With anti-Asian hate skyrocketing in recent years, helping AAPI communities respond to discrimination is more crucial than ever.
In response, Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) and Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) have created the Asian Resource Hub — a searchable national directory of AAPI community data, incidents of anti-Asian hate and AAPI-serving organizations offering social services, legal aid, mental health support, civic engagement and policy advocacy.
How the hub started
“In the height of the pandemic, we did a community survey of anti-Asian hate here in the San Gabriel Valley area of LA, and we discovered that the majority of AAPI community members did not feel there was support for those experiencing racial discrimination and harassment,” said AJSOCAL Chief Executive Officer Connie Chung Joe at a Thursday, February 29 Ethnic Media Services briefing where panelists explained how the hub works.
Even where counseling and other aid did exist, many community members weren’t aware of how to find or use them due to language barriers. While the Asian Resource Hub is the first of its kind as a free national digital resource, as of this month it’s also available in Korean, Vietnamese and simplified and traditional Chinese.
Throughout 2024, Asian Resource Hub staff hope to expand its current language offerings to include translations in languages including Hindi, Teymur and Tagalog.
“Over the past few years, as our community has suffered the collective trauma of the Atlanta spa shootings, the Indianapolis shooting, the back-to-back Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay shootings and so much more violence, we knew we could not wait for the next tragedy to occur without addressing this gap” through the hub, Joe explained.
Between 2020 and 2021 alone, reported anti-Asian violence in the U.S. increased by 339%, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism. Furthermore, most hate crimes and…
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