Asian Resource Hub
Rising incidents of hatred against the AAPI communities lead to creation of a comprehensive national resource database.
Asian Resource Hub
The Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) and the Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL), two among America’s leading advocacy organizations serving the AAPI communities, have come together with tech giant Microsoft to create the Asian Resource Hub. This is the first national searchable digital directory of resources and data relating to the AAPI community to support survivors of hate incidents.
The launch of the Asian Resource Hub was announced on February 29 at a news briefing by Ethnic Media Services (EMS). The resource hub offers searchable information on AAPI community-serving organizations that offer legal aid, social services, mental health support, policy advocacy, and civic engagement opportunities.
Salient Features of the Asian Resource Hub
The Asian Resource Hub provides:
- Nationwide resources for culturally competent services in languages like Korean, Vietnamese, simplified and traditional Chinese; plans to expand to Hindi, Teymur and Tagalog (Filipino)
- Emergency and Crisis Hotline link
- Community Reporting Tools for AAPI hate incidents
- Data on hate crimes combined from FBI and local law enforcement agencies, as well as public and nonprofit sources
- Timelines of key policies, events, and personal narratives related to anti-Asian discriminatory and hate incidents, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act and Stop Asian Hate community protests nationwide
- The impact of hate on Asian populations is amplified through photographs, charts, maps, pop-up text stories, and other visualizations
- Storytelling format used to illustrate facts about the AAPI people and the hate they face
- A national directory of community-based organizations offering free or low-cost direct services to support those experiencing anti-Asian discrimination
- 100 organizations listed currently, each vetted by the AJSOCAL or its close partners.
- Provision for users to propose new organizations as resources.
Why was the resource hub needed?
The creation of this comprehensive national directory of resources was in response to the spate of anti-AAPI hate incidents and discriminatory incidents against the AAPI community since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Consider these statistics. In the past 20 years, the Asian American population grew 102% (US Census Bureau 2000, 2020 Decennial Census). Over 10,000 anti-Asian hate incidents were reported in 2021 (StopAAPIHate/Asian Resource Hub). According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, between 2020 and 2021, there was a 339% increase in anti-AAPI hate incidents reported in the U.S. This in a situation where a vast majority of hate crimes and incidents go unreported.
Presenting at the EMS briefing, AJ SOCAL Chief Executive Officer, Connie Chung Joe spoke of a community survey of anti-Asian hate done at the height of the pandemic in the San Gabriel Valley area of LA. “We discovered that the majority of AAPI community members did not feel there was support for those experiencing racial discrimination and harassment,” she said.
The need for a pan-American resource hub for the AAPI community was well established.
Language barriers hindered access to aid
Even in places where counseling and other resources existed, many people from the AAPI community could not access them in a timely manner due to language barriers. To combat this lacuna, AJSOCAL, AAJC partnered with Microsoft to establish a cultural and language-accessible platform for the AAPI community.
Merisa Heu-Weller, General Manager of Innovation and Society at Microsoft also recalled that the surge in the anti-Asian hatred witnessed during and since the pandemic was – “like a constant barrage of stories of Asian people being attacked verbally, physically or mentally.” For her, as a third-generation Japanese American, the hub epitomized her “vision of using data and technology to protect fundamental human rights.”
Understanding untold stories
AAJC President and Executive Director John C.Yang said at the EMS briefing, “Too often these stories of the impact of Asian hate went untold or were not told with our communities perspectives in mind.” said “In the face of dramatically increased anti-Asian hate incidents since 2020, when we are seeing our elders attacked, we’re seeing our peers hurt. We’re seeing our community members afraid to walk outside. We wanted to allow people to understand our community in a different way through this directory.”
In many instances, “incidents of hate” against the community are not severe enough to be categorized as “hate crimes” as defined in the criminal statutes, like assault, battery, or even killings in extreme cases. “However, that doesn’t minimize the impact on our community”, said AJSOCAL Senior Research Analyst Steven Zhang.
He further added that about 100 organizations are now part of the national directory of community-based organizations that “offer either free or low-cost direct services to support those experiencing anti-Asian discrimination. Each one has been personally vetted by us or by one of our close partners, to make sure that it’s legitimate and active. We don’t want to send people down a closed door.”
This resource is supported in whole or in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program. To report a hate incident or hate crime and get support, go to CA vs Hate.
