Archipelago Press Release March 14, 2008

:: posted by Ferdinand ::

REPRESENT THE ASIAN AMERICAN VOTE!

T-Shirts Help to Mobilize Asian Americans Voters
Asian-American Apparel Company’s latest offering expands line of popular get-out-the-vote shirts.

Seattle, WA – March, 2008 – This election season, you hear a lot about the importance of the black vote, the Hispanic vote, and even the women vote. But where are the Asian Americans?

With millions of Asian American voters being largely ignored by the media, Archipelago, a Seattle-based apparel company, hopes to help draw some attention this the largely-overlooked voting bloc with its newest offering. The shirt, which bears a flag-like design, declares in big, bold letters “Represent. Recognize. The Asian American Vote.” Between the lines of the main text are listed the many ethnic groups that comprise the Asian American community.

Apart from educating the mainstream, Archipelago also seeks to raise awareness within the Asian American community, said Carina de Leon, Archipelago’s CEO.

“Our goal was two-fold: to inform mainstream America that Asian American voters also exist and matter, and to encourage fellow Asian Americans to make our voices be heard by participating in the election process,” de Leon said.

To help get the word out about the importance of voting, the company is also offering wholesale packages and free postcards to Asian American activists and organizations involved in get-out-the-vote campaigns, de Leon said.

The “Represent. Recognize.” design isn’t the company’s first foray into cause-oriented shirts. Four years ago, during the last presidential election cycle, the company’s most popular product was its “Rock the Asian Vote” shirt, and it was sported by Asian American youths and activists throughout the country.

Last year, Archipelago also created a shirt to honor the Filipino World War II veterans and their six-decade long struggle for equitable benefits. A portion of the sale of the shirt, which is still available, was donated to veteran organizations.

For more information about Archipelago or to see its latest designs, visit the company’s website at www.archipelago-inc.com or email goteam@archipelago-inc.com.

About Archipelago
Archipelago is an online company offering products and designs for the Asian American community. Apart from shirts, the company also carries a wide variety of products including bags, books, button, and greeting cards.

Contact: Ferdinand de Leon
goteam@archipelago-inc.com
(206) 985-ARCH

Do Your Homework. January 23, 2008

:: posted by Carina ::

I’ve been following Election 2008. One of the reasons I subscribed to cable was because so many of the debates are not shown on network tv. It’s a loss to the people who do not have that access and my hope is that one day our government will mandate that election debates are a Civic right and legislate to air them on public channels as they happen so that people are more fully informed. But I digress. This is not a rant about how cable dominates the political discussion. Instead, it’s about how Asian Americans are not even featured in the debate.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk in the media about the “Black” vote and the “Latino” vote but hardly any about the “Asian” vote. I do not consider Asian Americans to be a fringe community. Our census numbers are competitive, and at times surpass, the Latino and African American groups in all the major urban cities. Yet, there are no representatives on the political cable talk shows and no prominent mention of endorsements by Asian American politicians announced by the media. Why haven’t Asian American journalists pushed to make our voices heard? Why are they silent in what is probably the most important election in our lifetime? I’m disheartened by the vast quiet from our politicians and our media. Asian Americans have long struggled for visibility in this country and we do not do ourselves a service by not projecting our voice.

However, there is some light in the darkness of representation and it’s found on the Internet. Not surprisingly, it comes from the Asian American creative and activist community, from individuals who long ago decided to step out of the box of invisibility to help represent our perspective. There are blogs such as APA for progress, a grassroots network of Asian Pacific Americans who advocate progressive action and Angry Asian Man who recently posted about an online group on YouTube called “United for Obama” featuring activists and film industry actors like Kelly Hu and Kal Penn and directors like Eric Byler who happen to support Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

This post does not advocate a particular candidate but instead would like to shed some light into the problem our community has in finding and projecting our presence in this country. One of the reasons my siblings and I started Archipelago was to help our community represent . But how do we start to make a difference? Well, you vote. Our numbers must be counted so they can make an impact and then the media will take an interest in and start listening to what Asian Americans want to see in their government.

It’s time to start doing our homework. It’s funny to address that to a community who stereotypically always does their homework but we have ignored the American political process to our detriment so maybe it is worth a directive. Don’t cast your vote because of a celebrity endorsement or from quotes taken out of context. Read the political news and the reputable internet blogs. Watch the debates on tv and online if you have not seen them. Decide what issues are important to you and research to see how the candidates stand and vote on those issues. The website youdecide2008.com posts all the Democrat and Republican debates in their entirety so you can watch them with a clear perspective. There are also sites such as govtrack.us where you can view congressional voting records, campaign contributions and records of sponsorship for bills to see what issues candidates push forward. And if you are interested in a particular piece of legislation, go to opencongress.org to find out where it stands. If your candidate is not in Congress, look for their record on votesmart.org or do your own research on search engines such as Google.

There are no excuses for being uninformed this election cycle. Open your eyes and read what people are writing, open your ears and listen to what people are saying, then do our community a service and open your mouth to participate. And remember, on Nov. 4, 2008, please go out and VOTE.

Rock the Asian American Vote

“CHANGE” January 10, 2008

:: posted by Carisa ::

So it looks like it’s going to be a race between a woman and a person of color for the Democratic nomination. If “change” is what this election is spinning around then “change” we have been given. Being a woman of color, I look forward to the day when we have this combination on the ticket as well. But for now, these two options are a beacon of hope in this country that has not given us much hope in the last 7 years. I cheer this on even as I am still leery of whether real “change” touted by both the Democrats will happen after November.

There are so many things we need to change right now. Being a mother, I worry that this war in Iraq puts us in more jeopardy than we were in 9/11/01 and that the world is working its way towards another major world war. I worry that when I die, healthcare will not be affordable for my child unless he’s making 6 digits, I worry about the consequences of global warming and our lack of stewardship of the Earth that gives so much to us and most recently, I worry that the freedom to do with my life that I’ve always taken for granted, may not be there for my son. It is not hard to want change with so many worries. So I say, bring it on.

Gandhi - “Be the Change” Tshirt