December Newsletter
Hey HSDA AAPI Caucus members!
Welcome to Rooted and Rising, our caucus newsletter where you can learn about what’s recently happened within the AAPI caucus, as well as future events and opportunities. A special shoutout to Anika Khanna, who is managing the newsletters for the rest of the 24-25 term.
Donate to us:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/aapi-caucus
Follow us on Instagram:
@aapi.hsda
Join our slack:
https://join.slack.com/t/highschooldem-jot1546/shared_invite/zt-2p04ybuit-fWgb2BCebt7vr2JIvGLlpA
Note: We realize this newsletter is a bit long but please take the time to read to the end, we have a cute surprise from one of our events this year!!
2024 Recap
On August 30th, Ankita Jaikumar and Ravin Bhatia were announced as AAPI Caucus Chair and Vice Chair.
September
On September 17th, the caucus restarted their Instagram, growing it from 0 to our current 155 followers.
We also appointed our executive board by September 30th. A huge congratulations to the following caucus members!!
Partnerships Director: Junya Liu
Communications Directors: Akshay Maheshwari and Ty Tan
Policy Directors: Braden Conte and Aanya Ujjval
Events Directors: Vedant Patel and Tenzin Patel
Social Media Directors: Eshan Korat and Harvin Dam
October
The caucus launched applications for our first ever publication, PoliticASIAN, on October 10th and had an enormous amount of interest in leading and growing the publication.
Congratulations to the following PoliticASIAN staff and Communications Committee Leads:
Editor in Chief: Jamie Su
Section Editors:
Global/Politics Editor - Janis Tsang
Features Editor - Kyle Chen
Culture/History Editor - Achutan Raghushri
Staff Writers:
Bryan Fu
Aashi Jain
Aarna Desai
Edwin Tang
Adit Mehta
Angelina Boatman
Harun Siddiqui
Alyssa Sin
Aditya Ambarisha
Afia Mubashir
Communications Committee
Operations Lead - Jack George
Newsletter Lead - Anika Khanna
Podcast Host - Manasa-Reddy Sanivarapu
On October 12th, we launched our member of the month and member of the year initiative. Our member of the year will be chosen from the most outstanding member of the month so please do fill out the form at the end of this update!
On October 13, we had our first ever caucus meeting! We enjoyed seeing you all!
On October 15, in collaboration with ILHSD, we hosted Holly Kim, Lake County, Illinois Treasurer and Vice Chair of the Illinois Asian American Caucus.
Twelve days later, on the 27th, we co-hosted Derek Tran, now representative of California’s Congressional 45th district, in collaboration with CAHSD.
Leading up to the election, we hosted a phone banking session for Ashwin Ramaswami, making over 600 calls for Ramaswami in that one day.
In the last two weeks leading up to November 5, we co hosted the Georgia AANHPI Unity phone banking with the Harris-Walz campaign as well as the Young Democrats of Georgia, College Democrats of America, and the Democratic Party of Georgia’s AANHPI Caucuses.
We also worked to launch an in person Friday mobilization series with the Young Democrats of Georgia’s AANHPI Caucus for the last three Fridays before the election, having Georgia Representative Long Tran, House Minority Whip Sam Park, and Candidate Michelle Kang coming out to support us.
November
Our November member of the month is sophomore Kyle Chen, who is the current PoliticASIAN Features Editor. A fun fact about him is that his hear me out was the Triangle Guard from Squid Game!
On November 5, CDA and HSDA AANHPI, Black, Women, and Muslim Caucuses hosted an Election Watch Party.
On November 17, the caucus launched their state liaison program, which allows members of the caucus to represent their state and coordinate events with legislators statewide.
As of now, we have confirmed Achutan Raghushri as New Jersey state liaison, Imraan Mohammed as California liaison, and Eshan Korat as North Carolina liaison. Congratulations to all three of them!
On November 25th, we hosted an event with Rep. Tram Nguyen, the highest ranking Asian American woman in Massachusetts legislature.
December
Our December member of the month was sophomore Aditya Ambarisha. Hailing from Michigan, he is currently working on several fundraising initiatives for the caucus as well as on staff for the PoliticASIAN.
On December 22nd, we hosted Montgomery Township Mayor Neena Singh and Vice Mayor Vincent Barragan alongside the Latinx Caucus.
To end the year, we hosted an AANHPI Hear Me Out Cake event on December 31st, capping off the most active semester for the AAPI Caucus since its creation in 2019.
Current & Future Plans
We have several events in the pipeline, and hope to see you all there!
Our publication website PoliticASIAN will be launched in the coming days, likely within mid January and we cannot wait to see all the hard work and time our staff writers and PoliticASIAN leadership have put into the caucus’s first ever publication. Check out PoliticASIAN.org when we announce that on our Slack.
Stay tuned for the launch of our podcast, AAPI 101, led by our podcast host, Manasa-Reddy Sanivarapu! She will also be launching a “Class Syllabus” every month with a detailed overview of episodes for the month! If you miss an episode, she’ll be releasing “Lesson Takeaways” and “Notes you Missed” as blog posts on our upcoming publication website: PoliticASIAN.org
Some upcoming events:
January 8 — 8-9pm EST with Rep Gene Wu (TX House Dems Chair) and TX HSD
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88061891219?pwd=RazZS762zP7opl46PTWDbe7zEho1dx.1
Jan 23 — 6-7pm EST with Rep. Kevin Olickal and ILHSD
Google Meet Link:
https://meet.google.com/vvp-hovi-zhn?hs=224
Jan 31 — 8-9pm EST with Rep Hoan Huynh and ILHSD, First Gen Caucus
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88622709231?pwd=NTCwJYrZa3sJ3KaA33Fz1wrFV5IbU0.1
Other Opportunities
We hope you continue to stay involved within the caucus! We recently wrapped up our Staff Writer, Fundraising Committee, and State Liaison applications. If you’re still interested, feel free to contact chair Ankita Jaikumar for a possible application at hsda.aapi@gmail.com or by Slack. We’d love more state liaison applications!!
We also still have open positions for staff writers, the PoliticASIAN social media director, and podcast staffers!
Staff writers have the chance to apply for our two open section editors position when that opens in February!
If interested, please email Akshay or Ty at aapi.exec@gmail.com or message them on our caucus slack.
Fill out our Member of the Month form below! This allows you to be spotlighted on our Instagram and at monthly meetings!
Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxCuh-
A reminder to please join the caucus slack! We are so much more active there: https://join.slack.com/t/highschooldem-jot1546/shared_invite/zt-2p04ybuit-fWgb2BCebt7vr2JIvGLlpA
And as a thank you for staying with us so far, our caucus Hear-Me-Out Mooncake is attached <3
Our AANHPI Hear-Me-Out Mooncake
We are so grateful to be able to serve the caucus and cannot wait to continue to offer opportunities and events until we pass on the torch to the next term.
Happy New Year, AAPI Caucus!
Democratically Yours,
Ankita Jaikumar | Chair
Ravin Bhatia | Vice Chair
Junya Liu | Partnerships Director
Akshay Maheshwari and Ty Tan | Communications Directors
Braden Conte and Aanya Ujjval | Policy Directors
Vedant Patel and Tenzin Patel | Events Directors
Eshan Korat and Harvin Dam | Social Media Directors
aapi.exec@gmail.com | @aapi.hsda
hsdems.org
