Racial Justice Project
When CAAAV began documenting patterns of racially motivated attacks against Asians in New York City, it found that the single greatest perpetrators of anti-Asian violence were not white civilians, but New York City police officers. Indeed, the NYPD was perpetrator number-one when it came to frequency of harassment, threats, and physical attacks on Asian immigrants.
Among those most commonly victimized by police harassment and brutality were street vendors, cab drivers, Asian young people, and those who were moving into traditionally white working-class neighborhoods. Since 1986, CAAAV has organized numerous community actions aimed at highlighting state violence in Asian communities, and over the past five years it has played an active role in the NYC Coalition Against Police Brutality.
In an attempt to consolidate its anti-police brutality efforts and to further its analysis of racist law enforcement against Asian immigrants, CAAAV established the Racial Justice Project (RJP) in 1999. RJP seeks to document, analyze, and organize against patterns of law enforcement abuse in diverse Asian communities across the city. Moreover, RJP seeks to highlight the connections between the criminalization of immigrants, INS detention and incarceration, and police brutality.
Khmer Freedom Committee
In April 2002, following the secret repatriation agreement signed by the U.S. and Cambodia, CAAAV established the Khmer Freedom Committee (KFC) as a project to specifically address the forced deportation of Cambodian refugee children who have criminal convictions. We issued a statement that received dozens of endorsers.
Community Defense
During summer 2002, as part of our community defense strategy, KFC held community meetings to disseminate information and to strategize responses. We created a "Community Defense Tool Kit" which includes a bilingual "know your rights" brochure, a bilingual "know your rights" video (since the majority of Khmer adults and elderly are non-English speaking and illiterate in Khmer), information on immigration laws and history, media tools, and other suggestions for local organizing. Based on the experiences of communities in the Mexico border region who are daily abused by INS agents, we have created photo identification cards. We also set up a national 800 hotline number in order to facilitate information/resource-sharing regarding community organizing and legal assistance: local: 718-220-2882 / national: 877-572-2228. We have also been conducting a local community survey to assess the number of people who have final orders of deportation, are currently detained, have criminal convictions, and are currently in the criminal justice system.
In August 2002, KFC convened Freedom Training II (based on the one convened in summer 2000 which focused on organizing for welfare rights and fighting INS detention of lifers). The objectives of the training were to bring together Southeast Asian community-based organizers from around the country to (1) share information about the impact of the Cambodian repatriation agreement; (2) strategize a national coordinated response; and (3) to share tools and strategies for local organizing which will build the capacity for communities to protect themselves and exercise leadership. Many participants had little to no organizing experience but have already begun to take up the call to organize their communities around this issue.
Participants included grassroots Southeast Asian organizers as well as individuals with final orders of deportation. One outcome of the gathering was to establish a national network, the Southeast Asian Freedom Network (SEAFN) and our first collaboration was a national day of action on November 7th or 8th which took place in the Bronx, NY; Lowell, MA; Providence, RI; Oakland, CA; Berkeley, CA; Los Angeles, CA; Philadelphia, PA, Madison, WI.
In January 2003, SEAFN convened a strategy meeting in Long Beach, CA and decided that our next collaboration would be another national day of action on March 22nd, marking the one-year anniversary of the secret signing of the repatriation agreement. Current members of SEAFN are: API Force (Oakland, CA); Asian Freedom Project (Madison, WI); CAAAV (NY); Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia (PA); Family Unity (Lowell, MA); Khmer Girls in Action (Long Beach, CA); PRYSM (Providence, RI) Asian Pacific Islanders for Advocacy and Leadership, Southeast Asian Student Coalition, and Cambodian American Consortium.
KFC's Current Goals
1) Raising the critical consciousness of broader society of the deportation of Cambodian refugees, and the overall injustice of U.S. immigration policies;
2) Building the capacity of the Bronx Southeast Asian community to fight deportation, and participate in broader immigrant rights and racial justice movements; and
3) Raising the critical consciousness on the deportation of Cambodians within Southeast Asian communities nationally, and the broader social justice movement (e.g. immigrant rights, anti-prison industrial complex, racial justice, INS and criminal justice reform groups).