Last Friday, Jan. 11th, several members of our Education and Civic Engagement teams spent the day at UC Davis, with our partners at the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies, in a deep discussion and training for our first [Filipino/a Legislative Advocacy Day] in Sacramento, planned for later this spring.
This Advocacy Day has been a long-time coming, and one that is being planned with consideration, thought, analysis, and most importantly — our community’s voices.
If you all remember, our organization co-spearheaded execution of last Fall’s Filipino Policy Symposium at UC Davis, where we featured speakers such as Genevieve Jopanda (with now, Treasurer Ma’s office), Appointments Secretary Mona Pasquil, Commissioners Austin and Villavicencio, nonprofit leaders Terry Valen and Angelica Cabande, and many more educators and activists. Most especially, this Symposium engaged its participants — over 20 Filipino grassroots and nonprofit organizations and 80 community members — in “policy advocacy talks” on interests of public issues: Immigration, Workers and Women’s Rights, Housing, Education, Justice/Prison Reform, and Small Business Ownership. The list was endless…and we loved it.
The outcome of the Symposium was clear.
We, and the Bulosan Center, would take our community’s feedback, experiences, and concerns, to the drawing board and sketch out our Advocacy Day in Sacramento, to show that the largest API community in California, is here to stay and most saliently, listening and observing.
During our training, we covered the basics on everyone’s mind:
- We answered why we’re hosting an Advocacy Day.
- We re-shared the goals of the Advocacy Day.
- We provided the who within the Advocacy Day.
- After the basics, we dove into providing a deeper view into Sacramento: our new Governor, bills that we will advocate on related to Ethnic Studies and Human Issues, and newly elected leaders that we could ask to support these efforts.
We look forward to continuing this work with — and for — the community.
The next training is scheduled for March. We hope you’ll join us!
LEAD Filipino
