Steve Angeles, TFC News
It was a drive around the block for a good cause.
The Pilipino Workers Center the and Center for Asian United for Self Empowerment or CAUSE were both on board in bringing voters to a polling center in LA's Eagle Rock neighborhood this past weekend via jeepney.
Aqui Soriano Versoza of the PWC said it was special to be "in this actual vehicle for change and to make something fun.""There's so much at stake in this election and we really need our voices heard in this election," she said.
It was a short drive from the Filipino-owned Oinkster to a vote center but it came complete with a karaoke machine, and of course, the ballots.The mobilization brought much excitement to the voters like the Dela Rosa family. "It gave [us] memories from the Philippines," Darius Dela Rosa recalled. "[It's the] same thing like in the Philippines. They’ll get you with jeepney to go to the voting station."CAUSE, led by Filipino-American Nancy Yap, has been holding multiple events with different Asian American communities in the hopes to drive up voter turnout. "It’s about making voting community-centered," she said. "We want to know that people can have fun voting. They can vote in a very informed way. What we’re hoping for is to create fun memories around voting."Pilipino Workers Center members said that in this particular region, there are as many as 12,000 eligible Fil-Am voters but the turnout has remained low."It seems like there’s a lot of energy but we still don’t have enough people voting," said Versoza. "The numbers of the people in primary in this area, in Eagle Rock District 52, council district 14, we had a stronger than normal showing for Filipinos but still less than half of Filipinos voting overall."In-person voting precincts in Los Angeles County will be open until 8 in the evening of Nov. 5.