Policy and litigation updates from Advancing Justice | AAJC

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Elevating Our Community in Celebration and Ongoing Struggle

July was a month that taught us to celebrate our wins as we continue to process the hurt of systemic anti-Asian racism and respond to the calls of ongoing struggle.

On July 1, we announced our collaboration with Kaiser Permanente to distribute $3.6 million to 33 community organizations dedicated to combating the rise in anti-Asian violence. Furthermore, with our partnership with Hollaback!, we have now trained over 100,000 people in our bystander intervention trainings.

We celebrated the confirmation of Julie Su as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. As an Asian American leader who has served in the public sector to address issues pertaining to the wellbeing of all workers, immigrants, and people of color, we have commended her confirmation as we are gaining more Asian American advocates in the highest levels of government.

We deeply believe in supporting young Asian American leadership and initiatives. Advancing Justice | AAJC announced on July 7 that it will award stipends to five student leaders who are cultivating projects that amplify Asian American stories and civic engagement within their respective communities.

While we must hold space for joy, we are reminded daily that our work is not over. While we are greatly inspired by the recent efforts to create a pathway to citizenship for millions in the infrastructure bill, we are also working to address the detrimental ruling that prevents new applications for DACA.

Keep scrolling to read more about Advancing Justice | AAJC's current initiatives and how you can get involved.

EVENTS

Since April 2020, we have partnered with Hollaback! to offer bystander intervention trainings. Register for an upcoming training here. If you have already taken this initial training, register here to join us for our next conflict de-escalation workshop on August 30th.

On July 19, our organization hosted a live conversation powered by YouTube, "Telling Our Stories: Building Movements and Centering Our Narratives Through Creative Platforms," moderated by Emily Chi, assistant director of Telecommunications, Technology and Media. Subscribe to our channel to keep up-to-date with our work!

Did you miss the Value Our Families coalition conversation on Exploring Immigrant Stories Through Art? Access a recording of the full event on their Facebook page.

ADVANCING JUSTICE | AAJC IN THE NEWS

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC collaborated with WEBTOON and 88Rising to release the webcomic series 'Illuminated,' which features the stories of musicians Stephanie Poetri, Wolftyla, mxmtoon, and Olympic figure skater Mirai Nagasu, in June. The Mary Sue shared the words of Marita Etcubañez, our Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, who voiced the importance of amplifying the stories of Asian American women.

“Asian American women face the daily reality of multiple layers of marginalization, often having to confront not just racism or sexism, but the intersection of both. We are proud to collaborate with WEBTOON and 88Rising for this important effort to center the voices of Asian women in such a meaningful and creative way," she said.

JOIN OUR TEAM!

We are looking for an Anti-Hate Response Coordinator (Two Year Fellowship). This role will assist the Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives in developing and implementing Advancing Justice | AAJC's anti-hate initiative. Click here to apply today.

Advocacy and Policy

Join us as we reflect on our accomplishments in July and our ongoing fight to advocate for our communities. Read on to learn about how we celebrated this month and how we are still advocating for our Asian American communities nationwide.

Supporting Local Efforts to Combat Anti-Asian Hate

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC granted $3.6 million to 33 community-based organizations to combat the rise in anti-Asian violence. These grants are to fund and support the rights, health, and wellness of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.

Read the full press release here and see the list of grantees here.

Spotlighting Advancing Justice | AAJC and Hollaback! Partnership

Throughout the month of July, we continued to host trainings with Hollaback! and have now trained over 100,000 people to safely intervene as a bystander to stop non-violent incidents of anti-Asian hate since the beginning of our partnership.

Bystander Intervention Training

Learn about the basics of intervention and the spectrum of disrespect experienced by Asians/Asian Americans. Then, put what you’ve learned into practice. Register Here

Conflict De-Escalation Training (Bystander Intervention 2.0)

Take your intervention skills a step further by using patience, empathy, and a willingness to listen to directly de-escalate conflict with a harasser. Register Here

Workshop for People Experiencing Anti-Asian/American Harassment

This training is for Asians and Asian Americans to learn how to trust their instincts, reclaim their space, and practice resilience following an act of hate. Register Here

Advancing Justice | AAJC Condemns Brnovich v. DNC Decision

On July 1, the Supreme Court upheld Arizona's discriminatory voting rights laws in a 6-3 decision in Brnovich v. DNC. This decision imposes unjust hurdles that communities of color must overcome in order to protect their voting rights.

