The United States needs greater economic and diplomatic efforts, rather than just a better military strategy, to improve the situation in Afghanistan, according to Afghans settled in Fremont.

President-elect Barack Obama said during his election campaign that he would send more American soldiers to the country to fight the Taliban and hunt for Al Qaeda leaders in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

“I don’t think more troops is necessarily going to help,” said Rahim Aurang, 68, who left Afghanistan over 20 years ago.

“We need security, but what’s really important is reconstruction, jobs, businesses. This would stop people joining the Taliban,” said Aurang, who runs a non-profit agency based in Centerville that has helped thousands of Afghan refugees settle in the Bay Area. 

Yar Mujaddedi, 73, a resident of Fremont since 1984, supported the idea of peace negotiations with the Taliban. “Until they hold talks, there can’t be security,” he said.

Mujaddedi is a former official in the Afghan Health Ministry who was imprisoned for 18 months under the pro-communist regime in Afghanistan in the early 1980s. He said the US had made a mistake by invading the country in the first place, but withdrawing American troops now would lead to another civil war.

Travel agent Zabi Ansari, 51, agreed that talks with the Taliban were necessary, but only with elements that were willing to lay down their arms.

“They need to be talking to the right Taliban leaders, not the ones who are extremists, and to do so openly,” said Ansari, who fled Afghanistan in 1987.

Farid Mehrzad, 33, who worked as an interpreter for US forces in Kabul for four years, said it was important that the American and NATO forces avoid killing innocent civilians when bombing militant targets in Afghanistan.

“Many people have lost friends and relatives in air bombardment by US and NATO forces. This encourages people to join the Taliban,” said Mehrzad, who arrived in the US a year ago and is studying at Ohlone College.

Abdullah Sayid, 54, who runs a grocery store in Centerville, said the cause of much of Afghanistan’s woes lay across the border in Pakistan. “The new US government must do something to stop Pakistan’s interference in Afghanistan,” he said.

Cease the support given them by the ISI, Pakistan’s intelligence services, and the “Taliban will melt away,” he said.

Obama needs to put pressure on Pakistan to close the porous border between the two countries, and to stop issuing visas to men from Muslim countries who end up fighting coalition forces in Afghanistan, said Sayid

“How do all these Arab and Chechen fighters end up in Afghanistan? It is not through Iran or India or on Afghan visas. They come from Pakistan on official visas given to them by Pakistani embassies in the Gulf,” he said.

Hollywood often stereotypes librarians as mousy women in horn-rimmed glasses who hide behind books. But the work of a librarian is not limited to searching databases and silencing noisy patrons. As mandated by the Young Adult Services Association (part of the American Library Association), an element of advocacy underlies the work that librarians do. For one Alameda County Librarian, she took the mandate of advocacy to heart to ensure that her patrons, the inmates of the Alameda Juvenile Detention Hall, were not disenfranchised during the 2008 Presidential Election.

As the Write-to-Read coordinator for the Alameda County juvenile justice program, Amy Cheney spends most of her days at the juvenile detention hall in San Leandro. Write-to-Read brings library services, programs and literacy to incarcerated youth. Because they are minors, these offenders were unable to comment for this report.

As the election approached, Cheney said that her job as a librarian was to provide these incarcerated youth with the voter registration forms and election information that would have been available to them at any public library in the free world.

“It wasn’t enough to just give them the registration forms,” she said, “I had to make sure their votes counted because if the registration process isn’t done correctly, they can’t vote.”

Cheney was targeting youth who would turn 18 by Election Day as well as those who were 18 and serving sentences for crimes they committed as a minor.

Cheney said she attended a voter registration program and began volunteering some of her personal time to ensure these youth were able to complete the often confusing registration and ballot-casting process.

Over a period of one month, Cheney said she managed to register every individual in the juvenile justice system who would be eligible to vote on Election Day — roughly 30 people. Of those 30, Cheney said all but ten were released before Election Day, and, she hopes, they received their ballots at home.

