AAPIs Connect: Harnessing Strategic Communications to Advance Civic Engagement
The AAPI Civic Engagement Fund partners with the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge on a new report
At a time when hate and violence against AAPIs is on the rise, and with the elections and census on the horizon, AAPI Civic Engagement Fund believes building the narrative power of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) is essential. Stories of communities mobilizing together against injustice or inhumane policies are urgently needed. Too often the voices and spirit of progressive AAPIs are absent in any such public discourse.
Key findings
Organizations or campaigns aimed at reaching AAPIs require resourcing and planning that consider the diversity of the AAPI audiences.
- AAPI audiences include at least three main audience types relating to language ability and years in the United States: (1) monolingual English, (2) bilingual, and (3) limited English proficient.
Social media has been growing rapidly.
- Among Asian ethnic groups, Vietnamese and Filipinx Americans are most likely to post about politics on social media at 38% and 30%, respectively.
Connectivity to broadband is not universal.
- Only 82% of Pacific Islanders have computer access with broadband, which is a lower rate compared to that of Asian Americans (92%) and other racial groups.
- An additional note is that, in a survey of Californians, AAPIs do not show higher connectivity rates than other racial groups and still lag behind non-Hispanic whites in regard to access.
Read the Report
The report also calls for funders to address these challenges by funding AAPI groups–particularly those that are local, bi-multi-lingual/biliterate, and working with harder-to-reach populations– to build an infrastructure for communications to become a strategic function of their overall work. Funders can also support resources to conduct more studies on how AAPIs get their information and how AAPI community groups’ use of communications can contribute to the testing, development, and execution of new strategies and tactics in this dynamic field.
The scan includes a demographic profile on AAPIs; literature review on AAPI media consumption, community-led media, and the capacity of community groups; top lines from survey of AAPI Civic Engagement Fund Cohort; strategies, tactics, and advice from content creators, trainers, and communications practitioners.