In our press release, Advancing Justice | AAJC President and Executive Director John C. Yang strongly condemned the Court's decision and called on Congress "to protect the freedom to vote and strengthen the voting rights for safe and accessible elections for all."

Read the full press release here. Read the statement released by the Asian Americans Advancing Justice affiliation here.

Civil Rights Organizations Appeal FBI's Refusal to Disclose Government Records on the "China Initiative"

On July 16, the ACLU, Advancing Justice | AAJC, and other civil rights organizations administratively appealed the FBI's decision to close their joint FOIA request for records related to the "China Initiative." The controversial "China Initiative" is a wide-ranging government effort to scrutinize, investigate, prosecute, and take other measures against U.S.-based scientists and researchers believed to have connections to China. The FBI has played a central role in the “China Initiative.”

Read the full press release about the appeal here.

Asian American Civil Rights Organizations Condemn Judge's Decision to End New DACA Applications

On July 16, U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Hanen issued a court order invalidating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The order directed the government to stop processing new DACA applications while allowing the processing of renewals pending appeals. Asian Americans Advancing Justice, an affiliation of five Asian American civil rights organizations, strongly condemned the court's decision.

Read the full press release here.

Civil and Academic Rights Groups Deliver Petition With Over 1,100 Signatures to New York University President

Advancing Justice | AAJC, the American Association of University Professors NYU Chapter (AAUP-NYU), and the Union for Graduate Employees at New York University (GSOC) delivered a petition to NYU President Andrew Hamilton with over 1,100 signatures from the academic community, including NYU faculty, staff, and students, concerned citizens, and community members in response to the unjust suspension and elimination of proper due process protections of two tenured professors of Asian descent at NYU Grossman School of Medicine (NYUSOM).

Read the full press release here.

Asian American Advancing Justice Applauds Confirmation of
Julie Su As Deputy Secretary of U.S. Department of Labor

Asian Americans Advancing Justice celebrates its former Los Angeles-based Litigation Director Julie Su as the next Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor. Asian Americans Advancing Justice released a joint statement as an affiliation.

Read the full statement here.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC Awards Stipends to Five Student-Led Community Projects

On July 7, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC announced that it will award stipends to five student leaders in an effort to support their campus and community-based projects that elevate Asian American stories and advance dialogue, advocacy, and civic engagement within our communities. Find the full press release here.

Learn more about their amazing projects below!

An Nguyen (she/hers) | University of California, Berkeley
An's background and experience in California’s Bay Area, an area struggling with a housing affordability and homelessness crisis, has made her passionate about examining the impacts of gentrification on communities of color. She will use the stipend to launch a multimedia project on the growing gentrification in Oakland Chinatown and its effect on the community. The project will include a documentary, a collection of photographs of Oakland Chinatown displayed on a digital platform, and a collection of infographics focusing primarily on statistics.

Annie Li (she/hers) | Emory University
Annie's work at Fair Fight during the past election in Georgia reinforced the importance of the AAPI vote, and highlighted the shifting demographics of the state, the South, and the country. This year, Annie and Emory University's Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Activists (APIDAA) will use the stipend to organize a speaker series on Asian Americans in the South. The group will invite three speakers for three separate events, focusing on the following areas: Chinese Americans in the Mississippi Delta, Southeast Asian refugees in Clarkston, and South Asians in Houston.

Nelson Lin (he/him) | Brown University
In collaboration with Brown Asian Sisters Empowered and the Southeast Asian Studies Initiative at Brown University, Nelson will use his stipend to host a book club and panel discussion about the book “Generation Rising: A New Politics of Southeast Asian American Activism" by Dr. Loan Thi Dao. The group will also coordinate workshops and a communal learning space that is open to Asian American student organizations from Providence high schools and colleges. Nelson hopes this project will create a foundation for students to engage with and support future community-based movements.

Nyx Hauth (they/them) | Berklee College of Music
Nyx believes that art has an essential role to play in advocacy and activism, which has inspired them to use the stipend to produce a music album project with fellow AAPI students at the Berklee College of Music. The album will serve as a means for AAPI students at Berklee to voice their experiences and build community with other student artist-activists in the process. The album will be shared on all social media platforms and will be performed live at the Berklee Performance Center, with all proceeds going to the AAPI organization of the artists’ choice.

