🪻 Come share food with AARW staff and members to do some shared learning around the recent decision, and join in discussion + processing space! 6-6:30pm will be open time to grab food, and content will go from 6:30-7:30pm.🪻

RSVP AT bit.ly/affirmativeactionspace

As Asian American community organizations and leaders, we condemn the Supreme Court decisions in Students for Fair Admissions Inc v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions Inc v. University of North Carolina banning race-conscious admissions policies. These decisions roll back the clock on racial justice, education equity, and the progress our communities have made against systemic racism and discrimination.

The fight is not over. Here in Massachusetts, we need data equity, ethnic studies, tuition equity, equitable school funding, and so many other policies that create opportunities for students, particularly students of color and immigrant students.

This will be a hybrid event! Please indicate on the RSVP form if you will be in person or virtual.

🎬 Grab your popcorn and some tissues! We’re having a screening of a fantastic new film, Everything Everywhere All At Once, in collaboration with @map4health. RSVP here by August 10th to help us get a food count, but we’re still accepting RSVPs up until Friday! There’s just no guarantee of catered dinner if you RSVP after August 10.

Everything Everywhere All At Once. Viewing at the VietAID Great Hall on Friday August 12 at 6pm. Join MAP For Health & Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW) for a screening of this API cultural masterpiece! This will be a two-part event, with the screening on August 12 and a follow-up discussion on August 14 surrounding the API identity and experience.

Event Details: August 12 - Viewing at VietAID Great Hall in Dorchester, MA. A catered dinner will be provided. Virtual viewings are available. August 14 - Follow-up discussion on Zoom. Topics covered will include prevalent in the movie as well as other aspects of API identity.

Join us for our annual Summer Celebration Event. There will be plenty of activities, food and fun! You can RSVP at bit.ly/aarwsummer22. Looking forward to seeing you there:)

About this event

We encourage you to sign up for the dessert competition which will take place at the event! Sign up at: http://bit.ly/aarwdessert22

If you can volunteer with us please sign up at: https://bit.ly/aarwsummer22vol

We appreciate your help! Email intern@aarw.org with any questions.

We’re excited to announce we’re looking for submissions for the AARW zine for this 1st issue! We encourage all AAPI identified folx to submit to our zine about “What Keeps Us Safe: Uplifting AAPI Voices & Stories”. This issue will focus on the following themes:
~ Refugee to Deportee - How Southeast Asian refugees became one of the targets of deportations in the U.S.
~ Displacement over generations - Tracing our community’s relationship to displacement today to displacement that has happened over time through past generations.
~ Home Is Where the Heart Is - What does home mean to you? Who do you define as part of your community? What can you taste, touch, see, smell and hear when you think of home?We are accepting visual art (painting, illustrations/drawings, prints, photography, comic strips etc.) & writing (memoirs, narratives, poetry, personal essays, songs)

SUBMISSION DEADLINE:
11:59PM EST ~ April 2nd, (Saturday), 2022
You can find more information and submit your entry to be considered in the zine through our google form here: bit.ly/submit2aarwzine

If you didn't already see, we released a zine around the Asian American movement towards abolition. You can check it out at http://aarw.org/shareables and print it out for yourself, or check out the digital version. If you don't have access to a printer or just want to craft in community, you can join us on 3/19 for an in person zine making workshop 😍 Join us for a chill time making zines!

When: 3/19 2-3:30pm
Where: Pao Arts Center
RSVP: https://bit.ly/zineevent319

#RememberingMarch16 

Join APIs CAN to Honor the Resilience and Resistance of Asian American Women 

March 16 marks the one year anniversary of the Atlanta spa shootings. APIs CAN will honor the the lives of those who were murdered and create space to hear from local Asian immigrant women who are organizing against systemic anti-Asian violence.

The event will place healing, community, and peace at the heart of our remembrance. Healing requires identifying the root causes of systemic violence, including imperialism, misogyny, and white supremacy. We hope you will find peace and strength from the stories these women tell. 

We invite you to hear these reflections, as well as remarks from Mayor Michelle Wu (@mayorwu), and learn about what you can do to advocate for community-centered solutions to anti-Asian racism.

🌐 Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, and Nepali interpretation will be provided.

🗓 When: Monday, Mar 14, 2022 from 6-7 pm EST

📍 Where: Zoom

🔗 Pre-registration is required, visit https://bit.ly/AtlantaSolidarity314

Presented by APIs CAN! and member organizations @aarw @asiancdc @cpajustice @vietaid, & the Greater Boston Legal Services Asian Outreach Unit (@bostonlegalaid)

ID: Purple background with illustration of laurel leaves and stars containing text referenced in the caption. APIs CAN logo in the bottom left corner with white lettering and blue and red accents.

