EPIC | Addressing NHPI Health Inequity & Needs The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated existing health inequities among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs). NHPIs in California are disproportionately impacted, having the highest case and death rates compared to any other racial and ethnic groups. Hosted by League of CA Cities API Caucus, this session was held in partnership with Empowering Pacific Islander Communities. Click this link or watch the video below to learn more about who makes up the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities and the critical issues NHPIs face, including COVID-19 cases and vaccination rates. Community leaders on the call shared pandemic data, its impacts, and made recommendations on resources and policies to address NHPI needs.
CAAL | Fireside Chat: Suni Lee Making History Fireside Chats are informal conversations between staff at the Coalition of Asian American Leaders and network leaders on issues and topics impacting our Asian Minnesotan community. In this Fireside Chat, held on August 6, 2021, former CAAL Executive & Network director Bo Thao-Urabe and Representative Kaohly Her discuss the significance of local olympian and gold medalist Sunisa Lee’s win for the Hmong community and the importance of uplifting the perspective of women and girls. Find out more about upcoming Fireside Chats and about CAAL on their website.
APIs CAN | Massachusetts Town Hall on Anti Asian Racism The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled xenophobia and anti-Asian racism. But Asian Americans have experienced violence long before the pandemic. Join Asian Pacific Islanders Civic Action Network’s town hall highlighting how the Asian American community in MA is organizing against racism and learn how to support AAPI communities during the pandemic. The transcript is available at this link. This event also included a resource guide containing statements made by partner organizations, mutual aid funds, education materials geared towards young learners, readings, articles, videos, films, podcasts.
AAU | Statement, Resources, & Action Items on Violence Against Asian Community AAU Statement on Violence Against Asian Community + Resources & Action Items These past few weeks, US headlines and news sources have been highlighting a significant increase in anti-Asian harassment and violence since early 2020 with more than 3000 documented incidents across the country. Most recently, we grieve Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84-year-old man from Thailand who suffered fatal injuries after being shoved to the ground on one of his daily walks. We stand in solidarity with Noel Quintana, who was slashed across the face on the New York City subway, the 71-year-old grandma who was knocked to the ground and robbed in Oakland, the 91-year-old grandpa who was shoved to the sidewalk on a sunny day in Oakland Chinatown. We feel the pain of the families and friends of those who have been victims of racist violence. Amidst these stories, we also must say the name of Christian Hall, the 19-year-old Chinese American teen who was fatally shot by the Pennsylvania State Police when Hall was undergoing a mental health crisis. Although the victims of anti-Asian violence may initially seem unrelated to Hall’s case, AAU believes that the oppressive systems of our society and the blatant disinvestment in public services not only allow these incidents of violence to persist, but create them in the first place. Thus, all these seemingly disparate stories are tied together. In these moments of anger, grief, and sorrow AAU wants to encourage our community to connect our pain to that of the Black community immense and unjust losses at the hands of police. We all suffer under white supremacy and no minoritized or economically disenfranchised community in the United States is able to avoid its violence. Just a year ago, in March 2020, AAU convened a community forum on the rising number of incidents of anti-Asian harassment and violence across the country. This increase was broadly attributed to the administration’s stoking of public bias and anti-Chinese sentiment (i.e. using terms like “kung-flu”) as news spread about the first reported cases of Covid-19 in Wuhan. At the forum, eight Philadelphia Asian leaders discussed recent anti-Asian incidents and the rising levels of fear and stress in our communities. A year later, we are again hearing reports of anti-Asian violence, with some of the most egregious reported recent incidents occurring on the West Coast. Throughout AAU’s 35 year history, we have seen many incidents of anti-Asian violence, harassment and hate crimes. We know that these racially motivated events have also been a long part of our nation’s history and increase especially during times of upheaval