Celia Le (she/hers) | Columbia University
Celia is a co-founder and producer of the Chân Lý (Truth/Axiom) Initiative, a digital documentary project which aims to tackle the issue of misinformation and to bring awareness to important issues in the Vietnamese diasporic community through infographics, video, and narration. Through these videos, Celia hopes to highlight the many injustices Vietnamese Americans and Southeast Asian Americans have faced due to language barriers such as vaccine distribution injustice, lower levels of educational attainment, and increased deportations.

Asian American Education Project Teacher Workshops

Asian American and Pacific Islander history is American history, but is often left out of curriculums in K-12 schools. Advancing Justice | AAJC, fiscal sponsor of The Asian American Education Project, launched a series of free workshops for K-12 teachers designed to promote the inclusion of historically and culturally competent curriculum about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) nationwide.

In this series of virtual K-12 Asian American Curriculum Teacher Training Workshops, The Asian American Education Project showcases curriculum on the AAPI experience. It is divided into themes to make it easier for educators to adapt the whole or part of the curriculum into their own practice.

Learn more and sign up for an upcoming workshop here.

FCC Launches Emergency Broadband Benefit Program

Did you know that families in need could be eligible for up to $50 ($75 on Tribal lands) of a monthly discount toward internet bills? On May 12, consumer enrollment for the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program began. The EBB program is a temporary $3.2 billion fund launched by the Federal Communications Commission to ensure that low-income families have affordable broadband access during a time when being connected to the Internet is more critical than ever.

Read our Twitter thread for more resources and information on how to apply for EBB or watch our joint webinar with OCA National and NCAPA.

On-going Resources

The Anti-Racial Profiling Project offers resources and legal referrals for those impacted by the U.S. government’s increased efforts to target and profile Asian American and Asian immigrant scientists and researchers, particularly of Chinese descent. If you believe you are being racially targeted by the government and you are looking for attorney referrals, please contact 202-935-6014 using the Signal app and a staff member will reach out to you directly (support available in English and Mandarin/普通话).

Our community engagement team has been working with community partners to pull together state-specific and national anti-hate resources for the AAPI community. Individuals and organizations are encouraged to access, share, and add to the crowd-sourced document at any point.

Blog Highlights

Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Members Hold First Congressional Hearing to Address Racial Profiling of Chinese Americans

NAPABA Law Foundation Fellow Gisela Kusakawa and Policy and Programs Graduate Intern Danica Yu reflect on detrimental consequences of the "China Initiative," which currently permits the surveillance and targeting of Asian American and immigrant scientists.

Read more of our blogs!

Intern Spotlights

Danica Yu (she/hers) | Policy and Programs Graduate Intern
Danica Yu is a graduate student pursuing a Masters in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. During her undergraduate career at Washington University in St. Louis, where she Double majored in Environmental Policy and Global Health, she was exposed to the intersections of policy and racial justice. At Advancing Justice | AAJC, Danica has worked as the policy and programs graduate intern, in which she produces memos and offers policy analysis in the realms of issues including facial recognition technology and critical race theory. Danica has also played a critical role in drafting an advocacy letter to President Biden. Reflecting on her internship experience, Danica feels that she has gained incredible insight into what advocacy looks and works like in a civil rights organization. Moving forward, Danica hopes to further her commitment to racial justice through the lens of public health disparities and food inequalities. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, learning new Chinese recipes, and listening to her favorite R&B artist, Mahalia.

Jaeho Lee (he/him/his) | Summer Law Clerk
Jaeho Lee is a rising second-year at George Washington University Law School. His interests include public service and housing rights, which are directly connected to future hopes in engaging in pro-bono work for marginalized communities. On campus, Jaeho has been involved with Asian American advocacy work, which spans from writing letters to school administration about anti-Asian hate, organizing informative panels, and serving as a representative for the Asian Student Law Association. This summer at Advancing Justice | AAJC, he has been working on the Anti-Racial Profiling Project, taking on tasks which include writing a memo about bilingual materials and researching the impact of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Jaeho has enjoyed learning about the history of public service through this summer opportunity and is looking forward to continue exploring the intersections of Asian American advocacy and the law. When Jaeho is free, he enjoys hiking, reading science fiction and fantasy novels, and cooking along to one of his favorite YouTube channels, Binging with Babish.

