#caaav

[mont-ventoux]

I hope stefan küng knows he is the only thing keeping me going right now

[chinatownnot4sale-blog]

Chinatown Rezoning Town Hall August 21, 2016 2016年8月 纽约中国城重划区会议

On Sunday August 21, 2016, CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities held a town hall meeting where community members and concerned New Yorkers learned about what rezoning is and how to move the city towards adopting a rezoning plan to protect Chinatown from disappearing under the influence of gentrification. During the meeting, many shared the experience of being harassed by landlords or seeing friends and families harassed. Most have seen the rapid change in Chinatown during recent years which replaced local businesses with cafés, art galleries, organic stores, and so on.

The town hall took place in Project Outreach at 39 Eldridge Street from 1 to 4 in the afternoon. Participants are a mixed crowd of local residents and supporters of a community-led rezoning. Some of the residents are members of CAAAV while others saw our event flyers and art projections and decided to come. During the meeting CAAAV organizers shared information on how rezoning can help protect low-income housing and small businesses in Chinatown as it has in East Brooklyn, Hell’s Kitchen, and West Harlem. The crowd then broke out into small discussion groups and envisioned how to move the community as a whole and what direct actions we can adopt.

People have come up with concrete ideas to move forward, such as outreaching to their own neighbors, calling and emailing local officials, and through arts. Now it’s up to us to follow up these ideas and keep building our tenant base. Preserving Chinatown in the face of this strong gentrifying force requires an equally strong, steady, and realistic effort to continue the fight.

[celebratingoursisters]

Today’s sister is Cathy Dang. Cathy is a fierce leader in our community and is currently serving as the Executive Director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities.

What brings you to New York City? What makes you want stay? How would you characterize New York City?

I was raised in New York City. I spent my childhood in Queens, but also spent a lot of my time at my parents' nail salon in Downtown Brooklyn in the 80's and 90's. My family moved to the outskirts of Los Angeles after we experienced a sharp decline in our business with the gentrifying changes to Downtown Brooklyn in the late 90s. I lived in Los Angeles during my young adult life and moved back to New York City to be back where I felt like was home. New York is my home. It's a little rough on the body and exhausting, but as corny as this is, Alicia Keys says, "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere." I think it has been a challenge for me to be back in a city that is completely different from the city that raised me, and a sad realization that the gentrifying changes continue to make it harder for working-class and poor people to survive here. But, despite all that, what I find so beautiful is that we find a way to make it work.

What do you do? What issues are most important to you? Why?

I am the Executive Director of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, a grassroots organization that organizes low-income pan-Asian immigrants for racial, gender, and economic justice towards systemic and institutional change. I've been organizing in Asian communities, immigrant and communities of color for over 10 years. Aside from being the president of the Asian Pacific Student Association in college, my first stint at social justice work started when I was the Joseph Ileto Hate Crimes Prevention Fellow at the (then) Asian Pacific American Legal Center (now Advancing Justice for Asian Americans - Los Angeles). Joseph Ileto, was a Filipino postal worker, who was killed by a White supremacist and his family started the fellowship to work on issues of White supremacy and hate crimes. Through the years, my organizing was mostly in labor and community-led development. One of the more memorable experiences was organizing youth in Los Angeles' Chinatown with no funding or resources. We met every Friday in a cafe or each others' houses to address the issue of education access for the Chinese, Southeast Asian, and Latino youth of Chinatown. A greater chunk of my organizing was organizing in labor to improve wages and working conditions for restaurant workers. While my day job was at a worker center, I volunteered outside of my day job with the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, developing the initial strategy to stop Wal-Mart from opening in Chinatown, Los Angeles and organizing small business owners to fight its opening. I was also on the first coordinating committee for the Hai Ba Trung School for Organizing, the first program to develop and train Vietnamese young organizers. The issues most important to me are vast, but centered on racial, gender, and economic justice. What does that look like? Well, it’s centered on systemic and institutional change led by the working-class, homeless, immigrants/refugees, communities of color, women, queer, gender non-conforming, and trans communities. And I have and still continue to organize through housing and workers' rights with an analysis to address the root causes of inequality - structural racism, patriarchy, capitalism, imperialism, etc. We have to organize those most directly impacted by the system within our own Asian communities and show up in solidarity with Black communities in their fight for racial justice. Black communities in the U.S., in every shape and form, have been the target of White Supremacy that has used all other communities in between the spectrum as a tool to maintain anti-blackness and the power of the elite White few. In order to win for our own Asian communities, we need to show up in solidarity for Black communities.

