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- The majority of the funds will go to community-based organizations that provide victim services and prevention.
- Another $10 million will be provided to the national reporting center Stop AAPI Hate to bolster efforts to track and respond to hate incidents.
- Incidents of bigotry and xenophobia against Asian Americans proliferated over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, as China has been blamed for the deadly outbreak.
California is making historic investments to fight racial inequalities and curb rising hate incidents against Asian communities in the state.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Monday signed a $262.6 billion budget that includes $156 million to support victims of hate incidents, data collection and media outreach.
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The Asian and Pacific (API) Equity Budget, which was developed by the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus, will provide $110 million to community-based organizations that provide victim services and prevention.
Another $10 million will be provided to the national reporting center Stop AAPI Hate to bolster efforts to track and respond to hate incidents. The group has received more than 6,600 reports of hate incidents since March 2020, when the coronavirus outbreak began to worsen in the U.S. Nearly half of those incidents occurred in California, where Asian Americans make up about 15 percent of the state’s population.
Most incidents have disproportionately affected women and the elderly.
In May, for example, two elderly Asian women were brutally stabbed while waiting for a bus in downtown San Francisco.
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Other grants will go toward schools for justice programs, health care and mental health services and ethnic media outlets to reach underserved communities.
“This sends a message to the API community that the State of California sees them and that we matter. It gives us hope that California will be supporting our survivors and communities as our state recovers from COVID-19,” state Sen. Richard Pan (D), who chairs the API Legislative Caucus, said in a release.
Incidents of bigotry and xenophobia against Asian Americans proliferated over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, as China has been blamed for the deadly outbreak.
President Biden in May signed federal hate crimes legislation to ramp up law enforcement response to anti-Asian hate crimes.
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