2000 Highlights

ADVOCACY

• Mobilizing and responding to urgent issues of discrimination. The Asian American Institute serves as one of the leading organizations in the Illinois Asian American Hate Crimes Network, which monitors hate crime cases and mobilizes community members to show a presence during court hearings. Most recently, the Network took action to alert the community about the attacks on Asian American women, translate and disseminate flyers throughout the northern Chicagoland area, and advocate on the community's behalf to all the northern district police departments to become active in preventing further attacks. AAI was recognized by the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County State's Attorney for its efforts during this time.
  
  
• This year the Asian American community has taken a new step in advocating of its fair share of resources and representation. As a follow-up to a successful Candidates Forum in late 1998, the Institute launched a new effort, the Political Empowerment Initiative. Elected officials with a significant number of Asian American constituents were graded by a diverse, non-partisan panel of Asian American leaders who assessed the officials with regard to Asian American outreach, empowerment of Asian Americans (via appointments, public funding, hiring and slating), stance on Asian Americans and redistricting, and awareness of Asian American issues. The assessment report has garnered strong support from community members, and several public officials have requested meeting to discuss the panel's findings and how they might be more accessible to the community.
  
  
• One of the long-term goals from its voters survey was to develop very much needed voter education for the community, so that AAI may continually improve Asian American civic participation. Therefore, the Institute led the formation of the first coalition of Chicago's Asian American organizations to work on voter registration, education, get-out-the-vote and exit polling. The thirty-member coalition trained registrars and disseminated education materials to thousands of community members. AAI conducted the first-ever exit poll of Asian Americans in Chicago as a part of its Redistricting Education Project.
  

COALITION-BUILDING

• AAI brings together key APA organizations from around the city to discuss issues important to the community, and features presentations by APA liaisons to public offices.
  
  
• AAI continues to be the main organization representing the Midwest in the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, the only national pan-Asian APA advocacy coalition.

EDUCATION

• In order to promote awareness of Asian American perspectives, the Institute's Executive Director has given presentations to corporations, universities, and community based organizations, including Lucent Technologies, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Columbia College, Urban Studies Program of the Associated Colleges of the Midwest, Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Public Allies, and Chicago Do Something, focusing on topics such as immigration and hate crimes.
  
  
• The Institute has identified that one of the continuing needs in education is the development of a multi-cultural curriculum that includes Asian Americans. With the state-funded financial support, AAI has assembled a committee of teachers and researchers to develop an elementary school level curriculum of activities as the first stage of developing a curriculum development model for Asian American studies for grades K-12.
  
  
• To further reach and increase information access to the community, AAI launched its website (www.aaichicago.org) in May of 2000 to coincide with the release of the Roosevelt reports and Asian American Heritage Month. Most of its publications can be downloaded from the site and it also provides links to other Asian American organizations' pages. The site was especially helpful in alerting the community about the attacks against Asian American women because translated flyers were available on the site, in various languages including Chinese, Urdu, Hindi, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, and Tagalog .

RESEARCH

• As a part of its Census project, AAI produced a 90-page publication entitled "A Comprehensive Guide to the Asian American Community of the Greater Chicago Area", which featured demographic information on Asian Americans in Illinois, profiles on nine communities and a listing of almost 200 organizations. AAI also received special recognition from Cook County and the Chicago Regional Census Bureau for its work on the Census.
  
  
• In partnership with Roosevelt University, AAI was also awarded a grant from The Joyce Foundation to publish and disseminate a first-ever series of attitudinal and qualitative studies on Asian Americans in the Chicagoland Area. The four reports highlighted Financial Security, Civic Participation, Health Care, and Neighborhood Life and Social Attitudes, and received local ethnic, mainstream, and national press coverage.
  
  
• AAI recently produced an assessment for the Chicago Department of Housing on housing needs of the Southeast Asian American elderly, specifically Cambodians, Chinese, and Vietnamese senior citizens residing in the Albany Park, Lincoln Square and Uptown areas. The collaboration was recognized with a 1999 nomination for Illinois Best Practices by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.