Hate Crimes and the AAPI Community: Standing up to Racist Attacks by White Supremacists and the Far Right

Please join us for this discussion on the role of the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in standing up to the far right, and how members of all communities targeted by racism and fascism must join together to resist such hateful assaults.

Deepa Iyer is a South Asian American writer, lawyer, strategist, facilitator, and coach. She is currently the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Building Movement Project where she manages projects related to multiracial solidarity and develops resources to cultivate social change practices. Iyer served as executive director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) for a decade, and has held positions at Race Forward, the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center, and the Asian American Justice Center.

Aryani Ong is a civil rights attorney, activist and consultant who has worked on Asian American issues for 30 years.  She currently is working on a national landscape study of Asian American and Pacific Islander organizations to inform a new foundation created to assist the community with self-advocacy around hate crimes and ethnic profiling.  Aryani is also the co-founder and Senior Advisor to Communities United Against Hate in Montgomery County.  She has tracked hate crime data for national reports, written a community response guide, lobbied for stronger federal law and spoken before audiences nationally and before the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Alvina Yeh is the Executive Director of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance (APALA) and Institute for Asian Pacific American Leadership & Advancement (IAPALA).  Originally from Colorado, Alvina comes from a Chinese family who fled from the war in Vietnam. Alvina is a lifelong community organizer with experience in electoral and issue-based campaigns. Alvina currently serves as the Co-Chair of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA) and serves the following organizations: Congressional Progressive Caucus Center Advisory Board, National Korean American Service & Education Consortium Action Fund (NAKASEC AF) Board, and the Solidarity Center.