Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago

Advocacy:advancing justice | chicago is a coalition leader in chicago, in illinois, and nationwide. Together with our partners, we advocate for policy change with a unified voice and exercise our power to win campaigns for our communities.most recently, advancing justice | chicago led the effort to pass the teaching equitable asian american community history (teaach) act, which requires all public schools in illinois to teach asian american history starting in the 2022-2023 school year. As the convener of the pan-asian voter empowerment (pave) coalition, we organize with asian american-serving organizations in chicago and the suburbs to empower our communities to take action. Together with pave, we organize the annual asian american action day in springfield and mayoral candidate forums during chicago municipal election years.as a member of the illinois coalition for immigrant and refugee rights (icirr), we join a powerful coalition of community-based organizations from across the state to win campaigns to improve the lives of immigrant and refugee communities. Just democracy is a broad-based and diverse coalition that works to protect and promote the value of a single vote, no matter the geographic, racial, ethnic or party affiliation of the voter. Together with partners across illinois, we have successfully advocated for the passage of automatic voter registration, election day registration, and online voter registration in illinois.

Civic engagement:we organize our communities in illinois and across the midwest to be engaged year-round in order to grow our power. We get out the vote during election seasons, educate our communities on issues, and mobilize community members to win campaigns.elections are one of the ways that we exercise our power as a community. We conductseasonal get out the vote campaigns with the pan-asian voter empowerment (pave) coalition to register, educate, and engage the asian american and immigrant communities to show up and display our power on election day.asian american and immigrant communities have historically faced barriers that prevent participation in elections. We protect our communities' rights to vote by recruiting, training, and deploying volunteer poll monitors to over 100 precincts every election day to ensure that voters' rights are protected.asian americans face a unique set of challenges in chicago and across the state. We educate our communities year-round on issues and current events, promoting action beyond election season.every year, we organize a legislative advocacy day in springfield with our partners in the pave coalition. Over 300 asian american community members participate annually to rally and meet with elected officials at the state capitol on issues that affect our communities.a complete census count ensures that our communities get the resources and representation that they deserve. Historically, asian american and pacific islanders are among those most likely to be undercounted. In the 2020 decennial census, we will be working to educate our communities and get a complete count of aapi communities in illinois.

Youth programs:kinetic is a youth-focused, civic leadership program that works with limited english proficient (lep) immigrant and refugee high school students in chicago public schools both in and out of the classroom. Every year approximately 115 young people participate in our kinetic programs. This includes our after-school and in-school programs, as well as, our summer corps and service-learning trip to springfield. Our kinetic leaders successfully won their very first campaign! Kinetic youth leaders organized their peers and partner organizations to testify at a cps board of education meeting and meet with cps officials and were able to change the world language requirement to be more equitable for english learner students.

Advancing justice affiliation:asian americans advancing justice is a national affiliation of five leading organizations advocating for the civil and human rights of asian americans and other underserved communities to promote a fair and equitable society for all. The affiliation's members are: advancing justice - asian american justice center (washington, d.c.), advancing justice - southern california, advancing justice - atlanta, advancing justice - asian law caucus (san francisco), and advancing justice - chicago. We envision a fair and equitable society for all that ensures civil and human rights for asian americans, pacific islanders, and other communities. To achieve this, we will work together-as equal and independent partners under one name, speaking with one unified and powerful voice-to promote justice, empower our communities, bring local and national constituents together, and strengthen our multi-racial democracy.