfer our design onto paper. Instead of cutting out our print, we ripped it. If I can do the print the second time, I would use different materials to form the plate so the print would have different textures. The part I enjoyed the most was transferring the design onto the paper and applying the printmaking ink onto the plate. I like it because I thought it was interesting and fun to see how it would come out.

Before you continue reading this post, go to my previous two posts, Where Are Their Voting Rights? and Asian American Voting Rights Activists’ POV. My first post, Where Are Their Voting Rights?, talks about the issue with Asian American voting rights and what have been done about it. For example, an issue with Asian American voting rights is language barrier and there are organizations like Asian American United (AAU) that help non-English speaking citizens with their voting registration when it’s election season. In my second post, Asian American Voting Rights Activists’ POV, I wrote about my interview with Xu Lin, one of the board members of Asian American United (AAU) and Wei Chen, the Civil Engagement Coordinator of Asian American United (AAU). I also talked about what I learned from them and how I can play a part in this issue.

There are many things that have been done to help Asian Americans with their voting rights. For example, organizations helped non-English speakers citizens with their voting registration. From my interview with Wei Chen, I learned that engaging young citizens in volunteering with Asian Americans can help with Asian American voting rights because they are informed about what’s going on in their community and they are able to help family members with voting or voting themselves when they pass the age requirement. During the presidential election in 2016, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump had their own ways to increase their votes with Asian Americans. Hillary Clinton had her own Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Outreach Director and Donald Trump worked with an Asian Pacific American Advisory Committee. There are studies that shows that the population of Asian American voters has increased during the 2016 election. From the 2012 election to 2016 election, there was a difference of 2 million voters. The UCLA Study for Center for Inequality and Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) predicts that from 2015 to 2040, Asian American votes would grow by 107%. Language barrier isn’t the only issue for Asian American voters, there are others problems like intimidating voters and more. I think that because voting rights for Asian Americans is an issue that can be solve in a day, I think that the ways that are used to fix this issue are effective because looking at the increase of Asian American voters at each election slowly the problem is getting fixed.

For my Agent of Change, I presented to a class of seventh graders at my old school, Folk Arts Cultural Treasures Charter School (FACTS). My original plans for my Agent of Change was not only to present at my old school, but also to volunteer at Asian American United (AAU) to help non-English citizens with their voter registration since on Tuesday, May 15 waas election day. I wasn’t able to volunteer, but at least I was able to inform a young generation of citizens about their voting right since most of the students were Asian Americans and what they can do to help their community. I decide to present at my old school, specifically seventh graders because in the future they would be the next generation to vote and not only they can understand their voting right, but also take the chance to help others around them out. For the first two weeks, I was thinking of other ways or things to do to help out with Asian American voting rights like a meeting or conference arranged to talk about Asian American voting rights or collaborating with an organization that mainly focus on voting rights. On May 9, I went to FACTS and had a present about Asian American voting rights and overall I think the result came out pretty good because I allowed them to understand how important it is for everyone to have a vote and in this case it’s Asian Americans. I think it is effective to make a change to the issue because I was able to spread the message, which allowed more people to understand what’s happening in their society and inspire them to help out with the issue in their own ways.

Here are some of the images of me presenting to the seventh grade class.

Overall I think that the You & The World project is one of the most interesting topics I have ever done because I felt like I grew a lot in this process and learned a lot about the society I am in, especially I got the chance to research something that is meaningful to me. Although, this project takes a lot of patience and hardwork, I think it paid off in the end because I think that I learn a lot about myself and different lessons that may come in handy in the future. What I learned about myself is that I am really realistic and I can help others out more than I can help myself because in this project I noticed that I won’t really believe someone or trust someone easily unless they prove to me that they can be trust. Especially through their writing and the way how they talk. I also noticed that many of the advice I give to people around or my classmates are really realistic and helps them out a lot because of my experience I had. For me, it is like I have to find someone more experienced than I am or more creative than I am to give me advice about something because I am pretty hard on myself and whether it’s an assignment or not I do not want to accomplish something that doesn’t really challenge my limits in specific way. To clarify, I am not saying that if someone advise me to sky diving to conquer my fear of heights, I would do it, but it has to challenge me to try something new and step out of my comfort zone. I think one thing I could have done better is time management for my Agent of Change because I believe that I could have done more than having a presentation. I think there are many things left to make a change in Asian American voting rights since it’s a problem with all fifty states in America, but I believe that the little changes we make now will eventually make a change for Asian Americans.

