One of our marquee events this year was the annual Juneteenth celebration at Ping Yuen, a former public housing complex that is now owned and operated by Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC). This year’s celebration brought out 187 residents, the largest turnout yet, to enjoy a range of educational activities, games, face painting, and food from a local Black-owned business. The goal was to create an inclusive atmosphere for the entire community, especially one where Black and Chinese residents who live right next to each other can spend an afternoon sharing space and enjoying a meal together.

In June 2024, Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) hosted a fireside chat alongside AROC and Coleman Advocates to lift up community-driven approaches to safety and solidarity. This intergenerational and multicultural gathering offered a space for community members to connect and share their personal stories with one another, with live Cantonese and Mandarin interpretation to make this event accessible to more participants. Over 100 people gathered at CPA’s office in Chinatown to enjoy a meal together and talk about what safety meant to them — what safety smells like, looks like, feels like, and tastes like. This led into a panel, facilitated by a CPA youth leader, with members across the three organizations describing their efforts to cultivate safety and solidarity. The afternoon concluded in small group discussions.

This event is part of a larger series of fireside chats that CPA hosts to connect their Chinese immigrant and working-class members to different communities, expand their perspectives, and break down stereotypes they may hold, especially of Black and brown communities. The healing journey is long, and it happens one conversation at a time.

We know the challenges Limited English Proficient (LEP) victims, survivors, and their families face in seeking public resources and support in the aftermath of harm. Too often, LEP residents encounter long wait times, poor quality interpretation and translation, and limited bilingual staff to assist them, which creates unequal access to city services, especially in times of crisis. Through our efforts with the Language Access Network of San Francisco (LANSF), Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) worked with government stakeholders and community partners to update the City’s Language Access Ordinance this past year to ensure, among other important priorities, that the City is equipped to deploy language access services during emergencies and crisis situations.

One of CCSJ’s first policy efforts was focused on improving safety for Muni riders. We’ve provided direct victim support for too many folks who experienced violence while riding the bus or train and we heard clearly from our communities, particularly Asian seniors, that these incidents made them afraid of riding Muni.

Led by CAA staff, CCSJ began meeting with SFMTA in 2021 and more recently has been working with the agency to implement new state laws aimed at improving transit safety. Stop AAPI Hate, a national coalition which CAA co-founded, sponsored Senate Bill 1161 and Senate Bill 434, which were both signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom. These bills created the first-of-its-kind community survey tool for transit agencies to measure harassment on their systems and required the state’s top 10 transit agencies, including SFMTA and BART, to collect and publish rider data about safety and harassment.

In the past year, CAA has been ensuring SFMTA complies with the new state laws, which require conducting multilingual surveys and focus groups with riders who are impacted by harassment, including women and non-English speaking communities. This work is just beginning.