FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 17, 2020
Contact:
Leyen Trang
Communications & Social Media Coordinator
leyen@aaopmn.org
9 Pan-Asian Organizations to Engage Community in the Census
ST. PAUL — Nine Pan-Asian local organizations gather to organize and engage community members for the 2020 Census through Asian American Organizing Project (AAOP)’s Census Grant initiative. The collaborative efforts include Asian and Southeast Asian New Year events, direct engagement to temples, health clinics, schools, a Census awareness camp, and more.
The 2020 Census marks the first time a digital questionnaire form will be used, and the 2019 proposed citizenship question that the Supreme Court later ruled the question would not be included on Census forms.
AAOP Executive Director Linda Her shares, “Through our Census Grant initiative, grantees are funded to amplify their relational organizing efforts, and utilize their trusted relationships to ensure their communities are accurately counted, and represented as a valuable contributor to democracy and the social, economic, and civic well-being of our state.”
The 2020 Census Grantees are:
Center for Hmong Arts and Talent (CHAT)
Association of Nepalis of MN (ANMN)
Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota (TAFM)
Siengkane Lao of Minnesota (SKL of MN)
Chinese Social Services of MN
National Asian American Association of Professionals (NAAAP)
“We have nine organizations from diverse Asian ethnicities (Asian Pacific Islander Desi American communities) coming together to build awareness and community power for the Census. It’s very exciting to see that because they know their communities and can best engage with them,” says AAOP Partnership Organizer Vang Xor Xiong.
“Many of our communities have historical distrust of the government, and the Census. It’s so important that we have these organizations coming together to build awareness and community power, because every 10 years, Census data is used to determine funding and resources that ties into our livelihoods.”
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