Management and Technical Assistance

Asian American Community Fund

• 2001 Grants
• 2000 Grants
• 1999 Grants
• 1998 Grants
• 1997 Grants

Policy and Research

• Elderly Asian New Yorkers in the New Millennium
• Asian American Task Force on Census 2000

Policy and Research

A central part of the Federation’s work is to provide a critical voice to address public policy that directly impacts the quality of life of our communities. We focus our attention on issues relating to resource allocation, community needs, service availability and accessibility, immigrant rights, and community development. We work with our member agencies to identify issues and concerns and to develop strategies to address them together. For example, we have issued position papers outlining the disparity in funding to Asian American service programs or responded to particular policy matters such as welfare reform. In addition to providing a voice, we also intend to initiate research studies and conduct policy analysis on quality of life issues that confront Asian Americans.

Our current projects include:

• Elderly Asian New Yorkers in the New Millennium: A Study of Quality of Life and Quality of Care: In collaboration with the Brookdale Center on Aging of Hunter College, we are conducting an unprecedented research study of six Asian American elderly communities: Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. This study will examine the elderly’s socio-economic characteristics, physical and mental health status, support network, service utilization, and service needs. Results of this two-year study will be published in the year 2000.

• Asian American Task Force on Census 2000: Spearheaded by the Asian American Federation of New York, the Asian American Task Force on Census 2000 is a coalition of over fifty Asian American organizations and leaders who have come together for an important mission: to ensure that the diverse and growing population of Asian Americans, historically under-counted in the United States Census, are accurately represented for the Census 2000. The population data analysis gathered from Census 2000 will be used in a variety of ways: to allocate federal funds to state and local government for schools, housing, roads, services for children and elderly, and other social services; to determine the number of government representatives each state sends to Congress; enforcement of civil rights laws; development of national and local policies.

The Task Force is working in partnership with the Regional Office of the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Mayors Office on Census 2000, as well as the Complete Count Committees of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and New York State. The Task Force has been meeting on a regular basis to implement effective Census 2000 outreach efforts. Some of the projects currently underway include:

• Educational outreach to schools, parents, associations, and community organizations
• Distribution of multilingual census information at various community events
• Technical support in recruitment of qualified bilingual staff and enumerators
• Coordination of advocacy campaign to enforce confidentiality and other policy concerns
• Facilitation of culturally sensitive and appropriate local media campaign�
• Website development for an up-to-date information on community efforts

The Asian American Task Force on Census 2000 will continue to act as a liaison between local Asian Americans communities, regional Bureau of the Census in New York, the national Bureau of the Census in Washington DC, and other national organizations working on similar efforts, in order to ensure that the Asian Americans play a significant role in the Census 2000. On a united front, the Asian American Task Force will continue to organize and develop community outreach and education programs so that the Asian Americans are not under-represented for the Census 2000.

For more information on the Asian American Task Force on Census 2000, please contact Parag Khandhar, at the Asian American Federation of New York (212-344-5878 ext. 18) or visit our census section www.aafny.org/census/ .