What are you most proud of in your life so far?

Audre Lorde says that self-preservation is an act of political will. As a daughter of refugees who were displaced by war and then coming to the U.S. and being displaced again by gentrification, I am most proud of surviving and overcoming challenges and still being able to stand with resiliency.

Who inspires you?

CAAAV staff/volunteers/members - I know this work isn't easy and I value their patience, thoughtfulness, concern, analytical thought processes, and commitment to each other, the organization and the movement. We are all trying to figure it out together and I am inspired by their ability to support each other as we move through a challenging moment for us. I am also inspired by my mother, who continues to live with positivity despite having lived through extreme poverty, war, resettlement, and many hardships. She is the person who taught me what self-determination looks like.  

What are your goals as a civic leader/activist/advocate?

Movement building and chipping away structural racism is beyond a lifetime's work. I don't have my personal goal as an organizer, but a goal with directly-impacted communities to take down structural racism, capitalism, and patriarchy. The foundation of the U.S. was built on free and cheap labor, policing of women's, gender non-conforming and trans bodies, continual challenges for the working-class and the poor, and discriminatory laws that upheld power and privilege for a few. With the hundreds of years of systemic and institutional oppression, it will take decades to centuries to reverse all that's been done. But we have and continue to work together locally and nationally to ensure that we are building the new world that is sustainable for all of us. And in order for all of us to survive in a world that seems almost impossible, we have to organize those directly impacted by the system within our own working-class and poor Asian communities and show up to fight for justice with our allies - Black, Latinx, Muslim, indigenous, trans, gender non-conforming, & queer communities. "We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity." - Fred Hampton

Anything else?

Live and lead with: 1) being principled, 2) humility, 3) self-determination, and 4) love.

[justalilhopee]

Be part of the People Mover Challenge!

I am participating in CAAAV’s People-Powered $10K Challenge to raise $200 for a community organization close to my heart. Over the summer, I volunteered with CAAAV’s Chinatown Tenant Union in NYC to door knock and investigate in gentrified buildings where low income Asian families were shooed out by their landlords. In many buildings in Chinatown, landlords manipulatively shut tenants’ heat or water and neglect the building’s sanitation to push families out. Most tenants do not speak English and do not know their rights or have the legal resources to challenge their living situation. CAAAV fights for affordable housing in NYC by organizing and empowering tenants, as well as collaborates with other organizations to combat police violence within communities of color. I am continually amazed by the people I have met through CAAAV and their stories, especially the immigrants who I spoke with at outreach events whose stories remind me so much of my parents’ struggle in rooting themselves in an unfamiliar place without sufficient resources.

I hope that you can all help me by contributing to my fundraising page here:

https://caaav.ourpowerbase.net/civicrm/pcp/info?reset=1&id=25

You can also learn about CAAAV here: http://caaav.org/ 

Please donate $5 (which is really like a cup of coffee), $10 (a sandwich) or $20 (a dinner). Imagine how meaningful your contribution is in helping fight racial and economic justice in NYC!  

[jbdnyc]

CAAAV & UJC report

Cover design and 44-page report highlighting disparities in language-access for public housing residents in NYC. 4 executive summaries were also laid out, in English, Bangla, Korean and Chinese.

Full report and executive summaries available here.