Nghi Lâm (she/hers) | FirstGEN Fellow
Nghi Lâm is a rising junior at Colorado College, where she is pursuing a major in Feminist and Gender Studies and a minor in Chinese. As she wanted to engage with fellow Asian American advocates, she found herself drawn to the work of Advancing Justice | AAJC, where she is exposed to the organization's active role in creating change. This summer, Nghi has been supporting Hill advocacy for the Anti-Racial Profiling Project, in which she meets with Congress members to push against the "China Initiative," which has targeted Asian American and immigrant scientists such as Dr. Anming Hu. Throughout the internship, Nghi has not only learned first-hand about the immense impact of policy on families, but also feels that she has gained wonderful mentors in Advancing Justice | AAJC staff members, who are quick to offer connection and guidance during the virtual internship. When Nghi is not jumping in Zoom calls with Congressional staffers, she is indulging in her new hobbies: watercolor painting, cross-stitching, and taking walks.

Yang Wu (he/him/his) | Anti-Racial Profiling Project Intern
Double majoring in Economics and Statistics, Yang Wu is a recent graduate from Kenyon College. He is deeply interested in data analysis and is working at the crossroads of statistics and racial justice this summer. At Advancing Justice | AAJC, Yang has been excited to gain hands-on experience with data and is currently working on database construction for the Anti-Racial Profiling Project. Actively involved with data verification work, Yang has been looking at data from court cases and press releases and is thinking through creative ways to present the statistical findings. Through the internship program, he has expressed appreciation for the exposure to legal frameworks, which has provided a meaningful lens for understanding the context of pressing community issues such as the "China Initiative." In the future, Yang hopes to engage with Census data, as it is crucial for determining resources for communities nationwide. During his free time, Yang played soccer for all four years of college and continues to do so, along with other hobbies such as practicing piano and guitar.

Ellie Shin (she/hers) | Communications Intern
Ellie Shin is a rising first-year undergraduate student at Harvard University. While her academic interests include bioengineering and genetics research, she is interning with Advancing Justice | AAJC this summer to further her personal commitment to Asian American advocacy. Ellie has worked on the June newsletter and is currently dedicating her efforts to generate a timeline of Advancing Justice | AAJC's history, as the organization approaches its 30th anniversary. As she reflects on her experience thus far, she appreciates how the internship offers spaces for conversations that broaden her perspective on key Asian American civil rights issues. When Ellie isn't preparing the daily news briefing, she is sharpening her piano skills, catching up on new episodes of Penthouse with her family, or enjoying time in the outdoors!

Sebin Jeon (she/hers) | Communications Intern
Sebin Jeon is a rising junior at Duke University, where she is majoring in International Comparative Studies with a regional focus in East Asia. Dedicated to exploring structural barriers that undermine the livelihood of AAPI communities, Sebin is interested in issues including the disaggregation of AAPI data and contextualizing the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes within an ongoing history of colonialism and xenophobia. As a communications intern, Sebin has used her writing skills to draft press releases and blog posts on behalf of Advancing Justice | AAJC. Along with Ellie, she has explored her interest for graphic design and enjoys learning from an incredibly talented and supportive team. As she reflects on her internship experience, she is grateful for the opportunity to be a part of ongoing justice-centered work. In her free time, Sebin indulges in finding new music for her growing Spotify library, sketching on her iPad, and going on neighborhood walks with friends.

Take Action With Us

Stand Against Hatred was created by the Asian Americans Advancing Justice affiliation in January 2017 to capture information about the increase in hate we observed in the months before and following the 2016 election. Since COVID-19 began, however, we have received many new testimonials of anti-Asian/Asian American incidents of hate and harassment.

As we state on the site, "By sharing what you experienced or witnessed, you can educate the public, empower others, show service providers where help is needed, and strengthen advocacy efforts for hate crimes response and prevention." We know that sharing these experiences can be painful, which is why we're so grateful for the brave individuals who continue to trust us with their testimonials.

If you or someone you know would like to share your experience, please visit StandAgainstHatred.org today.

Partnerships

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