WASHINGTON — The White House on Tuesday announced a multi-agency strategy to help combat anti-Asian American hate, promote language access and improve governmental data collection for the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community.
“This unprecedented plan builds on the administration’s broader equity agenda,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during Tuesday’s press briefing.
Pew Research Center has found that a third of Asian Americans have changed their daily routes due to fear of violence. Most recently, an 18-year-old Indiana University student was repeatedly stabbed in the head by a 56-year-old white woman while on a bus, and the school says it was because the student is Asian.
The Indiana Chapter of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum issued a statement following the attack, saying this “is not an isolated event.”
“This terrifying confrontation is a continuation of a soaring national crisis: anti-Asian racism, intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic and rising U.S.-China tensions,” according to the statement. “AAPIs across the country have found themselves in the crosshairs of racial harassment, discrimination, vandalism, and violence.”
Following an executive order signed by President Biden in 2021 to establish the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, the initiative released a report that details strategies for 32 federal agencies “to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.”
The advisory group held a Tuesday webinar where it detailed its seven priorities: combating anti-Asian hate and discrimination, data disaggregation, language access, equitable inclusion in COVID-19 response and recovery efforts, capacity building such as access to grants and federal contracts, increasing federal workforce diversity and outreach and engagement with AAPI communities.
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