Panel Discusses AAPIs and Mass Incarceration

By Aurora de Peralta
Photos Courtesy of APALA

In the United States, the phenomenon of mass incarceration isn’t black and white. According to a 2006 Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) study, the API prison population rose by 30 percent from 1990 to 2004, while the white prison population rose by only 2.5 percent.

On May 20, the AFL-CIO, the Asian Pacific American Labor Association (APALA) and the Southeast Asian Resource Action Center (SEARAC), hosted a panel discussion called, “Shattering the Model Minority Myth: Asian Pacific Islanders and Mass Incarceration.” The panel aimed to dispel the ‘model minority myth’—a stereotype that glosses over the many difficulties APIs still face in U.S. society. In particular, it discussed the many reasons why Asian Pacific Islanders face significant challenges in the U.S. criminal justice system.

APALA Executive Director Gregory Cendana moderated the panel. Among the panelists was prominent Asian American activist Eddy Zheng, project director at the Community Youth Center of San Francisco. Joining Zheng was Suman Murthy, communications strategist of Californians for Safety and Justice; Quyen Dinh, executive director of SEARAC; and Robert Rooks, organizing director of Californians for Safety and Justice.

Murthy presented the strategic communications research she has done for Californians for Safety and Justice. The organization seeks new priorities for the U.S. criminal justice system that are more focused on safety and healing. Through a variety of polling, data and focus groups, the organization found that Californians see that there is a waste in the criminal justice system, Murthy said. They’re frustrated by the priorities that the state has in place, and they’re ready for a change.

“What we’re hearing…is something that we heard time and time again,” Murthy said. “The criminal justice system is eating up resources. It’s eating up funds and money that could be going to things that really do benefit our community.”

SEARAC executive director Dinh agreed that the U.S. criminal justice system is what must be reformed to establish greater public safety. Because of racial discrimination, few job opportunities and unresponsive schools, these youth have turned to drugs and crime as a way to survive.

“The broken incarceration system we see now is not a result of broken individuals,” she said. “It’s really a result of broken communities and broken policies.”

To contextualize this idea, Dinh provided statistics on Southeast Asian refugees and their families. Many of these families still suffer from poverty and post-traumatic stress disorder, with these struggles carrying over to the younger generations, Dinh said. She cited a 2011 Long Beach, CA study which showed that Asian American youth score high on a scale measuring depression. The same study found that 1 in 3 Asian American youth were stopped by police in the past year, signaling high rates of racial profiling. Combined with the fact that the local education systems for these youth lack quality programs addressing poverty and mental health issues, Dinh said that these statistics suggest the likelihood of Asian American youth going from school to prison instead of staying within the education system.

As Zheng spoke on the panel, he reiterated the panelists’ belief that the U.S. criminal justice system reflects misplaced priorities of the state.

“We know that the priority was, and is right now,” Zheng said, “about incarceration more than education.”

Zheng, who spent 21 years in prison for crimes committed at the age of 16, highlighted several key struggles of incarcerated APIs. These struggles include language and cultural barriers and the absence of ethnically disaggregated data on incarcerated Asian Pacific Islanders—both of which contribute to deficiency in API-specific rehabilitation programs. Zheng also posited that there is a lack of support from the API community itself; the community chooses to highlight only the successes of the group, and refuses to confront issues like incarceration that still plague APIs.

To combat this lack of support, Zheng asserted that the API community must converse willingly about Asian Pacific Islanders and mass incarceration.

“We need to talk about this on a national level. If we don’t talk about it, then we’re never going to get the resources we need to stop some of the challenges in our Asian Pacific Islander community,” he said. “We must look within ourselves to find the compassion that we have for ourselves and other people.”

A recording of the panel event livestream is available on the AFL-CIO website here.