California governor establishes Racial Equity Commission

California state Sen. Richard Pan, left, and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

It has been quite a week for California's AANHPI communities with Gov. Gavin Newsom taking action aimed at countering the anti-Asian hate plaguing these ethnic groups.

With one of the most diverse populations in the US, including the largest Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities (AANHPI), California is sensitive to the institutional barriers that they face.

“In California, we recognize that our incredible diversity is the foundation for our state’s strength, growth and success – and that confronting inequality is not just a moral imperative, but an economic one,” said Newsom. 

Following his appointments to the Commission on the State of Hate Tuesday, Sept. 13, Newsom announced additional action to build on California’s leadership in expanding opportunity and justice for all including the establishment of the Racial Equity Commission. 

Hours later, the governor signed two bills that will bolster enforcement  against anti-Asian hate on public transit, (SB 1161) and private businesses (AB2448) and ordered the creation of a Racial Equity Commission.

“Our state has made great strides in redressing historic wrongs and stubborn disparities, but we know that much work remains to tackle the barriers that hold back too many Californians and undermine our collective prosperity. California won’t shy away from this challenge – with today’s action, our state is doubling down on the ongoing work to make the California Dream a reality for every one of us,” said Newsom.

The Commission, developed with state Senator Dr. Richard Pan and the racial equity organizations that sponsored SB 17, will produce a Racial Equity Framework consisting of resources and tools to promote racial equity and address structural racism. More broadly, the Commission will recommend tools, methodologies and opportunities to advance racial equity, and will be available to provide direct assistance to state agencies in reviewing and updating policies and practices upon request. 

“Dismantling systemic racism to achieve equity is difficult work, and I applaud Governor’s Newsom’s leadership in beginning to confront these challenging issues in state government in his Executive Order,” said Senator Richard Pan, California Asian American & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus Chair.

Executive Order

“Policy changes and cultural shifts go hand-in-hand,” said First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom. “As we work together toward a more just and equitable society, good policy – like today’s executive order – will go a long way to shifting workplace cultures, as well as the hearts and minds of the workforce. For this reason, we are intentionally embedding equity into the mission and practices of state agencies and departments – a critical model for private sector employers as well."

Newsom signed an executive order directing state agencies and departments to take additional actions to embed equity analysis and considerations in their mission, policies and practices. 

This action will help expand opportunity for all by addressing disparities for historically underserved and marginalized communities. Addressing unequal circumstances helps drive equal outcomes so all Californians have the chance to reach their full potential and lead healthy and rewarding lives, and all California communities can thrive and prosper. 

State agencies and departments are being directed to embed policies and practices in their strategic plans in order to further advance equity and opportunity and address disparities in access and outcomes. As part of these efforts, agencies and departments will incorporate more inclusive public engagement and data analysis to better serve all Californians.  

In addition, the order helps protect communities against hate violence and discrimination through accelerated actions, supports equitable investment of federal infrastructure funding, promotes a more inclusive and diverse state workforce, and encourages contracting opportunities for California businesses in disadvantaged regions and communities. 

Under the order, the California Health and Human Services Agency and Government Operations Agency will also develop recommendations to improve language and communications access to state government services and programs.

FYI: A copy of the executive order can be found here.

Newsom earlier this year appointed Pam Chueh as  the state's first State Chief Equity Officer at the Government Operations Agency for leadership as it relates to state operations, procurement, information technology and human resources. The Governor has taken action to embed equity within the state budget process led by the Department of Finance. 

Legislation 

Additionallly, besides the establishment of the Commission on the State of Hate, Newsom has signed two of bills sponsored by Asian American legislatures were inspired by the surge in attacks against AANHPI people.

• AB 2448 by Assemblymember Philip Ting (D-San Francisco) directs the state’s Civil Rights Department to create a pilot program that recognizes businesses for creating safe and welcoming environments for customers free from discrimination and harassment.
• SB 1161, the Increase Safety for Public Transit Riders. sponsored by Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine), requires the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University to create a community survey for California transit operators to strengthen and promote passenger safety. The data collection effort is a critical first step in creating a larger framework for meaningful safety solutions. The data-driven approach centers rider experiences and ensures consistency in the collection of demographic information, first and last mile safety concerns, and overall experiences with safety, including street harassment.

