OUR HISTORY

The Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance was founded in 1997 and focused on research, advocacy, and education around issues of health within Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. By 1999, OCAPICA expanded to include legislative education and advocacy as well as youth, cultural arts, and curriculum development. Since then, OCAPICA has grown even more to respond to the needs of AAPI and other under-served communities, expanding its programming in: mental health and wellness for youth and families; civic engagement and voter empowerment; youth employment; and academic mentoring and college readiness. OCAPICA also partners with local area universities on research, evaluation, and service learning.

1997: OCAPICA’S FOUNDING
In the late 90s, Mary Anne Foo and a number of Orange County Asian American community leaders came together to form an organization to respond to the needs of the rapidly growing AANHPI (Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander) population. At the time, there was significant anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiments due to the 1996 federal welfare cuts and reform policies. AANHPI needs were overlooked at the same time that they were seen as stealing jobs, and stealing welfare. The anti-immigrant sentiment led to hate crimes, in particular the murder 24-year old Thien Minh Ly by a white supremacist when skating at Tustin High School. It was then that Mary Anne wanted to address not just the basic needs of AANHPIs, but also address hate crimes and civil rights so AANHPIs can thrive in safety.

1999: REDUCING ETHNIC HEALTH DISPARITIES
OCAPICA received the REACH grant to address health disparities among AANHPI women with breast cancer and cervical cancer. REACH is a national program administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities. At the time, AANHPI women faced many barriers in accessing cancer care such as language barriers, lack of culturally competent care, and fears and stigma around cancer treatment. OCAPICA dedicated bilingual community health workers who were also cancer survivors to help AANHPI cancer patients navigate care, and to advocate to healthcare institutions on making care more accessible for AANHPI women.

2000: CENSUS OUTREACH
OCAPCIA led a census outreach program in 2000: At the time, AANHPIs were being undercounted in the census due to fears and mistrust of government agencies, especially for new immigrant populations. But OCAPICA understood that an accurate count of the AANHPI population was needed to create more public funding for our needs. Over 500 youth walked and rallied in Little Saigon and Koreatown, and local ethnic storeowners put up signs encouraging AANHPIs to get counted in the census. The 2000 Census efforts put OCAPICA on the map as a pioneer in AANHPI civic engagement, and it picked up the attention of national policymakers in Washington D.C. civically engaged AANHPI population on Orange County.

2007: AANHPI MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMS
In 2004, California passed Proposition 63 which created the Mental Health Services Act, and thereby a new source of public mental health funding. Thanks to funding from the MHSA, OCAPICA started its journey to becoming one of the largest AANHPI mental health providers in Orange County. It was monumental to create AANHPI-serving mental health programs that addressed bilingual and culturally competent needs for our community’s access to care.

2012: AFTER-SCHOOL PRGORAMMING IN AUHSD
OCAPICA has a longstanding partnership with Anaheim Unified School District because Michael Matsuda, AUHSD superintendent was a former OCAPICA board member. Thanks to this longstanding partnership, we were able to launch educational programming to help address the educational gaps within the AANHPI population, which are often overlooked due to stereotypes about AANHPIs being educationally successful. Over a decade later, our youth programs continue to uplift first-generation students into higher education and successful careers.

2014: YOUR VOTE MATTERS & COMMUNITY OF CONTRASTS REPORT
The Your Vote Matters! campaign was started by our community partner, Asian Americans Advancing Justice to empower and mobilize community members to exercise their voice at the ballot box, through providing in-language and culturally-appropriate resources and tools. This was the first large-scale Get Out The Vote campaign OCAPICA had ever joined, and OCAPICA made more than 12,000 calls over the span of three weeks.

Additionally, in partnership with Asian Americans Advancing Justice, we released “A Community of Contrasts: Asian Americans, and Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in Orange County”. This report provided the latest data on Asian Americans and NHPI from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources. Including important disaggregated data on discrete ethnic groups, this report works to dispel “model minority” myths by showing that many in our communities require access to social service programs such as culturally and linguistically sensitive K–12 education, unemployment benefits, job training, and health care and more. It is our hope that policymakers use this report to use it to craft legislation that are more effective, efficient, and responsible to the communities they serve.

2020: COVID-19 REPSONSE, RISING HATE CRIMES, GEORGE FLOYD
The COVID-19 pandemic created a multitude of challenges for the AANHPI population. Calls for help to OCAPICA tripled at this time, from community members seeking help with basic needs and economic vitality, to help with vaccination and testing, to help with dealing with the social and emotional impact of the pandemic. In order to address the health disparities that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure, we partnered with several community organizations and led the OC API Taskforce to provide testing, vaccines, PPE, bilingual education in AANHPI languages, and other basic needs to our communities.

However, the pandemic impacted not just the health and livelihoods of vulnerable AANHPIs, but anti-Asian sentiment pinning Asians as the cause for the pandemic contributed to a significant rise in anti-Asian violence. On top of isolating our communities who often rely on community networks for care and safety, community members were afraid to leave the house in fears of violence and attacks. The murder of George Floyd also created a reckoning for larger, cross-racial calls for justice. OCAPICA held a Summer of Listening panel series to create conversations on why Black Lives Matter to AANHPIs, and discussed more topics calling for cross-racial solidarity.

2022: STOP THE HATE
In response to the rise of attacks on AANHPI during the pandemic, California created an API Equity Budget funding $165.5 million over a three-year period to AANHPI-serving organizations. This budget initiative hopes to rectify historic budget inequities, and uplift the community organizations that have long been investing in AANHPI wellness and justice. OCAPICA is the Orange County and Inland Empire regional lead for the California Department of Social Service’s Stop the Hate initiative, comprised of 20+ partner organizations addressing hate, harm, and healing.