Advancing Equity, Justice and Power by Dismantling Systemic Racism
There is a long history of racism against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in the United States dating back to the nineteenth century. And while AAPIs have spoken out for decades against racial discrimination and inequalities their communities face, their voices have largely gone unheard.
That all changed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were observing through social media and media accounts that our community members were being racially profiled, harassed, and in some instances attacked, so we decided very quickly to start Stop AAPI Hate,” says Chinese for Affirmative Action Co-Executive Director Cynthia Choi.
To document the alarming escalation of xenophobia and bigotry resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, AAPI Equity Alliance (AAPI Equity), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies Department of San Francisco State University (SFSU) launched the Stop AAPI Hate reporting center in March 2020.
With the wide range and vast amount of hate experiences reported to Stop AAPI Hate, they were able to paint a vivid picture of anti-Asian hate—making visible a problem that for most people was invisible—while mobilizing support for AAPI communities across the nation. School children held bake sales in support of AAPI communities, employee resource groups held corporate leaders to account, and tens of thousands of people—people who had never considered themselves activists—flooded the streets to protest anti-Asian hate.
As the coalition has grown and with the ongoing grassroots activity, Stop AAPI Hate has started to use its platform to effect legislative change. In 2021, the coalition joined California’s API Legislative Caucus in passing the API Equity Budget, a historic bill that allocated over $165 million to AAPI communities and other marginalized groups. The following year, Stop AAPI Hate passed two more bills under No Place For Hate California, a campaign to address hate and harassment in public places.
Through this process, Stop AAPI Hate has found their place in the movement for racial justice, using their data and insights drawn from their reporting center to keep AAPI communities safe, uphold their civil rights, and teach the next generation to do the same.
Their three key initiatives — Civil Rights, Community Safety and Transformation, and Education Equity and Ethnic Studies — help them address these immediate needs, while also working on long term solutions.
“For the first time in a long time, people in power believe that there needs to be more attention paid to AAPI communities.”
To date, Stop AAPI Hate has received more than eleven thousand incident reports. They use their .ORG to help gather these reports, educate, and engage the broader public to get involved in order to combat future attacks on AAPI communities.
Learn more at https://www.stopaapihate.org/.