The passage of these laws, which go into effect Jan. 1, 2023, are first steps towards giving legislators to write stronger laws that hopefully give law enforcement the legal tools  to stop and, if necessary, arrest people for harassing other people, the most common form of anti-Asian acts.

The governor also signed several bills focused on advancing equity and tackling disparities. 

• AB 316 by Assemblymember Jim Cooper (D-Elk Grove) requires CalHR to prepare a report on gender and ethnicity pay equity in certain classifications where there is an underrepresentation of women and minorities.

• AB 1604 by Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) will provide workers with greater opportunity to move upward within state service through improvements and best practices in processes for hiring, recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce.

• AB 1957 by Assemblymember Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun City) will update the information that the Department of Developmental Services and regional centers are required to compile and report on the purchase of services for individuals with developmental disabilities to better identify disparities in race, ethnicity and language.

“As Chair of the Asian American Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus," said Pan, "I have witnessed how often inequity is justified by racist tropes such as the Model Minority Myth and the devastating impact of inequity on American health and lives. Governor Newsom’s Executive Order is an important step toward a more fair and just state government for all Californians.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter. Last edited Sept. 22 to clarify details of SB 1161.

 

California governor signs bills combating anti-Asian hate on transit and in businesses

Two bills that will help California in its ongoing effort to stem the alarming rise in anti-Asian incidents was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom Tuesday.

The No Place for Hate Bills — SB 1161 sponsored by Senator Dave Min, D-Irving, and AB 2448, sponsored by Assemblymember Phil Ting, D-San Francisco — will be be effective starting Jan. 1, 2023.

“No Californian should feel unsafe on public transit, yet study after study shows that a majority of women, seniors, LGBTQ+ riders, and other vulnerable populations experience street harassment or worse while commuting,” Min said in a press release. 

RELATED: 

• Newsom appoints members of the Commission on the State of Hate.
• California budgets $157 million to combat ant-Asian hate

“This legislation puts forward a data-driven safety framework that will help us understand why these incidents keep happening. The new survey tool developed by the Mineta Institute is the first step in a strategic approach by the Legislature to address this issue.”

The Protect Customers’ Civil Rights at Businesses bill (AB 2448), authored by Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), will direct the state’s Civil Rights Department to create a first-of-its-kind pilot program that will incentivize businesses to create safe and welcoming environments.

Both bills will combat the attacks against Asians in public transit such as busses and rail transit and in private businesses such as restaurants and grocery stores.

“Customers have the right to feel safe in businesses, and workers need training on ensuring that,” Ting said. “Right now, our state’s civil rights laws do not adequately protect people who are verbally harassed and intimidated while grocery shopping or eating at a restaurant. My bill allows businesses to lead the fight against hate and create more welcoming and safe spaces for all Californians.

Since the start of the pandemic in March 2021, Stop AAPI Hate has collected over 11,500 reports of anti-Asian incidents. About 40% of those incidents have occurred in California, the state with the most AAPI  residents.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta released a report in July stating that anti-Asian hate crimes have increased 177% from last year.

Although spurred by the surgee of anti-Asian incidents, the bills will also help members of other marginalized communities who are victims of hate. The two bills hope to address the majority of the hate incidents which may not rise to the legal definition of a hate crime.

“This law names hate-based harassment as a pervasive problem. It is an essential first step in creating safer environments for customers,” Manjusha Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, said in a press release.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.

Sunday Read: AAPI VOTE 2018 - Asian Americans stand up, spurred by Trump

IT TOOK a Donald Trump for Asian Americans to snap out of their political slumber. As a result, a record number of AAPI candidates will be testing the political waters this year.

“I’m a registered Democrat," said Andrew Janz, a Thai/American running in California's 22nd Congressional District. "In 2016, at the end of the year, I’m sort of looking around to see what I can do to make sure that there is never a Trump presidency again. Just trying to figure out what I could do from my position as somebody who’s semi-active in the community.”

The 34-year-old deputy district attorney is running for Congress because, well, Trump. “I think Donald Trump doesn’t have the moral character to be president of the United States,” he said. In California's Central Valley, he's taking on Rep. Devin Nunes, chair of the House of Representatives Judicial Committee and Trump's chief defender against charges of Russian influence in the U.S. political system.

