Eric Gondree (Nagoya) and John Baumlin (Tokyo)
Regardless of where you’re from, it can be easy to forget about what’s going on back in your home country when starting a new life. Reading the news from afar can sometimes evoke feelings of remoteness, apathy or, even worse, powerlessness. Fortunately, living in Japan is full of opportunities for people who wish to become more politically engaged, and volunteer a bit of their time, skills and energy. The old saying “Think globally, act locally” may sound strange when living far away from your home soil, but it is possible to find or create local volunteer opportunities for international residents to make an impact on the community—and world— around them. “My reaction to the 2016 election in the U.S.,” recalls Eric Gondree, an American living in Nagoya, “was that I needed to do something.” But what? After some research, he found that the 2016 overseas voter participation rate in Japan was only roughly 6 percent of eligible U.S. voters. That settled it quickly: He decided he would do what he could to increase the number of registered voters among U.S. citizens in Japan. Given the close election outcomes in the Midwestern states, Eric concluded that greater— and more global—overseas voter mobilization
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Photo: Arnaud Jaegers on Unsplash.com
