State: California
Summit Event: AAPI Mobilization for Voter Registration, 2:30 pm
- Moderator: Richard Konda, ALA Executive Director
- Mary Ann Dewan, Superintendent, SCC County Office of Education
- Angelica Cortez, LEAD Filipino
Dr.Dewan mentioned that the Santa Clara County Board of Education and Santa Clara County Office of Education (SCCOE) have taken action to improve outreach to hard-to-count populations in Santa Clara County by adopting a resolution that the Santa Clara County Board of Education and County Superintendent of Schools will encourage Santa Clara County school districts to promote participation in the 2020 U.S. Census. “It is an education campaign to raise awareness in our schools, in our neighborhoods and our communities,” stated Dr. Mary Ann Dewan.
Angelica Cortez, Founder of LEAD Filipino, mentioned that efforts are underway. LEAD is pleased to be working in concert with the San Francisco Veterans’s Equity Center, Bayanihan Community Center, Filipino American Development Foundation, and Filipino Advocates for Justice on devising strategies and materials to ensure that the Filipino/a community in the 9-County Bay Area is completely counted in the 2020 Census under the rubric of a Filipino Complete Census 2020 Count Committee.
The 1980 US Census categorized Asian American and Pacific Islanders into 4 categories:
East Asians: Chinese, Japanese, Korean ….
South Asians: Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lanka…
South East Asians: Filipino, Vietnamese, Hmong, Indonesians…
Pacific Islander: Guam, Samoa, Fiji, Marianas….
Asians have been in the US from the very beginning. In 1849, the Chinese came here during the Gold Rush. They didn’t get rich but stayed on to help build the Intercontinental railroad. In May 2019, our country will be celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the completion of the railroad that connected the East and the West Coast.
1882 marked the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Japanese immigrated to fill some of the farm jobs.
Filipinos immigrated in 4 waves, as US Nationals and as veterans of the US Army forces after WWII.
The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act was a direct result of Civil Rights movements lead by Martin Luther King Jr.
The Hart Celler Act allow immigrants other than European to enter the US and gain citizenship.
The Asian population grew from less than 1 million to over 22 million today.
Up till 1968 Asians did not have a collective identity. The different ethnic groups (Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, etc.) live their lives separated and in isolation of each other. When the Japanese were interned during WWII, the Chinese and the Koreans wore signs to “advertise” that they are not Japanese.
The word Asian American was coined by Yuji Ishioka and Emma Gee (UC Berkeley) and Ronald Quidachay (SF State) to highlight our common heritage and thus the term “Asian American” was born and first used in the 1980 US Census.