Varun Nikore, the president of AAPI Victory Fund, said there is a record number of Asian American Pacific Islander candidates running for Congress this year, with as many as 59  potentially on the ballot in 2018. Many of them are in swing and high-priority districts gaining national attention ahead of the 2020 presidential election. 

Nationwide, there are over 220 progressive AAPI candidates running for elected office on the federal, state and local level in 32 states—including nine gubernatorial candidates.

Already, AAPI candidates have won elections in Virginia and New Jersey, hinting the start of what could become an historic political sea change.

* * *

DAVE MIN

Most of them are first-timers like Dave Min of Orange County, California, For Min, Trump's travel ban was a wake-up call. The law professor and former Washington DC political hand had never seriously considered running for office and had no real organization behind him. But as the son of two Korean immigrants, Min felt the Trump's decision to temporarily suspend immigration from some predominantly Muslim countries "was a huge slap in the face."

"It felt very personal being the son of immigrants myself to feel like this country was going to single out people based on their country of origin and their religion," Min told CNN in an interview.

The decision to take the plunge into politics is not an easy one. "Last fall, I was coaching soccer and barbecuing every chance I could get -- I was a total dad," he said. "But on the other hand, the stakes are so high. The soul of America is at stake right now."

* * *

The knock on Asian/Americans was that they were not as politically active as other ethnic groups. That could be attributed that a large segment of the AAPI community are still first-generation immigrants, still trying to establish themselves economically and socially. 

Compared to Latino and African/American voters, AAPI just don't turn out to vote, according to AAPI Data. In the 2016 elections, voting rates among Asian American adult citizens remained low (49%) relative to Whites and Blacks (65.3% and 59.4%, respectively) and was slightly higher than voting among Latinos (47.6%).

The good news is that voter registration among AAPI has spurted tremendously since 2012. But, getting the newly registered voters to the polls has proven more difficult. A lot of that is the lack of contact from the major political entities. AAPI voters were the least contacted by the Democrats and the Republicans compared to the ethnic voters.

Nevertheless, as a result of the voter registration drives by various entitities in the AAPI community, the 2016 Presidential election saw a record increase in voting for Asian/Americans. Between 2012 and 2016, about 1.14 million new Asian/American voters entered the electorate, nearly double the average increase of 620,000 new voters in the prior three presidential cycles.

* * *

ANDY KIM

Growing up in the South Jersey burbs of Philadelphia, Andy Kim remembers a district full of farmland and cranberry bogs. The area has grown up, though, as have communities of color, from Koreans like himself to Chinese, Thai and Filipino transplants. It’s one of the most competitive regions in the country, over the years backing George W. Bush, John Kerry, Obama and Trump.

"There is nothing I’d rather do than serve my country.  I believe that service isn’t just a job, it is a way of life.  I dedicated my entire career to serving the American people," he says on his website.  "I worked at the White House on countering terrorism and protecting our country, advised the Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon on national security, and I served in Afghanistan as a strategic adviser to Generals David Petraeus and John Allen.  When I served in Afghanistan, no one asked me if I was a Democrat or a Republican.  We all worked together focused on the mission of keeping our nation safe."  

For years, Kim was content to be in the background as a member of the Obama White House. In 2015 he left the White House and the following year he left government altogether.

After Trump’s election, Kim collaborated with other Obama alumni to increase citizen engagement to build the resistance — then took his own advice. He’s been embraced by national Democrats as the best shot to capture New Jersey's 3rd District, despite nonpartisan analysts predict would likely remain in GOP hands — though the health care debacle could make an impact. 

After several self-effacing years working behind the scenes, Kim is still learning how to play be the rough-and-tumble rules of American politics, how to talk about one's accomplishments and vision but not appear being boastful. But to Kim, it’s all part of being a public servant, running headlong toward the next crisis.

Last fall, around Thanksgiving, when Kim was speaking at the First Korean United Methodist Church for the ChuSeok Festival, he remembers feeling like he had come full circle — delivering a speech as a congressional candidate just down the street from his childhood home. “Minority populations writ large understand the importance of diversity of voices in leadership,” he says.

