The following is a list of resources and suggestions for volunteering, donating, reading, writing, and taking action to support the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. The AAPI community has faced long-standing racism, including a surge in hate crimes and violence in the past year, most rececently on March 16, when a man killed eight people in Atlanta area massage parlors, including six Asian women. (The police and Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office have identified the eight people as Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Paul Andre Michels, Soon Chung Park, Xiaojie Tan, Delaina Ashley Yaun, and Yong Ae Yue.) We will be updating this list as we learn of new resources. If you know about a resource not on this list, please send an e-mail to editor@pw.org. (Updated 5.4.21)
Organizations and Projects
Stop AAPI Hate tracks and responds to incidents of violence, harrassment, discrimination, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The center was founded in March 2020 by the Asian Pacific Planning and Policy Council (A3PCON), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA), and the Asian American Studies department of San Francisco State University.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) “advocates for the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and other underserved communities to promote a fair and equitable society for all.” AAJC is an affiliation of five organizations across the United States based in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Chicago. AAJC Atlanta is specifically raising funds to support the victims and their families impacted by the March 16 shootings.
Among its many projects, AAJC manages the Stand Against Hatred project, which offers a space to “document hate and to educate about the environment of hate around the country.” AAJC also cosponsors Bystander Intervention trainings with Hollaback!, a grassroots initiative to raise awareness about and combat street harassment, on how to do your part to protect your neighbors and co-workers when bias and harassment collide in front of you.
Red Canary Song is a grassroots worker coalition of Asian and migrant sex workers. The collective supports Asian sex workers, massage parlor workers, and allies through mutual aid, a migrant resource network, and community building.
The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum is “focused on building power with AAPI women and girls to influence critical decisions that affect our lives, our families, and our communities. Using a reproductive justice framework, we elevate AAPI women and girls to impact policy and drive systemic change in the United States.”
Asian American Feminist Collective “engages in intersectional feminist politics grounded within our communities, including those whose backgrounds encompass East, Southeast, and South Asian, Pacific Islander, multi-ethnic, and diasporic Asian identities. Through public events and resources, we seek to provide spaces for identity exploration, political education, community building, and advocacy.”
Asian American Advocacy Fund (AAAF) is “dedicated to building a politically conscious, engaged, and progressive Asian American base in Georgia.” AAAF advocates for federal, local, and state policies that will improve the lives of AAPI and all immigrant populations in Georgia.
The National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA), founded in 1996, is “a coalition of thirty-seven national Asian Pacific American organizations around the country. Based in Washington D.C., NCAPA serves to represent the interests of the greater Asian American (AA) and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities and to provide a national voice for AA and NHPI issues.”
Asian Pacific Fund COVID Recovery Fund will be distributed in grants to Bay Area nonprofits working to address critical issues including the rise in anti-Asian racism, higher fatality rates, higher unemployment, and increased bullying.
CAAAV builds grassroots power across low-income Asian immigrant and refugee communities in New York City to address the problems in Asian communities, target their root causes, and enact institutional change for racial, gender, and economic justice.
Apex for Youth “delivers possibilities to underserved Asian and immigrant youth from low-income families in New York City.” The organization provides mentorship and educational programs for students from grades 1 through 12.
We Are Not a Virus is a student-led organization that aims to end social stigma against Asians during COVID-19. #WeAreNotAVirus works to “fight racial injustice and coronavirus misinformation through education, resources, and advocacy.”
Damayan Migrant Workers Association is a grassroots organization, based in New York and New Jersey, of and for Filipino im/migrant workers and led by Filipino women domestic workers. Its mission is “to educate, organize and mobilize low wage Filipino workers to fight for their labor, health, gender and im/migration rights; to contribute to the building of the domestic workers movement for fair labor standards, dignity and justice; and to build workers’ power and solidarity towards justice and liberation.”
Heart of Dinner, a nonprofit based in New York City, organizes the delivery of fresh groceries and meals to elders in the AAPI community who are homebound or isolated, serving 1,500 community members each week in Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.
Education and Events
New York Public Library Celebrates AAPI Heritage Month
Throughout the month of May, the New York Public Library is hosting events and programs in celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, including live author talks and panels, book discussions, family storytime, writing workshops, and more.
A Path Forward: A Virtual Roundtable With Stop AAPI Hate
On May 11 at 7:30 PM EDT (4:30 PM PDT), Stop AAPI Hate will host a virtual discussion about their coalition and address the root causes of racism and xenophobia in our communities. Moderated by journalist Melissa Hung, this event will feature a conversation with Stop AAPI Hate leadership, including the following representatives from the coalition’s three founding organizations: Cynthia Choi from Chinese for Affirmative Action, Russell Jeung from the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University, and Manjusha Kulkarni from the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council.
Anti-Asian Violence and Black-Asian Solidarity Today
On March 23, sociologist, writer, editor, and artist Tamara K. Nopper delivered a virtual lecture in collaboration with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop that examined the “merging of fighting ‘anti-Asian violence’ with the promotion of ‘Black-Asian solidarity’ in the context of COVID-19.”
Challenging Anti-Asian Bias and Acting as an Ally
The Anti-Defamation League offers a roundup of materials for talking to children and young adults about racism targeting the AAPI community.
How to Respond to Coronavirus Racism (via Learning for Justice)
A four-step process for speaking up against bias.
Asian American Federation provides safety resources, in collaboration with experts from the Center for Anti-Violence Education, to teach targeted individuals how to de-escalate threatening situations and defend themselves in the event of anti-Asian violence. Flyers are available in five Asian languages.
Addressing Anti-Asian Violence
On March 11, Nikki Fortunato Bas, president of the Oakland City Council; Russell Jeung, author of Family Sacrifices: The Worldviews and Ethics of Chinese Americans; and Michelle Kim, author of The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good intentions and Real Change, discussed anti-Asian violence in the United States. The discussion was hosted by Michelle Meow, producer and host of The Michelle Meow Show, and presented by the Commonwealth Club of California.
#StopAsianHate National Day of Action and Healing
On Friday, March 26, NCAPA organized a virtual day to advocate for stopping Asian hate, recognizing the deep rotes of anti-Asian racism, and acknowledging that the AAPI community is not a monolith or a “single-issue constituency.” A worldwide vigil was held to honor the victims of the Atlanta shooting.
Mental Health Resources
The Asian Mental Health Collective works to “normalize and de-stigmatize mental health within the Asian community.” Among its many projects, it hosts a directory of Asian, Pacific Islander, South Asian American therapists.
Circles are live group sessions led by modern health therapists. They are hosting several upcoming sessions specifically for healing Asian communities (for those who self-identify as Asian) and for anti-racism discussions (open to all).
Asian American Mental Health Project aims to educate Pan-Asian communities about mental health, encourage people to identify issues and seek help, create a safe space to share experiences, as well as provide resources that make getting help more accessible.
Asian American Suicide Prevention & Education is a mental health support organization that includes information on twenty-four-hour suicide prevention hotlines, including one specifically serving the AAPI community that offers support in Cantonese, Fujianese, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin.
Organizations for Writers
Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) is a membership association that brings together journalists and media professionals to “advance diversity in newsrooms and ensure fair and accurate coverage of communities of color.”
Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW), established in 1991, is “devoted to creating, publishing, developing and disseminating creative writing by Asian Americans, and to providing an alternative literary arts space at the intersection of migration, race, and social justice.” The nonprofit runs workshops, readings, and fellowships, and also publishes a digital magazine.
Kundiman is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing generations of writers and readers of Asian American literature.
Reading Lists
“Radical Feminist Solidarities: A Reading List” (AAWW) is a list of books that have “shaped, catalyzed, and transformed their understandings and practices of solidarity,” compiled by leaders from Black Women Radicals and the Asian American Feminist Collective.
“A Literary Guide to Combat Anti-Asian Racism in America” (Electric Literature) is a list of fiction and nonfiction books to help readers “better understand the systematic structures of racism, inequity, and silencing that have let anti-Asian violence in America flourish.”
#StopAsianHate Reading List (Feminist Press) is a list of books by AAPI writers and thinkers.
Other Resource Lists
NCAPA, the Strategist, the WeChat Project, journalist Sarah Belle Lin, and AAJC have also compiled lists of resources for the AAPI community.
