In the 2024 general election, Sunset Park's polling sites saw record turnout among Chinese-speaking voters — a shift that community organizers attribute to years of patient, multilingual outreach that started at the library.

The Civic Newsroom project, a partnership between THE CITY and Brooklyn Public Library that ran from 2020 to 2021, laid the groundwork. Volunteers created voting guides in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Spanish, hosted "Voter Fests" at the library, and stationed multilingual poll greeters at every Sunset Park voting site.

"The first time I voted in America, I was so confused," said Mrs. Zhang, a naturalized citizen from Guangdong who has lived in Sunset Park since 2005. "Nobody at the polling place spoke Chinese. I didn't understand the ballot. I left without voting."

Three elections later, Mrs. Zhang is now a poll greeter herself. "I stand at the door and when I see someone who looks nervous, I say in Cantonese, 'Come in, I'll help you.' That's all it takes."

The numbers tell the story. In the 2020 election, only 23% of registered voters in Sunset Park's heavily Chinese precincts cast ballots. In 2024, that number rose to 41%.

Sarah Okonkwo, a journalist who worked with the original Civic Newsroom project and now contributes to the Sunset Park Library newsroom, said the lesson is clear: "People don't need to be convinced to participate in democracy. They need to be invited in their own language."