For those ten other inmates behind bars, Cheney said, the ballots were supposed to be mailed to them at the detention hall. With the election only two days away, the ballots had still not arrived.

“We had to find out where the ballots went. I asked the kids to call their parents to see if they had them. Then I took all the names and called the registrar of voters,” said Cheney.

Cheney said that the registrar’s office was unable to locate the registration forms without the registration numbers. As it happened, Cheney said she had made copies and given them to the local Wellstone Democratic Club for their records.

Larry Steinhart, who managed the voter registration efforts at the club, said that all registration information was entered into a database. Due to a glitch in the system, Steinhart had to manually search through thousands of entries, but was able to retrieve all but two of the form numbers.

Steinhart said he was happy to help but felt that Cheney was taking on a “Herculean” task. “I thought there was next to no chance that these kids would ever be able to vote from inside the institution. I thought she was out of her mind in a kind of Don Quixote manner, tilting at all the institutional windmills,” he said.

With registration numbers in hand, Cheney said she returned to the registrar’s office and was finally able to ensure that the names were in the system. She also made sure that official ballots were hand-delivered to the juvenile detention hall. Rather than risk the mail, she said that she physically delivered the ballots to the polling place on Election Day.

Cheney said the experience was frustrating. “What if you don’t have an advocate? It really irritates me. This might be human error, but could we not have a better system?” she said.

But Cheney said her effort was worth it. She said there was an overwhelming response to her educational efforts throughout the detention hall and the youth developed an interest in social and political issues that she had never witnessed before.

“Kids were wanting to register [to vote] who weren’t 18 and readership increased throughout the detention hall. I’ve never gotten anyone to read any book about a president. But everyone wanted to read [Barack] Obama’s book. People wanted to read Michael Moore’s ‘Election Guide.’ I even handed out a Nation magazine to a kid,” said Cheney.

Cheney was quick to assert that her efforts were bi-partisan and that she tried to fully explain the positions of the different political parties and both sides of each item on the ballots. She even provided the youth with contact information so they could do their own research in the detention hall’s library and when they were able to make phone calls.

That being said, Cheney said that many of the young offenders were immediately drawn to Barack Obama because they felt they were able to relate to him.

“I feel like they saw themselves [in him] and wanted to vote. It was great,” she said, adding,

“Obama is speaking in a way that youth can understand.  There’s an absolute connection to him, not just because he’s black but because of his circumstances. The fact that he didn’t know his father and was raised by a single mother; the kids in here can relate to that,” she said.

While Steinhart was never able to meet any of the youth, he said that Cheney’s work taught these juvenile offenders that they had an advocate who was willing to work on their behalf and that their voices matter.

“The voting opportunity which Amy provided was a teaching moment in individual exercise of choice and participation in the civic life of their country. Their voices in this election were equally as powerful as yours and mine, which is as it should be in a democracy,” said Steinhart.

Now that the election is over, Cheney said she is trying to make sure the youth understand that they need to re-register whenever they move, and they do so frequently.

Cheney said she continues to find ways to improve the Write-to-Read program, but hopes that with Obama as president, the youths will maintain an interest in current events and learning that many of them did not have before.

“I think his election is going to have a big impact on them and future generations,” she said.

Barack Obama’s historic win has moved many Chinatown residents, who saw the election of a black President as an inspiration and also a potential blessing for the community, but some business owners are pessimistic about an imminent recovery from the current economic hardships.

“When Obama breaks the glass ceiling, it means that pretty much any child of color really does have a chance to become the president of the United States,” said Oakland City Council Member Jean Quan, a Chinese American Democrat.

“Secondly Obama is much more in tune to the urban issues. That’s really important because most Asians still live in urban cores,” Quan said.

She said programs “that were good for Asians” cut under the Republicans, could get rescued after Obama took office and “many more appointments for Asian Americans in the administration” could be made.