Before reading on...take a look at my first blog post, Where Are Their Voting Rights?

This will give you background information of what is going on with Asian American voting rights from the past until of now. From the Voting Rights Act to the changes that have been made and the ways people have helped in this issue.

According to CAAM, in 2012, eight million Asian American and Pacific Islanders were able to vote and only 47.9 percent of them voted. Even though, the population of eligible voters increased by 29 percent since 2010, voting for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is still a problem. Asian Americans that live in swing states like Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania is also a problem because it would take a longer and broader time of allowing them to in civic participation. Ways that they try increasing the population of Asian American voters are phone banking, going to door to door, and having volunteers to help out with voting registration and language difference.

For some Asian American voters, language is still a problem at voting polls. For example, Saurabh Das was not only able to vote at the poll, he was able to help other voters at the poll by translating the ballot in different languages for non-English speakers or readers. IN 2014, he was put in jail for translating for his mother at the voting poll and for not being registered to vote in Williamson County, Texas. Because he was put in jail, his mother wasn’t able to vote for the person she wanted to and mistakenly voting for a different person.

For my original research, I decided on interviewing Wei Chen, the Civic Engagement Coordinator of Asian American United (AAU) and Xu Lin, one of the board members of AAU and currently the owner of Bubblefish. I was also planning to send out surveys to seventh and eighth graders at my old school, FACTS because I thought that it was be better to have two points of view of Asian American voting rights, not only from experts but so young citizens because they will be making a difference in the community one day and from asking them for their opinions about Asian Americans will change knowledge of what’s going on and my perspective of Asian American voting rights. I wasn’t able to send out surveys because I thought of it as a plan b if my interviews did not work out as planned.

While I was interviewing Wei Chen, I learned that if people that are trying to make a change to voting rights for Asian Americans, it would take at least five to ten years to see little changes happening in the community. For elders or older generations from China, some may be unfamiliar with voting booths or polls because in China, there is no voting booths or polls.

For more information of the interview, take a look at the transcript below.

From the interview with Xu Lin, I learned that you don’t necessary need to be apart of an organization everyday to fight for the justice of the issue that you think is important. For example, Xu Lin is now an owner of a restaurant and since he would like to see a difference in Asian American voting rights, he is willing to allow GOTV volunteers to borrow the room in the restaurant for meeting and more.

To hear my interview with Xu Lin, view the voice recording below. I apologize in advance if it is hard to hear.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1R9REslzVWUGLt8CAMCoKl_Ii2gUKkdM_

For my Agent of Change part of the You and The World project, I was thinking of volunteering at Asian American United (AAU) to help out with voting registrations or notifying citizens in Philadelphia to register as a voter. I also thought of creating a presentation to present to the class or a class at a different school while volunteering at Asian American United because if I present this issue to others in the community, more people will be notified about this issue and pay more attention to voting rights and helping out citizens that are non-English speakers or readers. This is only an idea so I am not sure if my ideas for my Agent of Change would change or not.

Annotated Bibliography

Do you think everyone deserves to have a right to vote? My You and The World project is about Asian American voting rights and my goal about learning more about this topic is finding out the reasons why this is an issue in Philadelphia or in other cities and states in the U.S. I would like to find a way for Asian Americans to also have a voice in their community and politics. I’m interested in this topic because I volunteer at an activist organization call Asian American United (AAU) and I know they have been trying to help people in the asian community to have a voice in their own community and contribute to the society. For example, in chinatown, they would handle out surveys to anyone passing them and the surveys they hand out asking their opinions about what they want the empty parking lot to become in the future. Because they are handing surveys in chinatown, they have Mandarin translated surveys and English surveys. This allows anyone in that community to have a opinion about their community and how it may improve. Many Asians have a hard to vote because of the language difference. Many Asian immigrants knows very little English, whether it’s reading wise or speaking wise.

My connection to this is that for the past couple of years, my mom would like to vote but she knows that she doesn’t know how to read English so she decides not to vote. Many of the voting booth are not translated into other languages for the non-English citizens of the United States. This matters to me because I know people that have a hard time getting a citizenship and being unable to vote and for the people that are citizens in the U.S., they are unable to vote because of language difference. I think it’s important for others to know because everyone should be aware that not everyone is able to vote even if they are a citizen in the U.S. and people that are trying to become a citizen in the U.S. is harder now especially for immigrants that don’t understand any English.