[becauseofyuri]

Lessons learned from Yuri

I remember the day I met Yuri Kochiyama and was the eager college student who got to be her assistant for a day. My story with Yuri is this - She fell asleep during a workshop because she was tired from her medication. At the end of the day, she wrote me a letter thanking me for helping her all day and thanked me for not judging her for falling alseep during the workshop. She said she was so embarassed from that. First - when I read that, I was thinking, you’re YURI KOCHIYAMA, you have nothing to be embarassed about!  Second - throughout her life, she never failed to write letters to acknoweldge people’s contribution and struggle. From the days of writing to internees on the camps til 2006 when I met her, she was still writing letters.  Lesson learned - that there is humbleness even when you are a legend and that is one of the most important traits of being a committed organizer to the movement.  I am saddened by our movement’s loss, but know that Yuri has done more than enough for our movement and we take the torch and carry it on. Yuri, thank you for a lifetime of contribution to fighting for racial justice here in New York City and beyond. 

Cathy Dang is the executive director of CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities.

[18mr]

Props to Caaav: Organizing Asian Communities and their allies for turning out in numbers to support Kang Wong, who is being charged for jaywalking, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, and disorderly conduct after being beaten by the NYPD. The DA did not put his case on the docket today but a new hearing will be scheduled soon. CAAAV's statement:

CAAAV has been working on police accountability for nearly two decades and most recently helped pass the Community Safety Act with Communities United for Police Reform. We are terribly saddened by what happened to Mr. Wong – a stop for jaywalking that resulted in a person being injured. That should have never happened. But, most importantly, we were disappointed to hear that charges were even brought upon Mr. Wong. Although his case wasn’t on the docket today and the family may have to return for a hearing, we really believe that the D.A. will do the right thing and dismiss all charges against Mr. Wong. We have the community behind us to support that belief.

It is no coincidence that with the return of Police Commissioner Bratton that there have been several policing polices quickly implemented without evaluation on its impact on New Yorkers. In a city where jaywalking has become part of the culture for 8.3 million people, jaywalking tickets were given without any community notice. Two weeks ago on a Monday, homeless New Yorkers were going to be kicked off the subways at 3am for commuters in the coldest winter we’ve experienced in years. Arrests for panhandling have shot up dramatically from January until March. Commissioner Bratton’s Broken Windows theory policing needs to be evaluated for its harm rather than benefit of our communities – poor, immigrant, people of color, queer, and homeless. The theory takes punitive measures to address small offenses, which results in preventing thousands from being able to access services, housing, and basic needs for survival.

CAAAV wants to acknowledge and thank all of the endorses and organizations who came to support the Wong Family -- organizations who have been fighting for NYPD reform for years and are members of Communities United for Police Reform – FIERCE!, Center for Constitutional Rights, Arab American Association of NY, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), FIERCE!, Make the Road NY, Picture the Homeless, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and VOCAL-NY.

We hope and believe the D.A. will dismiss all charges against Mr. Wong and that this incident opens up a dialogue for further discussion on policing practices.

Cathy Dang Executive Director CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities

[thisisnotindia]

CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities PUBLIC STATEMENT ON NYPD USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE ON MR. KANG WONG

On Sunday, January 19th, Mr. Kang Wong, an 84-year old man, was stopped by the police for jaywalking at Broadway and 96th Street. Mr. Wong, confused because of a language barrier, attempted to walk away when the cops then used excessive force to restrain him. This is all simply because they wanted to give him a jaywalking ticket.

This incident and the string of countless other NYPD incidents and abusive policies impacting Asians – stop and frisks of Southeast Asian youth, surveillance of Muslim and South Asian communities, and harassment of Asian street vendors – needs to end now. For Asian communities in particular, language access has led to unjustified arrests or near arrests of our members. NYPD is mandated by law to have an interpreter when interacting with limited English proficient individuals. We are fighting for language justice within the broader context for racial justice. What happened to Mr. Wong is not only a language access issue; it is a racial justice issue. CAAAV hopes that this unfortunate incident is telling of the larger systemic problems New Yorkers face with NYPD's abusive and unjust policies that needs to be addressed with our communities. Enough is enough!

Join CAAAV in demanding greater NYPD accountability. To get involved, contact Ruben at [email protected] .

In Struggle, CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities