I wake up every morning around 8 am, shower quickly and jump into the car. I head over to work where I sit in an office until about 11 pm every night. We spend most of the day making calls to recruit volunteers, training volunteers how to phone bank, attending events to recruit volunteers, and organizing events for our volunteers to recruit their friends. You can see that our volunteers are certainly the core of our campaign. The grassroots energy is infectious and truly heartwarming.

A super-volunteer drops by with a box of donuts and bags of chips for our phone bankers. Another super-volunteer helps us take out the trash and comes by with a bucket and mop to help clean the restroom for us! After just a couple weeks, I am already greeting our regulars when they step inside the door as if I am having a reunion with my old college buddies. Interns on their way back to college are given farewell hugs and cheers go up in the office every time a caller makes her hundredth call or contacts a supporter.

The day passes by quickly and although we are hard at work, racing to meet deadlines or goals – our teams are drama-free and handle our stress with a strong dose of humor. The group is tight-knit and we laugh throughout the day, doing embarrassing dances to celebrate the scheduling of a new volunteer shift or sharing awesome answering machine messages with each other. One evening, we attend a youth concert hosted by the local Democratic Party in Sacramento. The dance floor is relatively empty for the first couple songs but my field organizers grab some signs and start dancing, getting other attendees to jump up and join the fun. This is the young, energetic rock-star campaign to join this year and we are not afraid to show it!

On Sunday, September 26, I attend a candidates’ forum at Sacramento State University, hosted by APAPA, the APIA Public Affairs Association. Again, I am extremely impressed by the turnout of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Several hundred Californians, most of them of AAPI descent, fill a large auditorium to hear speakers such as Senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina speak to the audience.

A Nation of Immigrants

Dr. Bera delivers an impassioned speech that leaves a palpable buzz in the crowd. They did not expect such a strong and inspiring performance after some of the other speeches. We recruit a good group of high school students to sign up as volunteers and interns. I meet some folks who don’t live in the area but want to donate, and I am not surprised that Dr. Bera has outraised his rival, the Republican incumbent. As the son of Indian immigrants, Dr. Bera values hard work and appreciates the sacrifices made by older generations who immigrated to America to give their children better opportunities. I am proud to be working on behalf of an AAPI candidate who knows and understands where he comes from and embraces his unique culture and heritage.