Partner Spotlight - The Asian American Federation

With support from Peloton, AAF offers Hope Against Hate safety training in NYC, including this one that was held in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in May in partnership with Nonviolent Peaceforce. Photo credit: Sheng Lin.

Could you describe the Asian American Federation's mission and goals?

The Asian American Federation (AAF) is a nonprofit that has been operating since 1989. Our stated mission is to raise the influence and well-being of the pan-Asian American community through research, policy advocacy, public awareness, and nonprofit support. 

What this translates to is that we work to ensure New York’s AAPI community remains visible, and that our voices are heard, our needs are addressed, our contributions are valued, and our stories are told. And we do this by providing expert research, strong advocacy, and training pan-Asian profits to be better at serving their communities. 

AAF is the largest backbone leadership organization in New York serving Asian American communities that make up the fastest-growing population in the city, state, and country. We serve over 20 diverse Asian groups speaking 36 languages ranging from Chinese and Korean to Filipino, Indian, and Bengali among others. 

In partnership with our 70 member and partner organizations, we represent the collective interests of 1.5 million Asian New Yorkers and advocate for better policies, services, and funding that lead to more justice and opportunity for Asian immigrants, one of New York City’s poorest and most underserved communities.

Tell us about your role.

I am the Associate Director for Development and Communications. Put simply, I help lead fundraising efforts as well as direct our communications efforts across all platforms.

Like Peloton, AAF's work seems to be very driven by what the community needs. Having just reached the 1 year anniversary of our partnership, can you tell us about your work with Peloton to date?

Peloton has been an amazing partner! We were reeling from the attacks on our community and working around the clock to launch safety solutions. I don’t think many of us at AAF slept more than a few hours a night – how could we when our community was in crisis? And just as we launched our signature Hope Against Hate campaign to fight anti-Asian racism, Peloton stepped up and said we want to support you. Peloton was one of the first big corporate funders to stand with us, and for all of us working on the campaign, this was a truly transformative moment.

Over the last year, AAF used the grant from Peloton to build the infrastructure for a community-informed, community-centered safety plan to tackle the crisis of anti-Asian hate and violence. Peloton is supporting safety training workshops in neighborhoods across New York City, where young and old are learning techniques on how to keep themselves safe. You have to see these workshops to believe them - there are Asian grandmas learning how to de-escalate a conflict situation or how to become an upstander and safeguard others. The phrase we like to use in our communications about these training workshops is ‘We Keep Us Safe’—and it’s heartwarming, and frankly, thrilling, to see the community step up to protect each other. 

With Peloton’s support we also created the Stay Safe from Hate safety booklet in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese that outlines verbal and physical self-defense strategies that people can use to keep themselves safe in the streets. AAF also created a series of safety videos on Self-Defense Strategies to Keep Yourself Safe in the Streets that demonstrate physical self-defense strategies that people can employ if they ever find themselves targeted in a public space.

The surge in attacks against the Asian community also brought with it another crisis - that of mental health. And our work with Peloton has not only focused on physical safety but also on increasing the sense of psychological safety for our communities. With Peloton’s help we launched the first ever mental health directory for the Asian community that features over 100 mental health providers who between them speak over 17 Asian languages. We advertised it as “the first mental health directory that speaks your language” and the response has been overwhelming!

The mental health crisis, particularly for the communities who experience and witness racism, is on the rise. With the additional grant being provided by Peloton, how do you hope to continue to expand on your organization's mission?

As I mentioned, our Mental Health Directory has generated great enthusiasm in the community. We are planning to expand the directory and hope to have 100 more providers and more Asian languages by the end of 2022. The Asian community is in crisis. Every day we hear from people who are anxious to leave their homes, who are made even more deathly afraid when they hear of yet another attack on an Asian victim. Living with a mental illness is often a challenge but finding help shouldn’t be. We hope that having access to culturally competent mental health care delivered by providers who look like us and speak the languages our most vulnerable understand, we will encourage our communities to look beyond the stigma and seek the mental health care they need.

AAF's Mental Health Directory features over 100 mental health providers who among them speak 17 Asian languages.

What else would you like the Peloton community to know? 

Thanks to your decision to support us, thousands of Asian New Yorkers have learned techniques to stay safe in the streets of the City. Instead of being scared to leave their homes to get groceries or visit the doctor, they have gained confidence that they can protect themselves from attacks through proven techniques that are used to teach individuals to keep themselves safe in some of the world's most dangerous places. This training that your support makes possible can make a crucial difference in an Asian person's life. Consider Yoko, age 58. Before joining our program, she knew the alarming statistics: 2000+ attacks in NYC alone. That is an increase of 361% in anti-Asian hate incidents, according to the NYPD. 

And every time she heard of another victim being harassed, she became even more afraid to step outside her house. She told us she missed meeting her friends in the park or even going for her usual after-dinner stroll. Thanks to your support, we were able to offer our safety training program to Yoko, who told us:  "I attended your class yesterday and I learned a lot. Thank you very much. I use a cane, so I really need to practice how to defend myself." As a result of your decision to invest in safety for Asian New Yorkers, Yoko... and thousands other New Yorkers are feeling more confident that their new understanding of situational awareness can help them stay safe, and their lesson in calming down a threatening situation will help them protect themselves.  And thanks to your support, Yoko, and others like her can now easily find mental health help from someone who speaks Japanese and understands the nuances of Japanese culture by using our mental health directory.

Like Peloton, we are working to respond to the community’s needs. Asian New Yorkers have been through hell these past two years...and our hearts have been broken over and over. The fear and grief have been hard to take at times. But there is hope and resilience in delivering solutions to the community that bring tangible, real-life, positive change – and that is what we believe this partnership has done and will continue to do.