A top priority for the caucus, Data Equity was passed in 2023. This new law standardizes the collection of disaggregated racial and ethnic data by state agencies that already collect demographic data. The law allows individuals filling out state forms to self-identify their race and ethnicity either as an aggregate category (i.e. Asian, Black, White) or a disaggregate category (i.e. Vietnamese, Cape Verdean, Irish), choose more than one racial/ethnic designation, or abstain from answering the question without penalty. The law strengthens privacy protections for personal identifying information and ensures community input to the data collection process. Collection of this data ensures a more accurate representation of our diverse communities, allowing policymakers to better recognize patterns of discrimination and systems of inequity.

This new law was passed in 2023 and will mandate that Certified Nursing Assistants who work in nursing facilities whose resident population is predominantly non-English speaking be offered their certification exam in other languages including Spanish and Chinese. There are a number of senior care facilities across Massachusetts that cater to our non-English speaking communities and provide safe and dignified care to our aging populations. Many of these facilities face staffing shortages as they struggle to find CNAs who can communicate with the residents at their senior care facilities. By providing the CNA exam in non-English languages, we are expanding and diversifying the hiring pool, while allowing facilities to hire culturally competent caregivers who can speak the language of those they care for.

In 2021 as we continued to grapple with the economic fallout from the pandemic, the caucus successfully put together a $1 million grant program for Asian organizations that conducted cultural events, performances, and education. Protecting spaces that provided education to combat misinformation about the AAPI community as well as preserved AAPI cultural practices was especially important during a time of increasing anti-Asian racism and attacks. The grant program also injected much needed money into a sector that otherwise would not have survived ongoing closures.

With the rise in anti-Asian racism during the pandemic, the House Asian Caucus partnered with the Institute for Asian American Studies at UMass Boston to fund studies on the history and experiences of anti-Asian racism in the United States and in the Commonwealth. In the past three years the Institute has conducted several surveys and numerous reports on topics ranging from access to mental health services to studying inclusive curriculums to documenting the rise in hate crimes.

Since the election of the first Asian legislators in 2010, the caucus has worked to increase funding for the AAPI Commission. Composed of 21 Commissioners appointed by the Governor, Senate President, Treasurer, Secretary of State, House Speaker, Attorney General, and Auditor, the Commission is the only permanent body in our government charged with championing issues important to the AAPI community.

Since 2018, as a result of the caucus’s advocacy, the Governor is now statutorily obligated to issue an annual proclamation recognizing May as Asian American Pacific Islander Month. Every May the Commonwealth now officially celebrates the significant contributions Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have made to the Commonwealth and to the United States.