Community Empowerment

When we received a phone call from community organizers who were worried about their voting rights in Pleasant Hill, California, we jumped into action. The city council was planning to adopt new districts comprised of jagged lines that would have kept incumbents in their seats and created a district that would diminish voter impact in the area with the largest population of Asian, Latino, and mixed race residents.

We joined with community leaders from organizations including the Pleasant Hill Community Alliance and the League of Women Voters of Diablo Valley to mobilize local citizens to engage with the process. As more and more people began to express their concern, we reached a tipping point, and the council could no longer ignore our voices.

We supported community members as they pushed for, and were granted, a town hall. That created an exchange of ideas, a true conversation between the council and the citizens. Community members brought their own maps and presented them to the council, and in the end the city council decided to adopt a community-member submitted map, one that doesn’t protect incumbents and provides better representation for communities of color.

What happened in Pleasant Hill is a reminder that when we stand together we build power. In 2024, we will utilize a number of community empowerment tools including education, outreach, and poll monitoring to ensure a vibrant, multiracial democracy. Learn more about our Voting Rights program.

Community safety is a complex issue that requires a multi-faceted approach. We have underinvested in affordable housing, living wage jobs, and reliable and affordable mental and physical healthcare, essential services that lead to healthier and safer communities. In their absence, our communities become vulnerable to instability and violence. However, even when these basic needs go unmet, we can help make communities more safe and resilient. ALC’s new Legal Clinic for Victims and Survivors of Violence provides free legal consultation and limited-scope representation to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community focused on helping community members navigate the criminal legal system, define what they need to recover from harm and feel safe, and explore options in and beyond the legal system to achieve those goals.

Through our direct legal services we have found that victims are often re-traumatized by the criminal legal system because it is designed to punish harm-doers but not equipped to heal people who have suffered harm. For example, many victims and survivors want to know why the perpetrator chose to harm them—but the criminal legal system is designed to impose sentences on perpetrators rather than create a space for answering these kinds of questions. The system also denies agency and control to victims and survivors in ways that make it harder to heal, find wholeness, or reach closure. Last year, for example, one client told us that the prosecutor handling their case dismissed their questions, which amplified the client’s fears and left the client feeling even more vulnerable.

We launched the clinic to help clients navigate their interactions with law enforcement and to connect them with trusted programs that help people achieve what the criminal legal system does not: reach goals for healing, accountability, and safety on terms set by the survivor. The clinic currently receives client referrals from Asian Health Services in Alameda County and Community Youth Center in San Francisco, as well as directly through our intake line. Volunteer attorneys at the clinic provide holistic legal counseling and make referrals to community partners, including to restorative justice practitioners.

With your support, we will grow the clinic in 2024 and continue our program with the aim to create safer places to live in ways that will empower low-income and immigrant AAPI communities throughout the Bay Area. Learn more about our Community Safety program.

When our team attended the United Nations Human Rights Committee this past fall in Geneva, we provided testimony based on our work with clients on ways the U.S. violates our communities’ civil rights under the guise of national security. For example, a graduate student at a local university was studying at home when two Department of Homeland Security agents paid them a visit. The agents asked the student questions about their research, any “military applications” it might have, and about their contacts in their home country without articulating any reasonable suspicion. This kind of questioning based solely on the student’s national origin is unlawful and unacceptable to our communities.

To fight back against these civil rights violations, we educate and empower our communities. Partnering with organizations like the Islamic Center of Alameda, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and the Asian American Research Center at UC Berkeley, we held Know Your Rights events to provide legal resources as well as the knowledge community members need when faced with civil rights abuses. We also provide legal support, such as our representation, along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, of three Stanford students who are facing retaliation and potential administrative discipline for exercising their constitutional rights to free speech as well as assembly.

With your support, we enter an uncertain election year in 2024 with a commitment to fight hate and violence against those impacted by unjust national security policies and build a more just and inclusive country where everyone can live safely and with dignity. Learn more about our National Security & Civil Rights program.