Make your voice heard on issues that are important to AAPI communities
This year’s NAPABA Lobby Day will be held on May 18 and 19 in observance of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! This is our second virtual Lobby Day and 11th annual event.
Lobby Day is an opportunity for NAPABA members from across the country to educate members of Congress and Congressional staffers on issues of importance to the AAPI community. This year, our agenda includes addressing anti-Asian hate with a focus on what Congress and the federal government can do to stop bias from taking root and how to support victims.
Register today to ensure that your voices and advocacy for justice, equity, and opportunity for all AAPIs are heard from your home districts to the halls of Congress!
The deadline is register is April 30. Learn more about Lobby Day and bookmark the page for the latest information. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].
We pause to remember the lives of eight people lost, including six Asian women, in the Atlanta-area shootings one year ago. As we continue to grapple with the continued impact of anti-Asian hate and violence on our communities, we hope you are taking care and finding space for reflection and healing. We invite you to join and share events from the NAPABA community and affiliates.
Georgia Asian Pacific American Bar Association: March 16 Remembrance Event “Lest We Forget” Wednesday, March 23, 2022 | 5:00 – 7:00 pm ET Location: Nelson Mullins – Atlanta, GA
Join GAPABA in partnership with The AAPI Crime Victims & Education Fund, The GAPABA Law Foundation, NAAAP-Atlanta, and Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta. Register for the event here.
All proceeds go towards the AAPI Crime Victims & Education Fund. If you would like to make an extra online donation, you may do so here.
On March 15, 2022, the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Colorado is hosting a press conference and panel discussion at the Colorado School of Public Health’s Injury & Violence Prevention Center where members of the media and community are invited to learn about the issues impacting the AAPI community and what the community needs in order to end gun violence and hate crimes. Following the press conference, a panel will discuss resources for coping with the trauma associated with community victimization, and tools for where we – as a community – go from here. Register here to attend in-person or via Zoom.
Asian American Bar Association of Houston and Asian American Bar Foundation of Houston: “Break the Silence: Justice for Asian Women” Wednesday, March 16, 2022 | 6:00 pm CT Location: Discovery Green, Downtown Houston
On March 16, 2022, the Asian American Bar Association of Houston is sponsoring the Houston component of the National Asian Women’s rally on the one-year anniversary of the tragic Atlanta spa shootings.
Similar rallies will take place simultaneously in Atlanta, Houston, New York, San Francisco, Sacramento, Washington D.C., and other cities around the country. The Houston rally will be held at Discovery Green in downtown Houston at 6:00 pm CT.
The goal of the event is to uplift the experiences of API women by acknowledging the complexities of their struggles, demanding change, and celebrating women’s strength. Conscious of the anniversary of the Atlanta shootings, and the one too many tragedies in over the last year, this event is meant to emphasize that the violence enacted on API women’s bodies does not solely define their identities and existence.
Photograph and information courtesy of the Museum of Chinese in America
The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), in celebration of receiving a generous donation from Mackenzie Scott, is open with free admissionfor all throughout the run of the Responses exhibition, ending March 27, 2022.
Responses is an offering to our country in a moment of crisis. Chinese and Asian Americans are being blamed as the genesis of the coronavirus and targeted in assaults across the country, harming their bodies as well as their sense of belonging. To help us navigate what is happening, the exhibition explores the lessons of history and raises a collective voice against the rising tide of anti-Asian hate and violence.
As part of Responses, MOCA has commissioned new music composers ARKAI (Philip Sheegog and Jonathan Miron) and modern dance company J CHEN PROJECT to create new time-based works responding to and interpreting the exhibition’s themes. Visit MOCA’s website (mocanyc.org) for live, in-person performance schedules.
No reservations needed for individual visits.
The Museum is open during the following hours:
Sunday 11AM – 6PM
Monday – Wednesday CLOSED
Thursday 11AM – 9PM
Friday 11AM – 6PM
Saturday 11AM – 6PM
The museum is located at 215 Centre Street, New York, NY 10013.
About MOCA
The Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) aims to engage audiences in an ongoing and historical dialogue, in which people of all backgrounds are able to see American history through a critical perspective, to reflect on their own experiences, and to make meaningful connections between: the past and the present, the global and the local, themselves and others.
The Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award, NAPABA’s premier lifetime honor, recognizes Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) attorneys who have spent their careers advocating for AAPIs within the legal profession, becoming pioneers in their field of practice. This year, Andrew (“Andy”) T. Hahn Sr., one of the 2021 Trailblazer Award recipients, will join the ranks of those distinguished for their contributions.
For Andy Hahn, leadership and service have always been integral components of his career path. Andy has accumulated a plethora of impressive accolades and achievements over his career spanning more than three decades, such as: US Army JAG officer, successful commercial litigator, and President of NAPABA, AABANY, and KALAGNY.
Andy has continually had to prove, both to himself and to others, that, as a son of Korean American immigrants, he could succeed in his career and find a place within American society as an Asian American.
“Growing up as a kid…I stuck out like a sore thumb,” Andy recalls. “I was subject to a lot of bullying and bigotry.”
It was this resentment of ostracization (as well as a fascination with guns and explosives in his youth) that motivated Andy to enlist in the military. He quickly found his niche in the armed forces, graduating as a Distinguished Military Graduate from Cornell University, with ambitions to pursue a full-time military career in the Special Forces. Andy’s mother, disagreeing with his choice, instead encouraged him to aim for a career in law. Fortunately, becoming a lawyer was Andy’s additional career interest. After being granted a deferment from active duty, Andy completed his legal studies at Cornell Law School.
With a desire to meet more Asian lawyers with similar backgrounds as himself, Andy discovered AABANY early in his career. As an AABANY member, he met Chris Chang, one of the founding members of AABANY and a former chair of the Judiciary Committee. Chris became a valuable mentor to Andy as he explored the workings of the New York court system.
In the past, many Asian Americans practiced law within the transactional fields, such as corporate law and real estate law, and as Andy noted, “none of [the fields] which involved the adversarial process.” In Andy’s view, language barriers and improved career prospects in transactional law contributed to the lack of Asian Americans within litigation. As he gained litigation experience, Andy continued to stand out in becoming one of the first waves of AAPI attorneys to attain partnership at a big law firm in New York City.
Andy remains a firm believer in the power of mentorship and guidance for those just starting out in their careers. Recalling his experience meeting and mentoring law school students and graduates, Andy observed that many Asian Americans remain as “first generation Asian lawyers” within their families; these students or graduates could point to no one in their family who had been involved in the legal profession. At a time when Asian American interest in law is increasing, creating more opportunities for mentorship becomes even more critical.
Andy believes that anti-Asian hate remains the single greatest threat to the AAPI community and AAPI legal professionals today. Until the onset of the pandemic Andy has never seen a high prevalence of anti-Asian hate during his decades of involvement with AABANY and NAPABA, but he notes that there always has been an “undercurrent” of perceiving Asian Americans as foreign. Despite the widespread social movements that have catapulted issues of race and diversity into the national spotlight, Andy feels that big law firm and corporate commitments to diversity and inclusion remain “a lot of lip service.”
“If you look at … the statistics, [attorneys of color] within law firms have not improved in the last two decades…. By the time you get to the leadership positions, it’s pretty much all white people.” For Andy, who serves as Chief Diversity Officer at Hawkins, Delafield, and Wood LLP, his formula for maintaining diversity at his own law firm is simple: recruitment, retention, and promotion. It’s a formula that organizations, such as AABANY, continue to advocate for.
In light of the challenges Asian Americans face, Andy observes positive changes within the Asian American community: “If there is any silver lining with some of this anti-Asian hate, it brings our community together…. We’ve learned … how to stand up for ourselves.” Certainly, through his career as a litigator, leader, and advocate, Andy has never ceased to stand up for himself, the legal profession, and the Asian American community. His achievements and accomplishments demonstrate his endless “vision, courage, and tenacity” needed to become a pioneer, as well as his willingness to break barriers and stereotypes in his career path.
NAPABA will hold a reception on Friday evening, December 10, for all the Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Award honorees at the Convention in Washington, D.C., and the awards will be presented at the Gala Dinner on Saturday evening. Please join AABANY in congratulating Andy Hahn on this well-deserved honor and recognition!
