It’s time to stand up and speak out against anti-Asian xenophobia, racism, and violence.
As an Asian-American led organization, The GREEN Program is calling on our community to come together in solidarity to speak out against the rising tide of anti-Asian violence and xenophobia.
In 2020, the NYPD reported a 1900% increase in anti-Asian violence. In the past year, there have been 3,800 anti-Asian racist incidents reported, yet only a handful were covered by the media. The Asian and Asian-American community has been under attack, verbally and physically. The hate fueled spike in attacks have led to too many people in the Asian community being beaten, stabbed, slashed from ear-to-ear, brutalized by viotriolage (acid attacks), and murdered. Many of the victims targetted have been our elders, the most respected and vulnerable in our communities.
For hundreds of years, the AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) community has experienced erasure from the history books to the conversations of racial injustice and civil rights. Inadequate history education and the model minority myth need to be diversified in order to accurately portray the full story and experiences of AAPI lives.
Silence is no longer an option. To the AAPI community, we hear you, we support you, and we will speak up for you.
In 2019, the Institute of International Education (IIE) reported that the number of international students studying in the United States reached an all-time high, and “for the tenth consecutive year, China remained the largest source of international students in the United States.” By the Fall of 2020, international education enrollment dropped 43%. The most significant drop from any country came from China, with a decline of 99% in F-1 student visas for Chinese nationals. Since the late 1970’s, the United States has been the top choice for China’s international students, contributing $15 billion to the U.S. economy of the total $44 billion for all international students. The impacts within the intersections of race and international education is clear, and it’s affecting an entire generation of students.
Esther D. Brimmer, the National Association of International Educators’s (NAFSA) executive director and CEO, said in a statement,
“Unfortunately, this disappointing news is not surprising. For the past four years international students and scholars have had to endure travel bans, executive orders, detrimental regulatory actions and xenophobic rhetoric from the highest levels of U.S. government. The lack of a coordinated national pandemic response made the situation even more difficult.”
The GREEN Program’s mission is to advocate for a more sustainable world through the education and mobilization of the next generation of sustainability leaders. We recognize that it will never be possible to achieve a sustainable future without equality and justice for all. In 2015, a declaration was created by the United Nations to acknowledge that racial and ethnic discrimination will continue to function as structural and systemic barriers to sustainable development if they are not addressed. Global injustices are causing disadvantage and marginalization among people in all regions of the world. “These inequalities are evident in disproportional poverty rates and limited access to power, justice, education, physical and mental health including psychosocial services, social security, access to basic needs like safe drinking water, equal protection against the ravages of climate disasters, political participation, as well as, protection against racial/ethnic profiling and police violence” (Glaser, Spencer & Charbonneau, 2014).
A solution within solidarity.
Asian-Americans have not experienced the same challenges as other BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) communities, yet racial oppression underscores the impacts of BIPOC communities in both similar and different ways. Throughout our history, Black and Asian solidarity has been evident and has taught us that all of our communities are stronger together than apart. As allies, listen to these stories and uplift them. Together, we can fight racism.
As we move forward continue the fight for a sustainable and equitable future, TGP will be using our platform to amplify BIPOC voices, share resources, support, encourage, and empower others to be active and informed allies. Together with our global community, we are committed to collectively dismantling racism and injustice for a sustainable future.
If you see or experience an AAPI hate crime, speak out, step in, and report the hate incident HERE.
Hate crimes are underreported. Reporting an incident you experienced or witnessed can help bring greater awareness and strengthens the chance a perpetrator will be prosecuted. Hate crimes can be reported both to your local police and by tips to the FBI.
We hear you, we support you, and together we will fight racism.
With education at the core of our mission, our team created an open-sourced library with resources that are focused upon education, advocacy, and action for anyone, anywhere, to play an effective role in this fight.
Access TGP’s “Fighting Racism & Injustice Resource Library” HERE.
We encourage readers to save the resource, revisit it, and contribute to it often. This is an actively growing resource that was created in the summer of 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement. With your help, we will continue supporting and being inclusive of BIPOC and underrepresented communities with this resource. Dedicate a few minutes of your time to continue learning but don’t stop there. You will be empowered with clear steps of action by signing petitions, donating your money and/or time, and more. From there, ask yourself how you can make changes in your daily life, for example: where you shop, what policies you are really voting for, who and what principles you are supporting with your actions, words, and dollars.
To contribute resources, email links and a description about the resource to info@thegreenprogram.com. We strongly encourage resources from BIPOC contributors or authors.