By Brandi Howard, President and CEO
We stand with the victims, families and loved ones affected by the mass shootings in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay. No community should ever experience this kind of senseless violence and no community should be forced to live in fear. With news of an East Oakland shooting also heavy on our hearts, we recognize the toll that the epidemic of gun violence has on communities across our country, state, and right here in our own community.
As we hold grief for those affected and stand in solidarity, we recognize the racism and the trauma members of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities experience daily. We recognize that AAPI community members everywhere will feel these incidents acutely because of the recent increases in anti-AAPI acts of violence. We will continue to stand in love and solidarity with the AAPI community.
Stop AAPI Hate (SAH), a coalition formed in 2020 in response to the escalation in xenophobia and bigotry resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, reported that 1 in 5 AAPIs experienced racism from March 2020 to September 2021. In October 2022, SAH released a report analyzing the ways in which political rhetoric inflamed anti-Asian scapegoating, which leads to violence.
Opportunities to Support
In February 2021, East Bay Community Foundation joined with 33 other foundations in a call to action for our colleagues to provide significant funding for programs that AAPI survivors, leaders, and communities require to address this violence and build racial solidarity. AAPI-led, AAPI-serving nonprofit organizations that EBCF supports appear below.
APEN is an environmental justice organization building power with California’s Asian immigrant and refugee communities. Since 1993, they have built a membership base of Laotian refugees in Richmond and Chinese immigrants in Oakland.
FAJ builds a strong and empowered Filipino community by organizing constituents, developing leaders, providing services, and advocating for policies that promote social and economic justice and equity. FAJ serves Filipinos who call the East Bay home through its offices in Oakland’s Chinatown and Union City.
The Jakara Movement is a grassroots community-building organization working to empower, educate, and organize Punjabi Sikhs and other marginalized communities by advancing their health, education, and economic, social, and political power.
The philanthropic advising team at EBCF curated this list of organizations working to prevent violence in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
FIAEB is committed to faith-based organizing and leadership development on issues connected to immigration, community safety/anti-violence, anti-displacement, economic justice, and other member-identified campaigns. They work in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
CURYJ (pronounced ‘courage’) unlocks the leadership of young people to dream beyond bars. They look to young people to lead the way in transforming our communities by investing in their healing, aspirations, and activism.
BOP builds Black community power and develops leaders in Oakland and across the Bay Area. BOP continues to be a central leader in reimagining public safety by working directly with impacted youth and their families.
Youth Alive! Works to break the cycle of violence and uplift a thriving community of leaders rooted in Oakland and beyond through prevention, intervention, healing, and advocacy.
Urban Peace Movement builds youth leadership in Oakland to transform the culture and social conditions that lead to community violence & mass incarceration in communities of color.