Community groups fighting against the rise of hate crimes and related actions directed at Asians could start seeing some of a new $165.5 million state fund by the end of this year, state and local leaders said Monday, Nov. 15, during a news conference in Garden Grove.
Most of the California API Equity Fund, roughly $110 million, is expected to be awarded over the next three years to organizations with deep ties in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities that they serve. Such groups were the first to respond to the rise in hate crimes and hate incidents faulting Asian Americans for the coronavirus pandemic.
Those groups also have a track record of providing outreach and services that the legislators who support the fund want to see expanded, said Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, who chairs the Assembly’s budget committee.
Ting was one of several lawmakers who talked about the funding process with leaders of local groups such as the Orange County Asian & Pacific Islander Community Alliance Inc. (OCAPICA) and Korean Community Services. Others were state Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, and Irvine’s Vice Mayor Tammy Kim.
The money in the API Equity Budget, said Ting, is “just the first step” in the fight to combat recent anti-Asian backlash.
Ting and others who spoke at the gathering, held in a courtyard of St. Anselm Episcopal Church, linked the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes to racially-biased antipathy from former President Donald J. Trump. They noted Trump’s description of COVID-19 as the “China virus” and “kung flu,” terms Trump said he used because of the pandemic’s origins in Wuhan, China. While some in Trump’s party distanced themselves from such rhetoric, and many simply didn’t comment, others embraced it and continue to push similar messages.
In Orange County, home to the nation’s third largest population of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, the number of reported hate incidents targeting Asians jumped from five in 2019 to 76 in 2020, according to the latest Orange County Hate Crimes Report released in September by the OC Human Relations Commission.
The trend — which played out in varying degrees around the country — has continued into 2021.
“People are still afraid,” said Mary Anne Foo, executive director of OC Asian & Pacific Islander Community Alliance Group.
That fear, Foo noted, manifests in the form of depression, stomach aches, stress and anxiety and, for children, the added concern of being bullied or ostracized at school.
It’s also led to a strong response within the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. Min, D-Irvine, said he’s attended more than 100 events over the past two years aimed at fighting anti-Asian hate.
“People right now feel a license to go out and act on their anti-Asian hate,” Min said. “And there are far too many of them.”
Tricia Nguyen, chief executive officer of Southland Integrated Services, described an incident, in March, at their Garden Grove health clinic, as symbolic of the disturbing trend. An older Caucasian woman in a car yelled at clinic staff as they conducted an outdoor COVID-19 vaccination drive, and seemed to threaten that she would drive through a barricade set up to help guide motorists seeking a shot.
“Our staff ran inside,” Nguyen said, adding that the woman drove off but the incident was reported. “We were shocked.”
A few weeks before that, she said, a man came into the clinic to demand the removal of posters outside that depicted Asian and Latino families — the vast majority of the people served by the clinic. Shortly after that, she said the exterior of the building was hit with graffiti.
Foo said community organizations in Orange County plan to collaborate when applying for grant money from the API Equity Fund.
“We’d rather all work together,” Foo said.
Ting said applications should be released to community organizations this month, with the process overseen by the state Department of Social Services. Elements of the fund include $10 million set-asides in each of several key areas:
• The Stop AAPI Hate coalition, which operates a website, based out of UC San Francisco, to track anti-Asian and Pacific Islander hate, and push for effective responses.
• The AAPI Data Project for policy research and collection of demographic data.
• Anti-bias and restorative justice programs in schools.
• Ethnic media outlets serving the state’s Asian American communities.
• Creation of a new statewide hotline to report hate crimes and related incidents, along with providing information on resources for victims of such incidents.
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