Chinese for Affirmative Action (CAA) is a

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

–based advocacy organization. Founded in 1969, its initial goals were equality of access to employment and the creation of job opportunities for

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

s. The group broadened its mission in the subsequent decades. As of 2007, its stated mission is "to defend and promote the civil and political rights of Chinese and

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used fo ...

s within the context of, and in the interest of, advancing

multiracial democracy Multiracial democracy is a democratic political system that is multiracial. It is cited as aspiration in South Africa after apartheid and as existing for the United States. See also * Cultural mosaic * Ethnopluralism * Intercultural relations * ...

in the United States".

Major campaigns

CAA represented the plaintiffs in '' Lau v. Nichols'', a 1974

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

case expanding access to bilingual education. In 1978, CAA successfully advocated that the

United States Census The United States census (plural censuses or census) is a census that is legally mandated by the Constitution of the United States. It takes place every ten years. The first census after the American Revolution was taken in 1790 United States ce ...

break down the single "Asian" category on the questionnaire into multiple distinct groups, to help better understand the Asian American population. In 1999, CAA helped advocate increased outreach in undercounted communities for the 2000 Census. From 1982 onwards, CAA was involved in the national campaign on behalf of Chinese-American hate crime victim Vincent Chin. In 2000, CAA helped organize a national coalition in support of Taiwanese-American scientist

Wen Ho Lee Wen Ho Lee or Li Wenho (; born December 21, 1939) is a Taiwanese-American nuclear scientist and a mechanical engineer who worked for the University of California at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. He created computerized simul ...

. In 2003, Chinese for Affirmative Action, the

Asian Pacific American Legal Center Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL) formerly known as Asian Americans Advancing Justice Los Angeles (Advancing Justice LA), is a non-profit legal aid and civil rights organization dedicated to advocacy, providing lega ...

, and the Asian Law Caucus jointly launched

Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from As ...

(AACRE), a

Sacramento, California Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento Rive ...

–based organization doing progressive Asian American state-level political advocacy. In 2014, Chinese for Affirmative Action supported the

Senate Constitutional Amendment 5 Senate Constitutional Amendment5 (SCA5) was introduced by California State Senator Edward Hernandez to the California State Senate on December3,2012. This initiative would ask voters to consider eliminating California Proposition 209's ban on the ...

, an initiative would ask voters to consider eliminating

California Proposition 209 Proposition 209 (also known as the California Civil Rights Initiative or CCRI) is a California ballot proposition which, upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit state governmental institutions from considering ...

's ban on the use of race,

sex Sex is the biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inheri ...

color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...

ethnicity An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they Collective consciousness, collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, ...

, or

national origin National origin is the nation where a person was born, or where that person's ancestors came from. It also includes the diaspora of multi-ethnic states and societies that have a shared sense of common identity identical to that of a nation whil ...

in recruitment, admissions, and retention programs at

California's public universities This is a list of colleges and universities in California. Federal institutions Graduate institutions * Naval Postgraduate School (Monterey) Other academic institutions * Defense Language Institute (Monterey) State institutions Two-year in ...

and colleges. The debate over race-conscious admissions at public universities sharply divided Chinese American communities. In 2019, via their Chinese Digital Engagement program, the CAA started a fact-checking website called PiYaoBa to help combat media

misinformation Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. Misinformation and disinformation are not interchangeable terms: misinformation can exist with or without specific malicious intent, whereas disinformation is distinct in that the information ...

that targets Chinese American communities.

Funding

In 2016, about half CAA's funding came from contracts, and the remainder from gifts and grants.

Controversies

Asian admission quotas

In the 1990s, CAA sided with the

San Francisco Unified School District San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), established in 1851, is the only public school district within the City and County of San Francisco, and the first in the state of California. Under the management of the San Francisco Board of Edu ...

in defending a consent decree that capped attendance at Lowell High School from any given racial group. Per the policy, Chinese-American students had to score higher to attend than other groups. CAA's stance was at odds with that of some Asian parents, who opposed the policy.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1969 establishments in California Chinese-American organizations Civil liberties advocacy groups in the United States Non-profit organizations based in California Organizations established in 1969