Unafraid Educators is collaborating with AARW to do another college access workshop for Undocu+ students!

When: The workshop will be Wednesday, March 9th from 6:00 to 7:00pm.

Where: register at http://bit.ly/YesYouCanGoToCollegeAAPI

We will focus on the college application process for undocumented students and paying for college as an undocumented student. It will include recommendations of undocu-friendly colleges as well as ideas for what every high school student should be focusing on every year of their high school career!

Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese interpretation will be provided for this workshop. In the future we hope to offer workshops with interpretation in other languages spoken by BPS students and parents.

Started in 2005 as a collaboration between the API movement and AARW, the Activist Training Institute (ATI) is a fellowship program based in Boston for (aspiring) community organizers of Asian diaspora that aims to develop collective political identity, analysis, skills, and community. If you are interested in joining this year's summer/fall cohort, you can click here to learn more about the program and apply! 

Join AARW for our annual membership meeting - this year IN-PERSON and drop-in! We will be gathering to celebrate 2021 and look to what’s ahead in 2022! Stay tuned for a full schedule but it will include zine making stations, treats and swag to take home, voting in new Board members, and a film screening of Keep Saray Home. Come through, be together, and celebrate our organizing and community! RSVP at bit.ly/aarweoycelebration

On 11/30, we are taking a stand against @Fidelity Charitable’s role in financing white supremacy across the globe. Join us at 12pm at the Fidelity offices in Boston to take action: https://secure.everyaction.com/wONoL19wU0q1ZwqX9Shaaw2. Read more about the campaign to get Fidelity to disclose their role in financing white supremacy here: tinyurl.com/UnmaskingFidelityToolkit

As the weather gets colder, we're building out more spaces for connection and community. We'll be having an open house to reintroduce our working groups and ways to get involved. Save the date for November 15, 6:30-8pm, and rsvp at bit.ly/AARWOpenHouse

Join the Fighting Anti-Black Racism and Casteism working group for a workshop deconstructing the model minority myth! RSVP at bit.ly/modelminoritymutiny

Hi everyone! We are happy to announce AARW's first South Asian, Diasporic, Indo-Caribbean (SADIC) Cohort Open House! We have been working hard to organize this space for you and here are some hopes + goals we have:

Connect with and get to know SADIC folks who are interested in politicizing their identities
Explain and frame our own politics and organizing principles; how did we come to this work?
Identify some issue areas that SADIC youth in MA are impacted by and how we can support
Provide an open space for you to discuss and share what types of programming you would want to see

Event date: October 16th, 2PM-4PM (EST)
RSVP: bit.ly/SADICopenhouse
Location: Zoom details TBA, look out for an email :)
Questions? Contact: arpita@aarw.org or kavya@aarw.org

TAKE OUR SURVEY bit.ly/SADICyouth (copy and paste into your browser)

We've had some amazing wins in the past, from supporting community members at unjust ICE hearings to producing films that amplify community stories. We're excited to grow our movement! Please share widely.

RSVP: bit.ly/enddeportationsnow

Co-Learning Space 2: Visioning an Asian American Movement Towards Abolition ✊

Join AARW for our second co-learning space on police & prison abolition on July 8, 7-8:30pm! We will dive deeper into the history of police and state violence in Asian American communities and collectively explore solutions that move us toward abolition. RSVP at https://bit.ly/asianabolition!

Photo description and credit: People hold signs in support of Black and Asian solidarity during a vigil and rally against Asian hate crimes, Friday, March 26, 2021, at Chicago’s Horner Park. The event is organized by local Chicago organizations led by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. (AP Photo/Shafkat Anowar)

We're thrilled to announce the lineup for this year's virtual Celebration of Grassroots Organizing! This event will take place in two parts, so you can attend one part or both.

Friday Afternoon, 6/25: Not Going Back To Normal (12 - 1:15 PM) will focus on community conversations on the questions facing our movement.

Friday Evening, 6/25: Rebuilding in Solidarity (7 - 8:30 PM) will include:

• Performance from award-winning hip-hop group Foundation Movement

• DJ set from "selectress with no inhibitions" DJ Dee Diggs

• Grounding and healing with organizer/facilitator Sol Gonzalez

We'll spotlight the work of local organizers and movement leaders, and you'll help us make a virtual quilt inspired by the world we're building together.

Once you've reserved your ticket, support these organizers by forwarding this email or RSVPing and sharing on facebook.

Tickets Here

Join AARW for the FIRST in a series of police & prison abolition co-learning spaces! Our first session will be a deep dive into the history of police and state violence, and a space to collectively define abolition. RSVP at http://bit.ly/abolitioncolearning!

