Letter to City of Morrow, Georgia

Morrow City Council 

1500 Morrow Rd.

Morrow, GA 30260

Dear Members of the Morrow City Council:

We are writing in support of Councilwoman Van Tran and her efforts to make multilingual ballots available in Morrow elections. The right to vote is the most fundamental right that any American has. To ensure that every American citizen can exercise that right– including making the information needed to vote available in their language of choice– is a patriotic duty.

The Progressive Vietnamese American Organization (PIVOT) is a national network of Vietnamese Americans who work for a just and diverse American society. Many Vietnamese Americans and their parents have escaped from an authoritarian and totalitarian regime, where voting did not matter and voicing our opinions would land us in jail. Consequently, our families have braved the seas, survived attacks by pirates, and a great number of us have sacrificed our lives to come to America, to this land of opportunity, diversity, and inclusion, where our voices matter. Where our votes matter. 

We want to exercise our rights, perform our duty as citizens to choose our leaders and public officials, and cast votes on initiatives and referendums. Many Vietnamese Americans are busy working to support themselves and their families and have limited time to learn English. Even those who can learn enough English to get along struggle with its complexities, especially in official and political documents. 

The attack by Councilwoman Dorothy Dean on Councilwoman Van Tran by calling her “un-American” for requesting voting language access in Vietnamese and Spanish is hateful and wrong. Furthermore, the city council’s special session to censure Councilwoman Van Tran through a resolution and intentional lack of transparency around the passage of this resolution is undemocratic.  Vietnamese Americans love America because we love and believe in open democracies. So what's so reprehensible about the special session to censure Councilwoman Van Tran is not just the disrespect towards her, but also the undermining of American democracy a hushed/closeted process like that entails. The need for language access is clear. According to Georgia AAPI Hub’s analysis of the 2020 Census and 2021 American Community Survey data, Morrow has the second highest percentage of Asian Americans in the state of Georgia (over 30%), most of whom are Vietnamese. Furthermore, eight in ten Asian Americans in Georgia speak a language other than English at home. Having the voter’s pamphlets and ballots in our language help us do our duties as Americans, to be American. It is un-American to suppress democracy. It is un-American to oppress people. 

It is American to rise above one’s limitations, and we hope that the Morrow City Council develops an understanding of American culture and the American political system that serves and includes all your constituents, that fosters empathy for the immigrants and refugees who strive daily to make this country better for everyone. We urge the city council to do the right thing and repudiate Councilwoman Dean’s un-American statements and actions and have the integrity to hold open and transparent democratic processes. We support Councilwoman Tran. We support voting rights.