“Being raised in Hawaii, he is much more attuned to cultures of Asians and Asian Pacific Islanders,” Quan said.

Cheng Chunzhen, a 73-year-old former teacher who moved to the United States from China four years ago, said she was deeply moved by Obama’s life stories.

“He’s so diligent, otherwise he couldn’t have come this far,” Cheng said. “It’s really not easy for someone from an ethnic minority to achieve that.”

But many in the business community didn’t expect the Obama presidency to bring a quick fix for Chinatown’s sagging businesses, which were hurt by the national downturn in the economy, Oakland’s high crime rate and increasing competition.

“We’ll see how Obama does. He definitely deserves a chance, but it’s all up to how he handles and whom he picks for the cabinet,” said Jennie Ong, Executive Director of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

Ong said Obama’s election certainly gave the Chinese community a positive feeling as an ethnic minority, but people were more occupied with worries about the economy for the moment.

“Chinatown used to be the destination for Asian goods in the East Bay. People came here shopping and eating in the restaurants,” Ong said. “Believe it or not, we were the fourth biggest source of sales tax revenues for the city. Now the ranking is very low.”

Ong attributed the decline to the city’s “crime image”, the weak overall economy and competition from Ranch 99, a supermarket chain featuring Asian goods that had been expanding across the Bay Area.

“We are surrounded by Ranch 99. It really hurts Chinatown businesses,” Ong said.

Still, Ong was hopeful that things would get better under Obama.

“Let’s say there is hope,” Ong said.

New estimates released Nov 7 show the Presidential election may have set a 36-year record for the rate of youth voter turnout. And the University of California, Berkeley appears to be one of the top contributors to that record among the nation’s college campuses, according to registration statistics and interviews.

Up to 53 percent of eligible young voters—ages 18 to 29—took part in the Nov 4 election, according to estimates from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). They favored the winner, Barack Obama, by more than 2-1 (click here for Politico‘s analysis of Obama’s “youth mandate”).

U.C. Berkeley students wait to vote Nov. 4 at an on-campus polling place

This year’s turnout is up five points from 2004, and up 12 points from 2000. It is the highest youth turnout since 1972, the first election after the voting age was lowered to 18.

In interviews following the election, U.C. Berkeley students said they were energized by the candidacy of Obama, and mobilized to vote in part by online social networks such as Facebook.

“When it turned to election day, everyone’s [Facebook] status turned to say, ‘go out and vote for Barack Obama,’” said sophomore Bailey Pennick, 19.

Facebook users can set a customized “status” message that tells friends what they are doing. Using a special feature, about 1.2 million users set their status to support Obama, and more than 370,000 did so to support his opponent, John McCain.

At U.C. Berkeley, the election followed the registration of more than 12,000 new students voters, according to Why Tuesday, a non-partisan group that led a national registration drive of more than a half-million students. That is the highest of any campus participating in the drive, which registered more than a half-million total students.

Senior Stephanie Chan, 21, said she “never paid attention to anything, really, in politics,” until she first learned about Obama in 2006. A friend lent her a copy of Obama’s first book, Dreams from My Father, and she soon became an organizer for the group Students for Barack Obama.

“After reading the first chapter it just seems like he’s a really great guy,” Chan said of Obama. “I love his background in community organizing.”

For young voters in particular, a candidate’s persona is often more important than specific proposals, according to Jack Citrin, a political scientist who studies turnout and the director of U.C. Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies

“The youth vote is not an issue vote but a personal vote,” Citrin said.

The last election with a comparable surge in youth voting was 1992, when 52 percent of young people voted and President Bill Clinton was elected to his first term.

Like Obama, 47, Clinton was relatively young – 46 – when he was elected. But a candidate’s age itself doesn’t explain a surge in youth support, according to Citrin. In 1980, Ronald Reagan became the oldest elected president while winning the youth vote by a large margin, he noted.

“It’s not so much really a matter of their youth as their image and the context in which they ran that helped to mobilize young voters,” Citrin said of candidates with youth support.

