Chinese for Affirmative Action was founded in 1969 to protect the civil rights of Chinese Americans and to advance multiracial democracy in the United States. Today, CAA is a progressive voice in and on behalf of the broader Asian Pacific Islander (API) community. We advocate for systemic change that protects immigrant rights, promotes language diversity, and remedies racial injustice.
Our community building work nurtures the ability of immigrants to participate fully in civic life. These activities include leadership development for monolingual public school parents, employment services for limited-English proficient newcomers, outreach for immigrant legal services, and community and voter education underscoring issues that impact our constituency. CAA also leads advocacy to improve public policy and to inform public discourse. We produce community-based research, publish policy analyses and recommendations, shape opinion through ethnic and mainstream media, and organize to engage elected and government officials.
Additionally, CAA spearheads initiatives to grow and sustain a progressive API movement. These multi-strategy and multi-constituency change projects consist of efforts that broaden and deepen the understanding of civil rights issues, promote lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender inclusion, and support emerging API social justice leaders and activists. Over the next several years, we will be growing the visibility, scale, and scope of our work in this area
