Community to Capitol Advocacy Framework: State-Level Advocacy for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Students in Higher Education

Background: The Black Lives Matter Movement and the 2020 murder of George Floyd served as catalysts to further drive racial equity and social justice efforts in intentional, dynamic ways. The Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021 killing eight people, the majority of whom were women of Asian descent, escalated the Stop AAPI Hate movement and galvanized discussions that demanded holistic reforms promoting racial justice. These events triggered a moment of reckoning in the United States, prompting industries from government to higher education to reevaluate their policies and practices, including deeper analysis of the issues Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities face. Often, AANHPI higher education students are categorized as a monolithic group, thus aggregated data misleadingly reports AANHPI students as thriving educationally compared to other racial groups. This reinforces misconceptions that AANHPI students are the “Model Minority.” Aggregated data masks the reality that inequities and disparities exist within AANHPI subpopulations. The Campaign for College Opportunity’s report on The State of Higher Education for AANHPI Californians (2022) shows educational disparities exist especially among Southeast Asian (SEA), Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI), and AANHPI male student populations. The report’s recommendations emphasize the need for higher education institutions to better support these disproportionately impacted AANHPI students, improve disaggregated AANHPI data, and support closing equity gaps. To address these needs and opportunities, advocates must call for public investments into higher education access. This paper introduces a practitioner framework, the Macapugay-Villavicencio Community to Capitol Advocacy Framework (CCAF), to guide advocates on making legislative changes that benefit AANHPI students at the statewide level.

Methods: The CCAF was constructed by synthesizing the professional experiences of the authors as former lobbyists, professional community organizers, and advocates, including their reflections on the process of successfully passing California Education Codes Section 79510 and Section 89297. The CCAF has six steps: (1) Know the Facts; (2) Recognize Stakeholders; (3) Identify Champions; (4) Organize and Mobilize a Community Coalition; (5) Leverage Political Power of Boards and Commissions; and (6) Build Relationships with People at the Capitol, which were applied in a case study on the AANHPI Student Achievement Program (SAP).

Implications: In June 2022, as a result of the applied CCAF and corresponding education codes, California Governor Newsom and the State Legislature passed a state budget of 16 million dollars to California AANAPISI-eligible community colleges and state universities that serve first-generation, lower-income AANHPI students, and other underserved students. The AANHPI SAP provides culturally responsive services to enhance student educational experiences and promote higher education success for low-income, underserved, and first-generation AANHPI students and other underrepresented students. This historic legislation created the first state fund to serve low-income, first-generation, and underserved AANHPI higher education students. The CCAF is intended to serve as a guiding framework for other states to conduct similar efforts.

Conclusions: The CCAF led to the first state fund of its kind. Successful advocacy for higher education access, especially for under-resourced communities, includes dynamic collaboration across communities, and can be replicated in other states prioritizing equity and opportunity.