* * *

Since the start of the 21st century, Asian Americans have been the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. Nationwide; they grew 46% between 2000 and 2010. Excluding Hawaii, Asian American population grew at least 30% in every single state in that ten-year span alone. In California alone, there are nearly 38.5 million total people with nearly 16% of the population.

Beyond voting, getting AAPI to run for office has traditionally been difficult. Politics is not the career choice most AAPI parents would prefer for their children. And AAPI candidates need to overcome the stereotype of being quiet and not being aggressive.

But that’s changing, says Christine Chen, executive director of the outreach nonprofit Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote. AAPI women pushedd the number of AAPI in Congress in 2016 to 18: including the first Thai/American, Tammy Duckworth, elected to the Senate, the first Vietnamese/American woman to Congress, Florida's Stephanie Murphy and the first Indian/American women elected to both the House, Pramila Jayapaal of Washington,  and Senate, Kamala Harris of California. 

For the 2018 Midterms, when more than 2,100 people have filed paperwork to run for Congress — almost twice as many candidates as in 2015, according to a study of Federal Election Commission data by The Washington Post — Asian/Americans have been especially optimistic about being able to win races, and especially motivated by concerns over immigration rhetoric, anti-Muslim violence that reached new levels nationwide following the Trump's election, and the increased boldness of white supremacists.

 “I’ve never seen (this) level of activism,” says Chen. “It’s just a different atmosphere.”

* * *

MAI KHANH TRAN

Mai Khanh Tran, a Southern California pediatrician, is battling one of the nation's worst flu seasons. She's also the only woman running in the Democratic primary to replace Republican Ed Royce, who announced earlier this year that he does not plan to seek re-election. 

Tran, who was born in Vietnam and came to the U.S. at age 9, said that on the day after the election she didn't want to go into work.

"But I did what most women do," she said. "I went in to take care of my patients."

On that day, one of her patients was a young child with a brain tumor whose family had just gotten insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. With Republicans in control of Washington, the family could lose that coverage.

After Election Day, Tran began to speak publicly about the need to protect the Affordable Care Act, but when she saw Royce vote to repeal it, she began to be able to see herself in Congress.

"It was really the vote that was in Congress by our representative that showed me the need for someone like me, a mom, a fierce mom, a dedicated doctor, to really run for Congress," Tran told CNN.

Since announcing her campaign in a district that Clinton won that district by 9 points in 2016, Tran has secured the backing of groups like AAPI Victory and EMILY's List, among others. 

* * *.

The increase in political interest has led to more Asian-Americans running for office, f

There are many reasons that support for certain issues would seem to signal Asian-American support for conservatism, from their entrepreneurial mind-set to a focus on faith and family, argues Joel Kotkin,  an internationally-recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends. 

Since 2000, AAPI voters have been moving leftward towards the Democrats. By the 2016 elections marked by anti-immigrant rhetoric, AAPI voters cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton in overwhelming numbers. The shift is part of a larger trend across diverse communities in the age of Trump. “This goes beyond Asian-Americans to middle-class Hispanics to a large part of white middle-class voters, who in many ways have much reason to be suspicious of the Democrats but are viscerally turned off by the Republicans,” says Kotkin. “In very tight races, it could cost Republicans several seats.”

Perhaps in no other state will the political awakening of AAPI communities have a greater impact than in California. Voters will find at least a dozen Asian Americans contending for office in the June primary election, including state treasurer John Chiang, who is running for governor; state controller Betty Yee, who is seeking re-election; and California Board of Equalization member Fiona Ma, who is running for state treasurer.

The number of candidates has prompted the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Center for Asian Americans United For Self Empowerment (CAUSE) to organize what it calls thefirst ever AAPI-focused gubernatorial debate in the state's history, scheduled for April 27. The event is the largest in a series of debates the group is planning as part of its voter engagement initiatives.

Just within the last three election cycles, there has been a growth of over 600,000 new Asian American voters nationwide. These new generations of Asian Americans can lead to increased voter activity since they are more likely to be proficient in English and will not require assistance in translating, unlike their parents. It is now more important than ever that Asian/Americans become more politically involved due to their rising population growth rates.

“I think for us … 2018 really felt like an opportunity to leverage the community to get out there and vote,” said Kim Yamasaki, CAUSE's executive director.

CORRECTED: (May 2) Andrew Janz is Thai/American.
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