Come with us to the march! Email carolyn@aarw.org to get connected to folks that are going. Info about the march below:

In early June 2020, 80% of Boston Pride’s Volunteer Workforce resigned after the Pride Board removed “#blacklivesmatter” and rewrote a statement, written by the Communications Team, condemning unjust, racist police violence, and posted it without consulting the Chair of Black Pride or the Communications Team. The statement was met with public outrage over Boston Pride’s persistent and ongoing neglect of issues of racism and white-centeredness. Community leaders of color responded by organizing the Trans Resistance March and Vigil. Thousands convened at Franklin Park on what would have been the 50th anniversary of Boston Pride to bring Pride back to its roots and to protest police violence against the trans and gender nonconforming community.

The resigned Volunteer Workforce, along with LGBTQ community leaders of color, demanded the current Pride Board step down, and proposed a transition plan to diversify the board and rewrite the bylaws to include power sharing, checks and balances, and transparency. The Board refused.

After six months of silence, the Boston Pride Board has released a transformation plan decorated with bells and whistles that attempts to divert attention away from the lack of structural transformation that is being proposed. This proposed “transformation” process is merely a fancy performance designed to protect the absolute and exclusive power of the current board. It includes no structural change: no change to the bylaws, to the distribution of power within the organization, nor to the majority vote of the current Board.
 

BOYCOTT BOSTON PRIDE 2021

Do not...

• apply to these powerless positions

• register to march with Boston Pride; demand a refund if you registered to participate in 2020

• sponsor or donate money to Boston Pride

Until ...

• a transition plan developed in collaboration with community organizations and the resigned Volunteer Workforce is put into place

• the bylaws are revised to include power sharing with the Volunteer Workforce, with checks and balances

• a sufficient number of board members resign so that new board members have a majority vote

Pride for the People is asking all individuals, organizations, and businesses to not support the continued structural white-centeredness and racism maintained by the current Board of Boston Pride. Instead, join Trans Resistance at the 2nd annual March & Vigil, June 12th 2021 at Franklin Park. 

Join AARW's Story Project for a night of celebrating the art and stories that our local Asian American community members hold!

We will have performances and an open panel conversation around our experiences with storytelling, the importance of telling our stories, and our connections to Asian American movement work.

We hope you can join us for our event as we center and uplift the creativity, joy, and lived experiences of folks who are engaged in our movement. When we share the fullness of our identities through the stories we hold, we make the narrative about us what we choose it to be.

Register for the event here and you can access the Facebook event here.

All are welcome, bring a friend!

Our communities are safer when they have a stable place to call home. Join AARW’s continued fight for housing justice at our Phone Zap!

We will be calling our legislators about urgent housing justice legislation. Training and scripts will be provided!

All are welcome, so feel free to bring a friend or anyone else who might be interested!

Sign up here and we will follow-up with the Zoom link and more information. You can also access the Facebook event here.

Our communities are safer when they have a stable place to call home. Join AARW’s continued fight for housing justice at our Lit Drop!

We will be dropping off Know Your Rights flyers to community members in Fields Corner. All are welcome, so feel free to bring a friend or anyone else who might be interested!

Sign up here and we will follow-up with more information! You can also access the Facebook event here.

The systemic failures of our country have shown up again and reminded us that we all need to take action to keep our communities safe. We want to offer a space for our Asian American community to find restorative action in these urgent times.

Join us on May 12, 7-8:30pm, to learn more about AARW's work, and how to plug into our campaigns and our political home.

All are welcome and we especially encourage new folks to come join and learn more about AARW!

You can register for our Open House here and the Facebook event can be found here.

Join us for part 2 of our political education workshops for AARW's Month of Action Against Southeast Asian Deportations! All are welcome!

We will learn about the current immigration landscape and local organizing around Southeast Asian deportations.

This workshop will analyze immigration reform and policies under the Biden administration. We will highlight our multi-faceted approach to defending and uplifting our Southeast Asian community members, and how folks can join us in our fight against broader detentions and deportations. We're excited to be in community with you all and to connect folks to our work!

Register for the workshop here and you can find the Facebook event here.

Join us for part 1 of our political education workshops for AARW's Month of Action Against Southeast Asian Deportations! All are welcome! We will be learning about Southeast Asian deportation history and the ultimate failure of refugee resettlement.

Southeast Asian refugees represent the largest refugee community ever to be resettled in the United States, after being forcefully displaced by U.S. war and its aftermath in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam in the 1970s. Come to this teach-in to learn more about the history of Southeast Asian refugee resettlement. We will speak to events leading up to, during, and following resettlement that laid the foundation to the current deportation crisis. This workshop will ground folks in the history and experiences of the Southeast Asian community which inform our organizing strategies against deportations.

Register for the workshop here and we will follow up with the Zoom call link: tinyurl.com/SEADPolEd1. You can find the Facebook event here.

In addition to this workshop, more actions and ways to join our events will be announced, so stay tuned!