Building a stronger America and a better Silicon Valley with greater Asian Pacific American participation.

Our Values ("CARE")

• Community - We value and embrace cultural diversity among all communities whose language, culture, traditions, and histories enrich our society.

• Advocacy - We value strength of moral conviction and freedom of speech to address issues of meaningful social importance.

• Reliability - We value and embrace honesty, integrity, and responsiveness to the community in providing our services.

 • Enlightenment - We value and embrace education and enlightened thought within the community.

Today's Situation 

According to the 2000 Census approximately 26% of residents in Santa Clara County are Asian Pacific American

• APA Pockets of between 30-55% APA residency exist in several Santa Clara County cities. • The APA population in Milpitas is 52%, Cupertino is 45%, and Sunnyvale is 33%.

• New APA community leaders need to be educated and trained on a broad range of social and public policy issues in order to serve all residents that they represent.

• The APA community is becoming more diverse; this presents challenges in focusing on common goals for the APA community and entire Santa Clara County community as a whole. • APA community must be both reactive to address issues affecting the community today, as well as proactive by planning for the future. Our Goals

• Break down barriers to APA opportunity by building relationships between the different APA communities;

• Make connections with the entire community;

• Encourage civic engagement among APAs through leadership training and voter outreach; and

• Create sound policies and legislation by working with legislators and leaders in the community.

Objectives

• Create an APA Rapid Response Council with the goal of bringing the APA community together to respond rapidly to acts of discrimination and injustice.

 • Create a year-long Public Policy Education Program for community leaders to become educated on the top issues of the day to prepare those leaders for public service.

• Support and/or create supportive public policy for the APA community and greater Santa Clara County community.

• Promote voter registration and education.

General Plan for Achieving Rapid Response Council

• Communicate with leading APA groups and propose the creation of mechanisms by which each group will make a decision on an emergent issue within 12-16 hours and join together with the entire Council to announce opinion at a press conference.

• Organize through the Council groups and how to follow-up after press conference with pressure on decision makers and/or offenders to address APA concerns.

• Hold meetings to continue to work the problem until the matter or issue is resolved.

General Plan for Creating Policy Education Program

• Create public policy curriculum involving the top issues affecting the lives of APAs and the entire Santa Clara County community (e.g. Healthcare, Land Use, Transportation, City & County Budgeting, Juvenile Justice, Education, Immigration, etc.)

• Ask top legislators and experts in each of the fields to lecture on the key issues each community member should be aware of for each given issue.

• Visit community groups to get out the word to community leaders and those interested in learning about issues to enroll in the program.

• Encourage participants to seek out appointments for boards and commissions or run for office.

 General Plan for Supporting or Creating Good Public Policy

• Communicate with federal, state, and local elected officials to track issues affecting the community.

• Select important issues on the legislative agenda and not on the agenda and fight for those issues.

• If appropriate, draft ballot measures to advocate for those issues.

• Campaign for those important issues until adoption or passage.

General Plan for Increasing Voter Registration & Turnout

• Contact and assist groups dedicated to increasing voter registration and turnout.

• Gather statistics on voter registration, voting patterns, and turnout and present these to the community.

• Use information to identify areas and pockets of low voter registration or turnout and focus efforts in those areas.

Conclusion

Asian Americans for Community Involvement would like to help the APA community organize and educate themselves to meet community challenges, be engaged in policy, participate in elections, and dedicated to public service.