More than a Monolith: Data Disaggregation as a Pathway to Equity for AAPI Communities

May 3, 2:00 pm ET

Asian American and Pacific Islander communities are diverse, with 50 ethnic groups speaking over 100 languages. As the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the U.S., people who identify as AAPI make up 28.2 percent of immigrants, many of whom have fled violence and oppression; many of whom struggle with poverty. Yet foundation funding for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) was .2% of TOTAL giving for the past decade. This means that only 20 cents out of every 100 philanthropic dollars awarded in the U.S. was invested into AAPI communities and issues, and that number is dropping.

Jessica Yin, coauthor of Education Policies Need To Address the Unique Needs of Asian American and Pacific Islander Communities, will join us to discuss the kinds of policies needed to support more intentional and successful funding of AAPI communities, including data disaggregation. We will also hear from Quyen Dinh from SEARAC and Chanda Womack from ARISE Education, who will speak to the needs and challenges of disaggregating data given the diversity of AAPI communities.

This is the second session of our series on funding Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. In our first session we welcomed our audience for an overview of racism against members of AAPI communities and the varying historic challenges different groups within these communities have faced in the U.S. educational landscape. You can watch the webinar here.

While others are welcome to attend, this event is intended for members and education grantmakers. The session will run for one hour.

There is no cost to attend this Grantmakers for Education program. Registration closes 15 minutes prior to the program time. Thank you for your patience; we review each registration in advance.

About the Presenters

Sue Cui
Senior Program Officer
Ascendium Education Group

Sue Cui is a senior program officer. She co-leads strategic grantmaking in support of Ascendium’s Remove Structural Barriers to Success focus area, which seeks to transform colleges and universities to foster seamless academic pathways for learners from low-income backgrounds. She joined the organization in 2016.

Prior to joining Ascendium, Sue made grants for STEM teaching and learning at the Helmsley Charitable Trust. She has also held positions with Rutgers University and supported corporate giving at Altria. Outside of Ascendium, Sue co-chairs the Grantmakers for Education Postsecondary Access & Attainment Impact Group and serves on the planning committee as a member of the Latino Student Success Funders Group.

Raised in New Jersey, she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology and art history from New York University.

Quyen Dinh
Executive Director
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)

Quyên is the Executive Director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC). Originally formed in 1979, SEARAC was founded by a group of American humanitarians as a direct response to the refugee crises arising throughout Southeast Asia as a result of U.S. military actions. Today, SEARAC is a civil rights organization that represents the largest refugee community ever resettled in America. It works to empower Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese American communities to create a socially just and equitable society through policy advocacy, advocacy capacity building, community engagement, and mobilization.

As Executive Director, Quyên has advocated for Southeast Asian Americans on key civil rights issues including education, immigration, criminal justice, health, and aging. Quyên has spoken widely about Southeast Asian American communities and has appeared in American RadioWorks, NBC, Public Radio International, and Voice of America. Under Quyên’s leadership, SEARAC has authored national legislation and passed California legislation calling for transparent, disaggregated data for the Asian American community. Quyên has also extended SEARAC’s coalition presence and leadership in other civil rights and social justice movements through her leadership roles with the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA), Detention Watch Network (DWN), the Diverse Elders Coalition (DEC), RISE for Boys and Men of Color, and Allies Reaching for Community Health Equity (ARCHE) Action Collaborative. Prior to SEARAC, she built lasting infrastructure for the International Children Assistance Network (ICAN) in San Jose, CA, serving Vietnamese immigrant parents, grandparents, and youth.

Born to Vietnamese refugees, Quyên identifies as a second-generation Vietnamese American. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley. Quyên was born in New Orleans, LA, and grew up in Orange County, CA, and San Jose. She currently resides with her husband in Washington, DC.

Ellen Wang
Senior Program Officer
Nellie Mae Education Foundation

Ellen Wang is a senior program officer at the Nellie Mae Education Foundation in Quincy, MA. At Nellie Mae, Ellen has the honor of leading the Supporting Organizations Led by People of Color Grant Fund, which supports BIPOC-led nonprofit organizations in New England that are working to dismantle racial inequities in public education. She is also the holder of the internal racial equity learning agenda at the Foundation.

Born in Taiwan, and raised in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, Ellen came to the US at the age of eighteen as a third-culture kid. She has a background in youth development and education, and is deeply committed to racial justice, the allocation of resources to historically excluded communities of color, and building cross-racial solidarity.

Prior to joining the philanthropic sector, Ellen worked at the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center and had the privilege and joy of supporting and learning from brilliant Asian American and Asian immigrant youth through leadership development and college access programming.

Chanda Womack
Founding Executive Director
Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education (ARISE)

Chanda Womack is the Founding Executive Director of the Alliance of Rhode Island Southeast Asians for Education (ARISE.) The intersection of her identity as a Cambodian Refugee woman and mom of two bi-racial (Black and Cambodian) children have shaped her ideologies, advocacy and organizing. These identity markers fuel how she shows up, occupies and shares space not just for education justice but for all issues that impact the historically excluded. She is unapologetic for what she stands for and how she carries out her work. Her leadership and movement building has garnered local and national recognition for ARISE and Rhode Island. Mostly recently she was the named the 2020 recipient of A Leadership Journey’s, Mary Marsh “Community Leader Award,” ARISE & her leadership was named in Providence Monthly’s “Who to Watch in 2020.” In 2017, Chanda was the recipient of NAACP Thurgood Marshall, the YWCA’s Women in Achievement Award and the Providence Youth Student Movement POWER Award.

Chanda was conceived and born in a refugee camp in Thailand, immigrating to the United States in January of 1981 with her family. Chanda is married to Tiger Womack, her husband of over 14 years and has a daughter Amaya and son named Justice. She is a product of the Providence Public Schools and earned a B.A. degree from the University of Rhode Island in 2004. She has a Masters of Public Administration also from the University of Rhode Island as well as a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Leadership from Rhode Island College. She is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Leadership in Schooling from UMASS, Lowell.

Jessica Yin
Policy Analyst, K-12 Education
Center for American Progress

Jessica Yin is a policy analyst on the K-12 Education Policy Team at the Center for American Progress (CAP). Yin has been at CAP for four years, working primarily on the education funding and educator workforce portfolios. Prior to joining CAP, she interned on Capitol Hill for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL). Yin received her bachelor’s degree in international relations and psychology from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.