Dear Friends,
On the occasion of our 50th Anniversary, we recommit to our vision and legacy of activism and power building. We are stronger today because of your support. With our significant increase in staff capacity and a second office in Oakland, our growth in the past few years has been necessary to meet the growing needs of our communities. Just to recap some of the challenges that we’ve faced in the past few years: We had to quickly ramp up our anti-deportation strategies, support communities torn apart by the Muslim & African Bans, expand our outreach and clinics to more immigrant tenants and workers and help them fight back, address COVID-19 impacts on our communities, including anti-AAPI hate violence, and attacks on our democracy. In these fights, our vision to empower the most marginalized in our communities through community lawyering has been our guide to victories and continues to be our north star.
But we cannot just be in rapid response mode. The theme of our 50th Anniversary, “Tomorrow’s World is Ours To Build,” inspired by the activist Yuri Kochiyama, calls on us to continue to secure near-term victories and build durable movements. On this milestone anniversary, we’ve been reflecting on what we’ve built together since our founding alongside the Asian American Movement, the protests against the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights Movement.
We continue to learn from our communities. We’ve learned that a national strategy does not only mean federal advocacy. We are a political force as a community - and we have a responsibility to make clear-eyed choices about how we wield that power. It means investing in growing AAPI communities across the nation with technical legal expertise, peer to peer learning, and resources.
We are supporting newer API organizations in Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. Like the founders of ALC, these advocates are scrappy, passionate about community and down for the fight. Closer to home, we have expanded our partnerships statewide from northern Siskiyou County all the way to San Diego.
Meanwhile, we are committed to deepening our local work. Many of the policies we advance at the state level began in the Bay Area, like separating police from ICE, ensuring language access for workers, voters and tenants, and preventing unfettered surveillance of Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and Black communities. We will continue to work hand in hand with our long term partners in the Bay Area.
Also, at this moment, we have an opportunity to define what it means to be Asian and Pacific Islander. If we don’t, those with more power and resources will define it for us. Anti-immigrant, anti-Black, anti-Asian, anti-worker, anti-democratic forces are seeking to divide to retain their threatened power.
But to do the work in the wide world, ALC must have a firm foundation at home.
We are so grateful that we have built a team that looks out for one another, especially in those moments of crisis, and when knocked down, figures out together how to get back up and try again. That internal strength is what will enable us to keep struggling, grappling with big questions about how we best meet the moment and enact change step by step, to the world we know can exist. We will continue to pursue the growth we know is necessary AND contend deeply with what too often makes it impossible for organizations like ALC to persist. That means investing in our infrastructure and most importantly our staff. That means prioritizing the resources, time, and attention it takes to sustain a healthy organization that lives the values we espouse to the world.
The world we want to build is on the horizon but it will take all of us. In fact, it will take more of us - and we will build power together in ways that spread abundant, collective action. Thank you for being with us. We need you.
In community,
Aarti Kohli, Executive Director
Lily Wang, Deputy Director
Jacob Smith Yang, Director of Human Resources and Administration