Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Chicago

Grassroots Leadership and Community Organizing:Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago develops grassroots leaders to lead campaigns to achieve racial equity. Through our base-building programs KINETIC, I Speak Power, and A Just Chi, we center the experiences of those directly affected by the issues in our community.KINETIC is Advancing Justice | Chicagos civic leadership program for high school youth in Chicago. Through KINETIC we build a community for, and increase the visibility of Asian American and immigrant students in Chicago.I Speak Power cultivates grassroots leaders through English as a Second Language (ESL) classes at partner organizations in Chicago. Through I Speak Power, we empowercommunity members to share their stories and be leaders for change.A Just Chi is a community of leaders who are organizing for racial equity. Anyone can join A Just Chi to meet new people and get involved with ongoing campaigns. The group meets monthly at the Advancing Justice | Chicago office.

Youth Programs:KINETIC is a youth-focused, civic leadership program that works with Limited English Proficient (LEP) immigrant and refugee high school students in Chicago Public Schools both in and out of the classroom. Every year approximately 115 young people participate in our KINETIC programs. This includes our after-school and in-school programs, as well as, our summer corps and service-learning trip to Springfield. Our KINETIC leaders successfully won their very first campaign! KINETIC youth leaders organized their peers and partner organizations to testify at a CPS Board of Education meeting and meet with CPS officials and were able to change the World Language Requirement to be more equitable for English Learner students.

Advocacy:Advancing Justice | Chicago is a coalition leader in Chicago, in Illinois, andnationwide. Together with our partners, we advocate for policy change with a unifiedvoice and exercise our power to win campaigns for our communities.Most recently, Advancing Justice | Chicago led the effort to pass the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History (TEAACH) Act, which requires all public schools in Illinois to teach Asian American history starting in the 2022-2023 school year. As the convener of the Pan-Asian Voter Empowerment (PAVE) Coalition, we organize with Asian American-serving organizations in Chicago and the suburbs to empower ourcommunities to take action. Together with PAVE, we organize the annual AsianAmerican Action Day in Springfield and Mayoral Candidate Forums during Chicago municipal election years.As a member of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR), wejoin a powerful coalition of community-based organizations from across the state towin campaigns to improve the lives of immigrant and refugee communities. Just Democracy is a broad-based and diverse coalition that works to protect andpromote the value of a single vote, no matter the geographic, racial, ethnic orparty affiliation of the voter. Together with partners across Illinois, we havesuccessfully advocated for the passage of Automatic Voter Registration, Election Day Registration, and Online Voter Registration in Illinois.