New Initiatives to Expand Opportunity for AAPIs & Our First National Community Google+ Hangout

Last week, the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI) held our first National AAPI Community Google+ Hangout. With the theme “Expanding Opportunity for AAPIs,” we launched several efforts to better connect the AAPI community with the federal government. Joined by federal officials, community leaders, and actor Maulik Pancholy, I was excited by the vast participation and hope you will engage with WHIAAPI on our new initiatives.

If you missed the Hangout, you can watch it here:

• Share Your Partnership Ideas on Challenge.gov
  WHIAAPI is calling for submissions on great ideas to work with us to expand opportunities for the AAPI community. Proposals may include innovation, enhanced infrastructure, and effective outcomes for a focused amount of time on a project of choice that serves the needs of the community. The challenge is to think beyond the existing work and to have a proposal that would make a meaningful impact on the community. For instance, is there a hot topic issue that your community-based organization has thoughtful solutions for tackling, but needs government support to pursue, or is WHIAAPI overlooking a critical target population in its current work? Submit your idea for partnering with us through Challenge.gov by March 28, 2014.


• Submit Your Feedback to Federal Agencies
  On the Hangout, we released a comprehensive report of what federal agencies have accomplished from their 2013 plans to improve access to federal resources for underserved AAPIs. We also released the 2014-2015 federal agency plans. The plans represent the federal government’s commitment to increasing access to services for the AAPI community, with an emphasis on four priority areas: data disaggregation, language access, workforce diversity and capacity building. We’re also inviting you to utilize an interactive tool to provide feedback and “like” any agency objectives by March 31, 2014: aapi.ideascale.com.


• Get to Know Your Regional Interagency Working Group
  Regional interagency working groups of officials representing more than 25 federal agencies and sub-agencies have been formed and trained to work with AAPI communities. Regional working groups in New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles have already hit the ground running. In the last few months, they heard directly from community members about their challenges and have started to demystify the work of the federal government and its programs and services and create new partnerships with community leaders. To connect with your regional interagency working group, email WhiteHouseAAPI@ed.gov. Please include your name, organization if applicable, and location.


• Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions
  To meet President Obama’s goal of having America produce the highest proportion of college graduates in the world once again by the year 2020, actor Maulik Pancholy announced the Initiative’s #AANAPISIstory campaign on the Hangout.  The campaign seeks to raise awareness about Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), the educational institutions that provide culturally relevant services and have high AAPI populations, to help meet President’s Obama’s 2020 goal. Using #AANAPISIstory on social media platforms, the Initiative will collect stories in the form of photos, videos and writing about what AANAPISIs mean to members of the AAPI community. To share a story and learn more about AANAPISIs, please visit bit.ly/AANAPISI.


• AAPI Heritage Month
  During the Hangout, Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center director Konrad Ng announced its theme for this year’s AAPI Heritage Month in May: “I Am Beyond.” The theme captures how AAPIs have met challenges and excelled beyond them in shaping the nation. The Center is inviting organizations, individuals and communities across the country to join the commemoration of AAPI Heritage Month and share their interpretation of the theme over social media using #IAMBEYOND.  Visit www.apa.si.edu soon for more information.  Expressions can include, but are not limited to, visual art, literary work, or multimedia. The theme aims to enrich the appreciation of the Asian American and Pacific Islander contributions to the American story.

We hope to continue the conversation from the Hangout. Let us know how the federal government can best serve the community at WhiteHouseAAPI@ed.gov. WHIAAPI and our partners will strive to reinforce relationships, forge coalitions, bolster institutions and the capacity of community based organizations in order to ensure the federal government better serves us all.

Kiran Ahuja is the Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders