California

Numbering close to one million, about one third of Southeast Asian Americans in the United States live in California. SEARAC partners closely with 25 community-based organizations across the state to deepen local and statewide advocacy efforts to fight for racial and health equity, including access to affordable health care, culturally and linguistically appropriate mental health care for all Southeast Asian American generations, disaggregated data, education equity, gender justice, and immigrant rights.

SEARAC’s California office convenes the Asian American and Pacific Islander Boys and Men of Color Coalition Helping to Achieve Racial and Gender Equity (AAPI BMOC CHARGE), a multi-ethnic coalition of AAPI-serving community-based organizations throughout California, with a particular focus on dismantling the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline. This coalition leads the charge to break down data to uncover critical health and education disparities across Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.

Key resources

Health

AAPI Boys and Men of Color Coalition Helping to Achieve Racial and Gender Equity (CHARGE)

Current campaigns

The Behavioral Health Equity Collaborative, led by the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, was established in 2016 as a dedicated, coordinated collaborative of behavioral health equity advocates to engage in policy analysis and development, publicize and highlight advocacy opportunities with broader networks, and advance a vision of successful, inclusive, and consumer-oriented behavioral health integration.

SEARAC contributes to the Having Our Say Coalition, which is convened and facilitated by the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, a multicultural statewide advocacy organization. Having Our Say works to ensure that communities of color have a voice in the debate over access to quality health care for all Californians. The statewide coalition has convened over 30 organizations to engage in policy analysis, legislative visits, and pass legislation to further health equity for Californians.

SEARAC is an active member of the College for All Coalition, a multiracial, statewide, and community-led coalition of more than 60 organizations that seeks to promote social justice in public higher education. Focusing on low-income youth, English learners, and foster youth of all backgrounds, the coalition is dedicated to supporting K-12 public school students in preparing for and graduating from California’s public universities.

Our California team is also engaged in the One California Coalition, an alliance of immigrant rights organizations that advocates for and monitors a state-funded program that supports free education and citizenship services for immigrants and provides legal representation for immigrants in deportation proceedings. The One California Coalition is convened and facilitated by the California Immigrant Policy Center.