when community members turn blame and fear towards each other rather than towards larger systemic causes. Whether it is one incident or many, the effects of violence aimed at our communities can be felt across age, gender, class, or Asian ethnic/cultural background. Our youth, their parents, and our elders are afraid— often on a daily basis. Additionally, we all come from histories of societal discord, war, violence, immigration, displacement. Incidents in the current moment raise our communal memories of incidents in the past. And during this pandemic, there is less space for continued efforts towards generational healing. When these incidents occur and fears are stoked, we see our own communities’ racism rise (especially targeting black communities). Again, the histories in our communities where Asians and Black people have been pitted against one another leave us disconnected, angry, unaware of the privilege that Asian communities have been granted over Black and Latinx communities, unaware of our own racism. Our community leaders end up calling for increased police presence and gun ownership. We get more entrenched in a vicious cycle that this country has perpetuated since it began. At AAU, we are concerned at how difficult it is to remember in difficult times to look at a larger picture— at the whole situation of larger systemic failure. The pandemic shows the many holes through which our communities can fall under the inhumane system we live in. Millions and millions of people in the U.S. are without work, adequate healthcare, food, or shelter. Millions of people are incarcerated. Thousands of people in our immigrant and refugee communities are facing deportation and detention in this incarceration system. How can we expect crime and tensions in our communities not to rise in these circumstances? We must not blame each other. The solution to violence cannot be more violence. Our communities need linguistically accessible resources, mental health services, cross-racial community, solidarity building, and restorative justice programs. We must look further. We must dismantle our history of economic inequity and racism. Who are the wealthy people benefiting every day from the suffering of the oppressed? Who are the people who reinforce this oppressive system every day to protect their profits and privilege? It is so difficult to consider that we may have more in common with even those who target our Asian elders and youth with violence than we do with those who keep their hands clean while the systems of oppression do their dirty work for them— keeping us from lives with dignity and plenty where we could begin to heal from centuries of damage, violence and disconnection. In this moment, we ask our communities to continue envisioning and enacting safe and just futures that honor everyone’s humanity and make reparations for historic and ongoing oppression. Ask how conservative visions of a safe community (more police, more firearms) will perpetuate both anti-Black and anti-Asian violence. Ask what will really have to change in our society so that none of our community members are faced with the many forms of violence (physical, economic, emotional) we are confronted with every day. Fight for justice for Christian Hall as a part of a lineage of murder that follows Walter Wallace, Briana Taylor, George Floyd, Eric Garner, and too many more. Action Items: Join the API PA Town Hall: Justice for Christian Hall TONIGHT 3/3, 6pm RSVP Sign a petition: Justice for Christian Hall Petition Report a hate incident: https://stopaapihate.org/ View the list of resources and suggested readings here!
SEARAC | #StopSEAADeportation PSAs Video PSA Series on SEAAs and Deportation The Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC) proudly presents a series of deportation-focused public service announcements (PSAs) featuring the stories of five impacted Southeast Asian American (SEAA) community members and their families. This video series is designed not only to educate the broader Southeast Asian community on the impact of deportations on our families and communities but also to build public support for the need to end deportations. These PSAs come on the 25th anniversary of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA), which enables the mass deportation of noncitizens with who have come into contact with the criminal legal system and increases punitive measures against immigrants and refugees. Through this new series of PSA videos, SEARAC seeks to honor the individuals and communities who have been devastated by the heightened deportations of Southeast Asian Americans, a practice that began with the passage of IIRAIRA and continues today. To view any of the videos below, click on their image or their title. You can also find all videos on SEARAC’s YouTube channel.
