Advocacy & Civic Engagement
Register for APIC's Democracy Summit: Sept. 27, 2024
This year's Democracy Summit will be held on Friday, September 27th, 2024 at the Tacoma Dome. Visit our Events page to register and be part of making sure our elected officials see, hear, and understand our culturally, linguistically, and geographically diverse AANHPI communities.
Your Voice Matters!
You can submit written or video testimony on bills!
Use the Legislative Hotline 1-800-562-6000 to send a message to legislators with one phone call.
You can also give testimony from the Legislature here. To sign in with your position on a bill, start here.
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Select the House or the Senate, the Committee, the date and time, then the bill number you would like to comment on. The most effective testimony is when you speak for yourself and explain your personal interest in the bill.
Learn more about the legislative processes with these guides:
2024 Asian American &
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Voter Maps
The Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs (CAPAA) partnered with KAYA Strategik to develop a density map on Asian American eligible voter populations in Washington State. Asians comprise 12% (888,309) of Washington's population and 9% (474,053) of the citizen voting age population in Washington.
Counties with the largest Asian AIC eligible voting populations: King County (254,657), Snohomish County (62,449), Pierce County (56,138), Clark County (20,594), Thurston County (14,875).
Largest Asian ethnic group of eligible voters in Washington: Filipinos (~114,000), Chinese, except Taiwanese (~98,000), Vietnamese (~63,000), Korean (~60,000), Japanese (~57,000).
The Secretary of State provides voter registration forms in 23 languages including العربية, Bengali, မြန်မာ , 中文, Farsi, Hindi, 日本語, អក្សរខ្មែរ, 한국어, ພາສາລາວ,Punjabi, Tagalog, and Tiếng Việt.
Census Updates
The U.S. Census Bureau has formally invited the public to share their input and ideas for an improved 2030 Census. The invitation comes in the form of a Federal Register Notice published on August 17, 2022.
You can find Frequently Asked Questions about the census here.
The new Census website can now be used to produce a quick report with the current census data from 2020. Explore your area.
API Legislative Week
The annual A&NHPI Legislative Day was held in person on February 12th, 2024. Our 2025 API Legislative Day planning will be coming up soon, so keep an eye out for updates! We'd love to have you join us! This year's events will be a mix of in-person and virtual actions.
In 2024, we brought together community members from around the state to meet with legislators to advocate for important policies and programs that impact our communities. We held multiple virtual trainings and were able to advocate for our communities together!
Read more about the APIC 2024 Legislative Agenda to the right:
Pew Research: When surveying small populations, some approaches are more inclusive than others
Survey researchers increasingly recognize that a single survey of the general public can rarely represent the views of small groups of Americans. Such surveys frequently have too few interviews with certain populations – such as smaller religious or racial or ethnic groups – for those voices to be heard.
Pew Research: The Asian American Experience
In the fall of 2021, Pew Research Center undertook the largest focus group study it had ever conducted to hear Asian Americans talk about their lived experiences in America.
Redistricting Updates
In 2021, we joined a coalition of Redistricting Justice for Washington, where we work collectively to ensure that tribal boundaries and communities of color are represented in our new district lines. New district lines have been drawn. Some legislative districts may have changed and your representatives/senators may have changed along with them To check who represents you in 2022, find your district here.
RJWA April Update: The Coalition has decided to end their VRA lawsuit, read more about why this decision was made here
For additional information, check out Redistricting Justice for Washington (RJW).
Stay Updated on Legislation
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Once you select a bill, you can email a COMMENT to your legislator, or you can subscribe to email NOTIFICATIONS for updates.
Notable 2023 Legislative Activities Relating to AAPI's Include:
These projects will provide funding to organizations and events that work with and for our community.
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APCC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit community-based organization formed in 1996 to bridge communities and generations through arts, culture, education, and business. APCC is finalizing its fundraising efforts to build an 18,500 sq ft two-story building in Tacoma in place of the old South Park Community Center owned by Metro Parks Tacoma – to include a large event room with a capacity of over 350 people, classrooms, offices, commercial/teaching kitchen, art gallery, library, and gift shop.
APCC is approved and listed on the Governor's budget for $1,080,000 under the Commerce Building Community Fund. We are urging the Legislature to support the full approved allocation for APCC for the State Dept of Commerce Building Communities Fund already allotted for APCC. We are also urging the Legislature to please support a legislative ask of $2 million to help APCC with rising costs of construction due to present inflation costs. Sign in with written testimony to support the APCC!
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UTOPIA’s Mapu Maia Clinic serves as a trusted, culturally aligned, free healthcare resource for Pacific Islanders in the LGBTQI community. The Mapu Maia Clinic provides resources for substance use and mental health services, including prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery support services. The clinic has served the community since the outbreak of the pandemic and has provided healthcare needs and services to community members through trusted partnerships and volunteer efforts of healthcare providers and organizations.
In partnership with other health care providers, the Mapu Maia Clinic currently operates a once-a-month pop-up event to provide some of its health care and support services. We are requesting $700,000 from the Washington State Legislature to enable UTOPIA the physical capability to establish a fully functional drop-in clinic that operates weekly and after-hours to meet the needs of the community members with a diverse range of substance use and mental health related services. Sign in with written testimony to support the Mapu Maia Clinic!
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The Indian American Community Services (IACS) Community Center in Kent will be an inclusive, safe space in the heart of Kent's small business district where the community can find resources and support services for all age groups while also accessing vocational training, digital literacy, technical assistance for small businesses, free legal and mental health services, early learning and developmental screening along with programming for health and wellness, youth support services, inter-generational activities and opportunities to connect as a community. The center will also participate in the city and county’s culinary network to empower the culinary and food delivery businesses. APIC supports the IACS's request for $2 million for their community center in Kent.
IACS has raises 50% of the cost of purchasing the center and is now requesting additional state, county and federal funding for our capital improvements in order to make the space operational. We are requesting $2,000,000 from the state legislature to support this project.
For families and survivors of police misconduct. Civil litigation serves a valuable function for families and other victims of police violence. Currently, there is a gap in what type of remedy and relief can be brought to state court and this proposal authorizes civil suits for violations of state constitutional rights for police misconduct.
SB 5109/HB 1095: Unemployment Benefits for Undocumented Workers
Address the structural exclusions built into the unemployment system by building a permanent, separate unemployment system that provides benefits to undocumented workers, creating a social safety net to help around 150,000 Washington residents and their families.
HB 1075 & HB 1477: Working Families Tax Credit
Technical fixes legislation to improve equity and access to the WFTC program and expansion legislation to provide greater benefit to a larger number of households in Washington State by expanding eligibility to all those 18 years of age and older.
SB 5112: Secure Automatic Voter Registration
Washington can improve our Automatic Voter Registration system by moving to a back-end system where citizens will be automatically registered or have their registration updated, also eliminating chances of human error that could result in non-citizens being asked about registering to vote.
SB 5082/HB 1158 Eliminating Advisory Votes
The legislature has the opportunity to remove confusing and non-binding advisory votes from the ballot, making it more accessible to new voters and voters with limited English proficiency, also saving state time, money and admin.
2020 Census
Watch our videos (available in English and Chinese) detailing the importance of the census. The data we learn will help us get the benefits, funds, and representation we deserve.