Despite the estimated 23 million young voters who voted Nov 4, youth turnout was still several points below the country as a whole, which surged above 60 percent.

U.C. Berkeley junior Wes Bruns, 21, said he was among those who didn’t vote.

“I just don’t feel an election right now has a huge impact on me,” said Bruns, who said he thought about voting but didn’t request an absentee ballot from Southern California in time.

Volunteers help Chinese voters with limited English skills.

By Guo Shipeng

A steady stream of Chinese residents cast their votes in several polling stations in Oakland’s Chinatown throughout Tuesday, many supporting Obama in line with the community’s long-time leaning toward the Democrats.

But a considerable amount of Chinatown voters cited traditional Chinese family values and voted for Prop 8 that would ban same-sex marriages, disappointing a group of campaigners against the proposition who stayed outside a polling place for a whole day to try to win over people.

“I’ve always voted for the Democratic Party. It has treated Chinese Americans well in the past,” said housewife Candy He, 50. “As an ethnic minority, we are most concerned about our children’s rights in education and employment.”

He said she strongly opposed gay marriage and had asked her three children, the youngest in 12th grade, to vote for Prop 8.

“They agreed a little grudgingly this time. I don’t know how they’ll vote in the future,” said He.

He accompanied a neighbor, a first-time voter who moved to the United States from China in 2000, to the small polling station in the hallway of the Lincoln Elementary School on the 11th Street.

The neighbor, a 50-year-old waitress who would only give her surname Zheng, said she voted for McCain and Prop 8.

“There is a Chinese saying: the older ginger is spicier. So I chose the more experienced one,” Zheng said. “I can’t accept same-sex marriages. It’s always one man, one woman in the Chinese society and after all the mankind has to reproduce.”

The divide on the contentious issue seemed to fall on generational lines.

Albert Fan, 18 and a freshman at the San Francisco State University, voted for Obama and against Prop 8.

“It’s equal rights. They were just allowed to get married fairly recently and now we are going to take the right back? It’s not fair,” Fan said after casting his ballot in the Lincoln Neighborhood Center.

His friend Alex Cheng, a 12th grader months away from 18, said he would have voted for Obama and against Prop 8 if he was able to.

Early voting and the concentration of at least four polling stations around the Chinatown area meant there was not much waiting in both the school and the neighborhood center.

Both stations had Chinese-speaking volunteers to help voters with limited English skills.

Lu Lisheng, 80, has helped in several elections. This time, he was one of the language volunteers in the Lincoln school.

“The procedures and Chinese instructions on the forms are confusing sometimes, so we just tell voters how to do it,” Lu said. “Five out ten voters need our help, but we’ll never tell them whom to vote for.”

Six volunteers from a San Francisco group against Prop 8, including an architect and a lawyer, manned the street corners near the Lincoln Neighborhood Center, handing out flyers and talking to people in the hope that they would vote against the proposition.

Emily Wages, a Mandarin-speaking immigration lawyer from San Francisco, campaigns against Prop 8 outside the Lincoln Neighborhood Center polling station.

Oakland City Council Member Jean Quan and her husband also spent several hours in the cold campaigning for the Democratic Party and against Prop 8.

Quan ran into a group of Chinese women supporting Prop 8 after dark.  When she challeged the group about their sources of funding, the Prop 8 supporters became emotional but things were short of a showdown.

“If you let them discriminate against gay people, then what keeps them from discriminating against Chinese, or women?” Quan said.

Multimedia by Mateen Kaul and Tyler Sipe

Fremont’s large American-Muslim population was united behind Democratic candidate Barack Obama for the presidential election. 

Muslim voters said they were backing Obama largely because they thought he would do a better job than Republican rival John McCain in tackling the country’s economic problems.

But they also felt President Obama would be better for their countries of origin, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the international community in general.

Multimedia by Tyler Sipe

As Election Day draws near, local African-Americans describe the electric atmosphere during this year’s historic presidential election.