Movement Advancement Project | Policy Spotlight: Hate Crime Laws Hate crime laws lack uniformity across US: Report More than half a century since they were modernized, hate crime laws in the U.S. are inconsistent and provide incomplete methods for addressing bias-motivated violence, according to a new report by advocates for better protections. The report, first shared with The Associated Press ahead of its Wednesday release, is a comprehensive national review of hate crime laws that shows gaps and variances in the laws. Due to the complexity of hate violence, certain statutes meant to protect racial minorities and marginalized groups are less effective, as a consequence of bias in the criminal justice system, the report says. “We really think this is the first report to bring together a state-by-state analysis along so many dimensions … with a focus on racial justice and criminal justice reform,” said Naomi Goldberg, LGBTQ program director for the Movement Advancement Project, which authored the report in partnership with over 15 national civil rights groups. The coalition of civil rights organizations includes Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Goldberg described it as an unprecedented collaboration in the advocacy space. The report’s release comes after a more-than-yearlong focus on COVID-era hate violence directed at Asian Americans and Asian immigrants, and ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which saw an uptick in anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh attacks. Access the full report here: https://www.lgbtmap.org/2021-report-hate-crimes
NMAAHC | Being Antiracist To create an equal society, we must commit to making unbiased choices and being antiracist in all aspects of our lives. View the resource page at this link: Race does not biologically exist, yet how we identify with race is so powerful, it influences our experiences and shapes our lives. In a society that privileges white people and whiteness, racist ideas are considered normal throughout our media, culture, social systems, and institutions. Historically, racist views justified the unfair treatment and oppression of people of color (including enslavement, segregation, internment, etc.). We can be led to believe that racism is only about individual mindsets and actions, yet racist policies also contribute to our polarization. While individual choices are damaging, racist ideas in policy have a wide-spread impact by threatening the equity of our systems and the fairness of our institutions. To create an equal society, we must commit to making unbiased choices and being antiracist in all aspects of our lives. Visit the resource website to learn more about the different types of racism, how to be an antiracist at the individual and interpersonal level, a questioning frame of mind, and more.
Welcoming America | Toolkit for talking about bias, race, and change Access the Toolkit at this link: There has never been a more important time to talk to our communities about what it means to be a truly welcoming place. Welcoming is about more than tolerance—it’s about developing a true respect and appreciation for our neighbors, creating policies and programs that support inclusion, and making sure that everyone—newcomer or longtime resident—feels they belong. Welcoming is also about equity, and more specifically, racial equity—achieving the best and most fair results for everyone so that we can all prosper. To get there, we have to be proactive and engage in conversations with our community that are not always easy, but are crucially important. As an organization concerned with creating more equitable and inclusive communities, and with addressing the root causes of what makes communities unwelcoming for immigrants and refugees in particular, Welcoming America has learned that leaders benefit from tools that help them to engage with what we call “receiving communities”—the places that are being reshaped by demographic change and immigration, and the diverse longtime residents who live there. This means getting at the thorny issues that prevent communities from moving forward, together. Fortunately, America is in the middle of a much needed and long overdue conversation about race, bias, and immigration. And when our communities change demographically—and when immigrant communities become more racially and religiously diverse, as they are today—this conversation becomes even more important, and the tools to effectively engage receiving communities all the more critical. At the time of publication of this toolkit, the country is not only in the midst of a presidential election and its often divisive rhetoric, but grappling in very public ways with what a more racially and religiously diverse America means for both policy and everyday culture. And unfortunately, too much of that conversation is being conducted by TV talking heads more interested in debating and debasing than in building resilient and thriving communities. For ordinary people who want to engage in meaningful conversations about our changing communities, immigration, and racial bias, it can be challenging and difficult to know how or where to start. You don’t have to look very far—just the television news or social media—to see how polarizing the discourse can be. And that discourages us from stepping into conversations about these topics with people in our community, workplace, or place of worship. Out of fear of saying the wrong thing or not having a space to talk about these issues, there are millions of people in our communities who are not engaged in the dialogue about immigration and bias.
Racial Equity Tools Racial Equity Tools is designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. It offers over 600 resources including tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their understanding and to help those working for racial justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large. We curate resources that use language and analysis reflecting an understanding of systemic racism, power, and privilege and are accessible on-line and free to users. The only exceptions are the Transforming White Privilege curriculum which is behind a paywall on the RET site, and the Racial Equity Learning modules which are linked to World Trust Educational Services’ site.
Reviving Sisterhood | Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota In 2016, Reviving Sisterhood kicked off its Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota series — a storytelling project to amplify girls and women in our community who aren’t waiting for permission to change the world. The project includes a series of video shorts, a collection of stories, and a podcast/radio show, as well as a set of illustrations. Each story features a Shero — a female trailblazer who is creating change in her community. She takes risks, she challenges misconceptions and addresses injustices. Sheroes are on a mission to build a better world, and the Sisterhood is here to support them and uplift their voices. View the Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota here. A Muslim Sheroes of Minnesota educational guide was also created in partnership with Twin Cities Public Television (TPT) is available to download through PBS Learning Media. The guide includes lesson plans and discussion questions for children and students grades 6-12.