In recognition of October as National Bullying Prevention month, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) is proud to announce that the American Arbitration Association’s International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA-ICDR) Foundation has awarded it grant funding under its Rapid Response Fund which focuses on conflict-resolution initiatives helping Asian American/Pacific Islander communities combat the surge in anti-Asian hate across the United States.
“NAPABA is grateful to the AAA-ICDR Foundation for its generous support on this critical project,” said A.B. Cruz III, president of NAPABA. “With thousands of cases of anti-Asian hate crimes and incidents—and seemingly no end in sight—we must do all we can to protect the most vulnerable victims of hate—children, and stand up for them harnessing the power of our nationwide network of affiliates as trained advocates.”
The award, made through the NAPABA Law Foundation, will be used, in part, to develop a toolkit to combat COVID-19-driven anti-Asian bullying in schools as well as for other anti-bullying advocacy efforts. The toolkit will seek to equip and train NAPABA affiliates on legal and non-legal responses alike and provide best practices on how to interact with school officials. The toolkit is aimed at educating not only NAPABA lawyers on conducting best advocacy practices, but also to help families, students, educators, and communities understand the availability of remedies including appropriate alternative dispute resolution approaches to addressing anti-Asian bullying. For more on the AAA-ICDR Foundation and its Rapid Response efforts to combat the surge in anti-Asian hate, please visit here.
The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), represents the interests of over 60,000 Asian Pacific American (APA) legal professionals and nearly 90 national, state, and local APA bar associations. NAPABA is a leader in addressing civil rights issues confronting APA communities. Through its national network, NAPABA provides a strong voice for increased diversity of the federal and state judiciaries, advocates for equal opportunity in the workplace, works to eliminate hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, and promotes the professional development of people of all backgrounds in the legal profession.
The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) is proud to announce that The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) has named it a National Network partner in its investment, coordination, and collaboration efforts to combat anti-Asian hate. NAPABA, along with other leading advocacy organizations, has received initial grant funding to support ongoing activities in anti-hate tracking, protection, response, and prevention measures. TAAF has invited NAPABA to partner in this effort in part due to recognizing NAPABA’s work in building a national civil rights infrastructure that harnesses the legal power, strength in numbers, geographic diversity, and linguistic abilities of NAPABA’s nearly 90 affiliated Asian Pacific American organizations.
“TAAF recognizes that the prolonged underinvestment in Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) populations resulted in our communities being unprepared for, and more vulnerable to the most recent onslaught in anti-Asian hate,” said A.B. Cruz III, president of NAPABA. “We are grateful not only to be a grant recipient, but also an ongoing partner with TAAF and its network of organizations dedicated to the common cause of protecting our AAPI populations.”
To address anti-AAPI hate locally, TAAF is piloting AAPI Action Centers led by on-the-ground partner organizations that will serve as hubs for addressing hate in their respective cities. These Action Centers will first be piloted in New York City, Chicago, and Oakland. Each Action Center will be connected to each other, and they will feed into the umbrella of TAAF’s Anti-Hate National Network to ensure best practices are being transmitted between the national and local levels of work. NAPABA intends to leverage its strength in numbers—which includes three affiliates in New York City, five in Chicago, and 10 affiliates in northern California—to contribute its expertise in assisting hate crimes and help hate incident victims seek pro bono legal assistance.
The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), represents the interests of over 60,000 Asian Pacific American (APA) legal professionals and nearly 90 national, state, and local APA bar associations. NAPABA is a leader in addressing civil rights issues confronting APA communities. Through its national network, NAPABA provides a strong voice for increased diversity of the federal and state judiciaries, advocates for equal opportunity in the workplace, works to eliminate hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, and promotes the professional development of people of all backgrounds in the legal profession.
WASHINGTON – The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) congratulates Vanita Gupta on her historic bipartisan confirmation by the Senate, to serve as Associate Attorney General in the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the third highest ranking position at the Department. She now becomes the most senior Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) leader at DOJ ever, and the first woman of color to serve as Associate Attorney General.
