On Wednesday, July 17, 2019, CALex invited State Rep. Michelle Ciccolo to meet with the Chinese American community. The community members shared the race box issue for Asian Americans on US Census Form and expressed their concerns on the new State bill H.2681, an act to collect disaggregated data based on ethnicity and country of origin.
The host shared the enormous time and effort the volunteers led by Helen Yang and Swan Lee have put into the work by asking US Census Bureau to remove individual Asian ethnicity boxes and replace them with Asian category followed by write-in country of origin, which should be the same format as White and Black categories as shown below. State Rep. Ciccolo agreed that it is an issue and needs to be fixed, she also explained the importance of the 2020 census which we agreed.
Regarding Rep. Tackey Chan’s new bill H.2681, many community members expressed their opinions and concerns with the bill. This is just an upgraded version of H.3361 which was voted down a week after a public hearing ( close to 1000 attendees with majority opposing it). The focus of this bill is still on Asian Americans and it does not make any better to the most concerning issue — Asian Americans and immigrants, are more vulnerable to be a target by potential discriminatory policies as a result of data misuse and misinterpretation because these groups are overwhelmingly under-represented in the political establishments.
When Rep. Ciccolo asked if we should make a better version of the bill or kill the bill, all the community members in the room raised their hand and sent a loud and clear voice — kill the bill.
In the end, Rep. Ciccolo took pictures with the community members. CALex also gave Rep. Ciccolo a hand-crafted gift. Thank Rep. Ciccolo for listening to our concerns and our community members for participation and speaking up!