Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California works together with our San Francisco affiliation Advancing Justice – ALC together as Advancing Justice – CA, a joint project working towards progress for AAPI’s and vulnerable communities statewide. We congratulate our talented policy team for drafting bill language, developing the advocacy blueprint, and working with local and state elected officials to ensure passage of a suite of policies that bring hundreds of millions of dollars in resources to our communities for the first time in history.
A-G COMPLETION IMPROVEMENT GRANT
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California was proud to sponsor the A-G Completion Improvement Grant, a grant that will allocate $547 million to creating greater access to A-G courses in California high schools. A-G courses are courses that students must complete if they want to apply to California’s public college systems – the California State University system or the University of California system. An alarming statistic shows that only 49% of California high schoolers are completing these courses. This is an issue that needs to be addressed at a systemic level because many high schools are not able to provide all the A-G courses that students need. Most often, these high schools that are unable to provide A-G courses are under-resourced and in low-income communities with students of color. Unless the student is motivated and takes the initiative to finish their A-G courses at a community college level, they are unable to move forward with their educational career.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California believes in the need to uplift under-resourced communities, invest in youth, and to give all students equal opportunities to succeed. The A-G Completion Improvement Grant addresses this by dedicating $300 million for schools that have an A-G completion rate of less than 67%, $100 million for schools that have a completion rate of greater than 67%, and finally $147 million to address learning loss in A-G courses. This grant is important and necessary because the money can then be used to amend the educational gap by investing in more teachers, onsite student counselors and advisors, and resources and trainings for both students and teachers. This hallmark legislation makes strides to support disadvantaged AANHPI community members and other communities of color to be competitive in their educational courses, which opens their pathway to higher education.
To read more on the grant, click here. To watch the vlog, click here.
API EQUITY BUDGET
This is the first time California is prioritizing investing in AANHPI safety; a change that comes at a crucial time as COVID-related Anti-Asian racism and hatred has risen. API Equity Budget seeks to address anti-Asian hate at the community level. It is a 3 year, $156.5 million investment that is broken into core investment areas. Of these core investment areas, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California looks forward to being a part of:
- $110 million to community-based organizations who are addressing anti-Asian hate by prevention and providing mental health services and resources to victims
- $10 million to restorative justice programs in schools that will address bullying, harassment, and discrimination by providing adequate mental health resources and creating safe spaces for students and staff to share their experiences.
- $1.5 million to a task force addressing educational attainment for first generation, low-income, Asian American and Pacific Islander students. This allotment is important because it will also address the model minority myth and how this myth detrimentally impacts our community on state and policy levels.
To read more about other API Equity Budget investments, please visit Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus and Stop AAPI Hate. To watch the vlog, click here.
THE VISION ACT
Did you know that California is a sanctuary state? This means that California local officials are supposed to be limiting cooperation with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency). Despite the California sanctuary state bill signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017, California is still seeing the CDCR (CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) and county and local jails voluntarily working together to initiate ICE transfers of undocumented folks who have earned their release. The VISION Act therefore calls for the continued protection of these community members who are eligible for release. It would ensure that local and state tax dollars are not being used to funnel immigrants between the prison and immigration detention center pipeline, to violate Constitutional rights, or to separate immigrant families and communities.
This act impacts the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities because many of our undocumented, refugee community members have found themselves in situations where they committed a petty crime in their youth, served their time, went on to have families and careers, and then were taken by ICE and deported back to countries that they were brought from, but have no recollection of.
To learn more about the VISION Act and to read stories about impacted families, please click here. To watch the vlog, click here.