- We were forced out our country,
and adjusting to America was very, very difficult for me.
And I made a mistake.
I got caught up with the law at the age of 17.
ICE had ordered me deported to Cambodia,
and I've been on the deportation list since '95.
- Kab's story is just one in a fraught history
of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,
commonly referred to as AAPIs.
- Southeast Asians fleeing from countries destabilized
by the U.S. didn't have a chance.
Having been refugee kids,
growing up,
pushed out of school,
in prisons,
and then you get out and then you're faced
with a deportation order.
- I consider myself as American.
I have two children that is American citizen.
- Like many in our country,
the 22 million-strong AAPI community holds a vast array
of experiences, whether an immigrant or born here,
documented or undocumented.
- There's complexity within the community.
There's different ethnicities and languages,
but the complexities are an asset.
- There's a growing effort to harness
these unique experiences and perspectives and turn
them into a movement that ensures the community
is better represented in the national conversation.
- The best individuals to address the problems
are those who are directly impacted.
- Civic engagement is about building
those connections and the 'people power.'
Being able to show up at mass together
to say that, "We deserve better."
- It's a movement that can serve
as inspiration for anyone fighting
for a better, more inclusive future.
- Civic engagement is so important because
it challenges so many stereotypes.
We're the group you didn't bet on
that are really engaged, and we are dedicated to this
because we live here.
This is our home. We want it to be better.
- Asian Americans are not excluded from how
race is both entrenched and impacts communities.
Unfortunately, that story is not always understood.
The history of violence and injustice of Asian Americans
and Pacific Islanders are not new.
The Rock Spring Massacre,
The Page Act,
Chinese Exclusion Act.
This injustice and discrimination
was codified by law.
If we know how embedded this is,
the solutions we push for
have to be bigger and bolder than before.
- This history of AAPIs has led to
a lack of engagement in civic life,
which, in turn, has resulted in the community
being underrepresented in places of power.
The AAPI Civic Engagement Fund
was formed to turn that around.
- Until our formation,
funding to local AAPI community groups
have been chaotic and episodic.
When you're looking at a constituency
that has been historically underinvested in,
in order to catch up, there really has to be
deep investment year-round
to support community engagement.
- The fund supports many different groups
to address the unique challenges people face;
from crisis response
to expanding voting access
to fighting deportation.
One example of that is Advancing Justice Atlanta
or AAAJ.
- 'Atlanta 911 Operator 77,
how may I address your emergency?'
- 'Please just come, okay?'
- 'Breaking news tonight, in that deadly massacre
that happened overnight at three Asian spas
in the Atlanta area.
Six of the victims who died, were Asian women.'
- When the shooting had happened,
we were on the phone all night long.
Our organization gathered all these folks
for a community call at 8:00 a.m.,
and it was social service providers,
attorneys, counselors.
We quickly got information.
And then we set up an emergency fund.
The anti-Asian hate didn't go away after the shooting.
Our hate mail really went up.
So we're fighting back that rhetoric all the time
through our legal services, advocacy work,
and our civic engagement and organizing work.
- AAAJ's work extends to everywhere their community
experiences barriers to fully participating in civic life.
- Today, we're in Duluth and we're trying to catch people
as they're exiting the store, just trying to see
if they're registered to vote.
In Georgia, there's actually no requirement statewide
that there needs to be translators
or interpreters at the polls.
So that's just one example of how there can be
systemic barriers to people who might not speak English
or potentially are immigrants that prevent them from voting.
- But civic engagement also means
affecting policy change outside of the election cycle.
So the fund works with groups
like the Southeast Asian Freedom Network
to empower people who have been impacted
by regressive policies.
- After the United States military came into Cambodia,
Laos, and Vietnam and destabilized the countries,
Southeast Asians come to here, sort of, with the promise
of stabilization, of full democracy.
But when we came together and support each other,
they called us gangs and then threw us into gang databases,
out of schools, into prisons.
And for many folks in my generation of Cambodians
now face a deportation crisis.
- So we're excited to be here,
'cause Movement Ground Farm is part of the SEAFN family.
Building community, building safer,
brave spaces to talk about it helps families
help the individuals with orders.
And when you talk about it,
then you're able to find solutions.
- This is big for us, because it gives us a chance to bond.
And it's kind of a relief too,
to be able, just to come and hang out
away from the fighting deportation.
It definitely gives me therapy in a way.
It helps me cope with my problem.
- SEAFN has not only destigmatized deportation
for many of those affected,
but has also been able to leverage the power
of its national network to bring back deportees
and reunite them with their families.
The fund's work has been critical to advocating
for better outcomes in the AAPI community.
While everyone in the community
has a unique story,
their experiences are not unlike many
who have had to fight injustices.
It's an example of how we can come together
to build a more inclusive democracy.
- It's through those types of fights
against oppressive systems that we can learn about
how to build power together and where we can win.
When you see all of those experiences together
and the community feels empowered,
then the future can be different.