“NAPABA is thrilled that the Senate has confirmed Vanita Gupta to lead the DOJ’s efforts in the critical areas of civil rights, the environment, justice-oriented grant making, community policing, community relations, violence against women, tax enforcement, antitrust, and ensuring the rights of service members and veterans, among other responsibilities” said A. B. Cruz III, president of NAPABA. “Her tenure could not have come at a more pivotal time for so many populations of color and vulnerable people, especially as we face an onslaught of anti-Asian hate crimes and bias-motivated attacks against our communities.”
NAPABA applauds President Biden for nominating Ms. Gupta to the position and the Senate for confirming her at this crucial time.
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The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) represents the interests of approximately 50,000 legal professionals and nearly 90 national, state, and local Asian Pacific American bar associations. NAPABA is a leader in addressing civil rights issues confronting Asian Pacific American communities. Through its national network, NAPABA provides a strong voice for increased diversity of the federal and state judiciaries, advocates for equal opportunity in the workplace, works to eliminate hate crimes and anti-immigrant sentiment, and promotes the professional development of people of color in the legal profession.
On April 1, 2021 at 6:00PM on the front steps of the Thomas Roosevelt Executive & Legislative Building in Mineola, there will be a candlelight vigil for the Atlanta victims and all victims of hate. We encourage anyone interested in attending to do so safely, by participating in the livestream as indicated in the flyer.
On September 26, 2020, as part of the second day of the 2020 Fall Conference, AABANY hosted a program discussing Anti-Asian Violence and Hate Arising from the COVID-19 Pandemic, which focused on trends and newly compiled statistics related to this discrimination. The panel included:
Joe Gim, Deputy Chief of the County Court Trial Bureau in Nassau County
Russell Jeung, Professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University and Member of the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council
Stewart Loo, Deputy Inspector of the NYPD Asian Hate Crime Task Force
John C. Yang, President and Executive Director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice
Jo-Ann Yoo, Executive Director at the Asian American Federation
First, Professor Jeung introduced “Stop AAPI Hate,” an online reporting center organized by the Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. Since March 19, 2020, the reporting center has been tracking and responding to incidents of hate, violence, harassment, discrimination, shunning, and child bullying against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in California and where possible throughout the United States. In California, there have been over 300,000 reported incidents over the eight month period. There was a major uptick in March when President Trump started calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus” and in late June when Trump started using the term “Kung Flu.” Although most of the reported incidents have been verbal, there have been an alarming number of incidents where Asian Pacific Americans (APA) were coughed or spat on.
Jo-Ann Yoo then discussed the situation in New York and emphasized that reporting is only as good as its outreach. Joe Gim specified that legally, a hate crime in New York must both involve a person selected to have a crime against them because of their identity and have that factor be a substantial part of the crime.
Next, Stewart Loo introduced the NYPD Asian Hate Crime Task Force, which gets involved with incidents of hate and discrimination when they become crimes. The task force assists victims who cannot speak English but want to report an incident. Due to cultural differences and the length and complexity of reporting a crime to the NYPD, the criminal process can be very daunting. Yoo added that many people are shy or afraid to report, regardless of a language barrier, especially to the media. John Yang then discussed the importance of media pieces in humanizing the statistics and building community strength.
Professor Jeung and John Yang also discussed how APA social status has historically been very conditional. As many APA individuals still toggle between being part of a Model Minority or a Yellow Peril, they are seen as perpetual foreigners, which adds to the rising anti-Asian hate.
The panel concluded with talking about the rise in APA youth supporting Black Lives Matter. In order to be heard on a nationwide scale, everyday citizens must fight for the respect that their communities do not already receive, whether by serving as a poll worker, speaking up in organizations, or simply voting. The panel ended with discussing how APA culture is stereotypically seen as quiet, but in order to see change now, people need to speak up and speak out.
Thank you to the panelists, Joe Gim, Russell Jeung, Stewart Loo, John C. Yang, and Jo-Ann Yoo, and moderator Karen King for leading such an inspiring and important discussion on anti-Asian violence and hate during the pandemic. And thank you to the AABANY Pro Bono and Community Service, and Government Service and Public Interest Committees for hosting the event.
Click here to access the Stop AAPI Hate website. Click here to access AAF’s COVID-19 Safety Resources.
To view a recording of this program, please click on the video image at the top of this blog post.
