PACAANHPI: Response to Belonging, Inclusion, Anti-Asian Hate, Anti- Discrimination; Data Disaggregation; Immigration and Citizenship Status; and Language Access Subcommittees’ Questions

Via electronic submission

February 28, 2024

President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

Office of the Secretary, Office for Civil Rights 

Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Room 620E 

200 Independence Ave. SW

Washington, DC 20201 

AANHPICommission@hhs.gov

RE:      PACAANHPI: Response to Belonging, Inclusion, Anti-Asian Hate, Anti-Discrimination; Data Disaggregation; Immigration and Citizenship Status; and Language Access Subcommittees’ Questions

Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC (“Advancing Justice | AAJC”) submit the following comment in response to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Announcement of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (“PACAANHPI”) Meeting and Solicitation for Written Comment.

Advancing Justice | AAJC is a national, non-profit, non-partisan organization that was founded in 1991. Our mission is to advance the civil and human rights of Asian Americans and to build and promote a fair and equitable society for all. Advancing Justice | AAJC is the civil rights voice of the Asian American community—among the fastest-growing populations in the U.S.—fighting for our civil rights through education, litigation, and public policy advocacy. We serve to empower our communities by bringing local and national constituencies together and ensuring that Asian Americans are able to participate fully in our democracy.

Belonging, Inclusion, Anti-Asian Hate, Anti-Discrimination Subcommittee Questions:

a) Please describe policies, programs, models, or best practices that have been effective in reducing race-based violence, cyberbullying, or bias targeting AA and NHPI communities, including any programs geared toward children or youth.

Addressing race-based violence, bias, and the climate of fear that Asian American communities continue to face requires a multi-faceted approach. First, we must address anti-Asian hate, including calling out and putting an end to xenophobic and racist rhetoric and scapegoating of our communities.

As we have shared in past comments, better data are vital to support informed decision-making about hate crime and hate incidents, and to determine the most effective methods of prevention and response. 

In addition, the needs and concerns of Asian Americans must be included in all aspects of policymaking at all levels of government, including providing culturally competent and linguistically accessible services and improving enforcement of federal nondiscrimination laws. This includes ending profiling and taking care not to perpetuate harmful programs like the recently terminated “China Initiative.” Furthermore, we must take care not to create new laws and advance policies that perpetuate discrimination and systemic racism. We also must have greater investment in and engagement of the Asian American community, including engagement with organizations that work directly with impacted communities at the local level.

Finally, in the short term, we must continue to educate communities and provide tools people can use to respond when they see or experience hate and harassment. And in the long-term, we as a nation must provide education from the earliest grades on the histories of our diverse communities to ensure Asian Americans, and all Americans, are seen as equally integral to American history and American society.

Advancing Justice | AAJC has submitted information on our work with Right To Be to provide bystander intervention training as a means to reduce race-based violence and bias against Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities to the White House in the lead-up to its United We Stand Summit convened on September 15, 2022. Please see the Case Study included as an appendix to this comment.