Keynote: BUILDING AAPLI CIVIC CAPACITY by Dr. Karthick Ramakrishnan

Summit Event: Keynote Speech, 12:50 pm Building AAPI Civic Capacity

Dr. Karthick Ramakrishnan, Director, Center for Social Innovation

Dr. Ramakrishnan introduced the Center for Social Innovation (CSI) at UCR (UC Riverside) and described the work they do. CSI promotes collaborative research, policy innovation, and narrative change in the inland region (away from the high tech coastal area) of California. CSI tries to understand and to realize the potential of the inland region’s civic activities and to promote philanthropic investments in the nonprofit sector.

CSI has coined the term DNA as an acronym for Data and Technology, Narrative Change (Framing, storytelling, messaging) and Action (Advocacy, Civic Engagement, Social Enterprise) to describe the work that they do. By studying immigrant status in the inland California areas, CSI hopes that the new data will help community service providers to address local needs and assist the lawmakers to use these data to work on immigration policies in the region.

Dr. Ramakrishnan pointed out that 1/7 of Asian Immigrants are undocumented and that” there are many troubling findings about perceptions and barriers related to Census 2020 among communities of color”. ”Asian Americans were the least likely of any racial group to report that they intended to complete the survey form. Only 55% of Asian Americans said they were “extremely” or “very” likely to fill out the Census form, compared to 69% of Whites, and 65% of Latinos, and 64% of Blacks.”

Asian Americans were also the least likely to express familiarity with the census and are the group most likely to say that their answers to the Census “will be used against them.”