AAU member talks to a citizen about the presidential election form in 2015.

Source:https://caamedia.org/blog/2016/10/27/for-asian-americans-in-battleground-states-voter-registration-is-just-the-beginning/

September 14, 2016: Volunteers are in the ballroom of a chinese restaurant, New Fortune, helping people register voters.

Source:http://reportingtexas.com/language-can-be-a-barrier-for-some-asian-american-voters/

Voting has been an issue for Asian American since 1882. When the first Voting Right Acts law was published, this did not allow specific Asian group to vote. In the year of 1943, Chinese Americans were permitted to vote, then following Asian Indians in 1946. Japanese Americans and other Asian American groups weren’t permitted until 1952. Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, AALDEF been known as an expert on voting issues for Asian Americans. They have even discussed with the Congress about the language barrier for citizens that would like to vote and much more. For the past 30 years, AALDEF would observe the amount of Asian Americans that would vote on Election day, they would also look into different Asian American groups like Cambodian, Japanese, and etc. In 2008 during the Presidential election, the AALDEF surveyed 16,665 Asian Americans in 11 different dialects of Mandarin. They noticed and were told that Asian Americans received a lot of racist comments from the poll workers. Some poll workers asked Asian voters to show their citizenship or identification.

This timeline points out important events from an Asian Americans’ point of view.

Source:https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/report/50-years-voting-rights-act-asian-american-perspective

The Voting Rights Act has two clauses that benefits non-English speakers. In section 203, it states that polls can be translated to different languages if it is necessary. Right now, only 22 cities in the U.S. is able to follow that section and translate it to any Asian language required. In section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, it reads that translaters can be brought into the voting booth. Even though, the Voting Rights Act states that translaters can be brought into the voting booth; this isn’t allowed anywhere. Since 1998, twelve counties have been sued for not following section 208 of the Voting Rights Act. As the population of Asians increase, the amount of voters slowly increases too. In 2006, only 2.2% of the voter were Asians and in 2010, there were only 2.4% of the voters were Asians. Although a 0.2% of Asians does not seem much, but bit by bit the population of Asian voters would grow. In 2010, 49.9% of the voters in Hawaii were Asians while only 9.4% of the voters in California were Asians.

Now let’s take a look at this line graph showing voters of different race from 1988-2012.

Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/magazine/27-million-potential-hispanic-votes-but-what-will-they-really-add-up-to.html

From my research, I noticed that voting and getting citizenship has a very close connection to each other. A major issue for Asian Americans to vote is the language difference which causes them not being able to vote. I wondering if there are ways for Asians that are not citizens, but have lived in the U.S. for many years to vote because if they have lived in U.S. for many years they should be treated the same as others since they are apart of this society. My questions will be more focused on individual actions like not allowing translaters into voting booths if the voter does not understand English when the Voting Rights Act allows it. There’s still a lot of information and details I did not learn yet, so in the future I hope to learn how individual people fight for Asian American voting rights and more reasons why Asian Americans are having trouble voting that not everyone knows.

Each of the colors of the game pieces symbolizes 4 different things in the play. Red symbolizes the blood from Macduff’s wife and child, he will be the red player. Blue symbolizes Neptune’s water that couldn’t wash Macbeth’s hands after the murder of Duncan, he will be the blue player. Yellow symbolizes the crown for the Prince of Cumberland, Malcolm will be the yellow player. Last but not least, pink symbolizes all the perfumes of Arabia that couldn’t take away the smell of blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands, she will be the pink player.

We chose to use this name for our game because it relates to the theme. All of the characters are fighting their way to the top. The character closer to the finish line is the one closer to peace, which, everyone is dying to have at the moment. For each character, peace is different. For Malcolm, “peace” is vengeance for this father and to rule Scotland the correct way. Malcolm wants to restore peace for his people and carry on his father’s legacy. For Macbeth, “peace” means to be free from worry and anxiety. For Macduff, “peace” means justice/vengeance for his family and to have Macbeth wiped off of the face of the earth. For Lady Macbeth, “peace” is to be free from all of the guilt from accompanying murder and keeping the secrets of Macbeth’s murders to herself. As long as these four are cautious on their journey, they will be able to finally be at peace. So, who will be the one to get the peace that they so desperately want?