Voting Rights

Aashika (she/her) is a Community Advocate in the Voting Rights Program at Advancing Justice - ALC.

Prior to ALC, she worked as a Voting Rights & Policy Fellow with the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, an organization that advocates for the rights of immigrants and refugees. Additionally, Aashika participated in democracy-based internship programs at Common Cause and the Center for American Progress.

She received her undergraduate degree in Political Science: Public Policy from the University of California, San Diego.

Aashika was raised in Southern California - during her free time she enjoys playing tennis and trying new food spots.

Deanna Kitamura is a Managing Attorney with the Asian Law Caucus' Voting Rights Program. Her work focuses on protecting the vote and expanding access to the polls for AAPI voters. Before joining ALC, Deanna was a Senior Staff Attorney at Partnership for Working Families where she provided legal support to grassroot organizations. For nearly a decade before that, Deanna worked at Advancing Justice-Los Angeles – first as the Statewide Redistricting Manager and later as Senior Staff Attorney and Voting Rights Project Director. She has filed lawsuits resulting in cities converting from at-large to district elections and has co-authored various reports, including Voices of Democracy: The State of Language Access in California’s November 2016 Elections. Deanna has worked on legislation involving California’s automatic voter registration process, the administration of vote centers, and language access improvements for voters. She has served on several local and state election-related committees and is a member of the California Secretary of State’s Language Accessibility Advisory Committee.

Deanna has dedicated her legal career to working on social justice issues. In addition to the nonprofits listed above, she has worked at Western Center on Law & Poverty, the National Consumer Law Center, and California Rural Legal Assistance. She began her career working on employment discrimination cases at a civil rights litigation firm. Deanna graduated from Pomona College and UCLA School of Law.

Sietse Goffard is the Senior Program Coordinator on the Voting Rights team at the Asian Law Caucus. His work focuses on fair redistricting and voter empowerment. Sietse previously worked on affordable housing and Section 8 rental assistance programs for the City of Boston. He also spent several years at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) leading projects to tackle racial discrimination in housing and lending. His research and articles have been published by the Brookings Institution, Cato Institute, US-China Perception Monitor, and National Bureau of Economic Research. In addition, Sietse is an avid public transportation enthusiast and served on the advisory council of Washington D.C.’s transit system to advocate for more equitable metro and bus coverage.

Sietse completed his graduate studies at Harvard Kennedy School and at Tsinghua University as a Schwarzman Scholar. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, where he served as class president and co-led a citizenship mentoring program for elderly Asian immigrants.