Saturday, February 4th
10:30pm – 2am
PMT Studios
69 West 14th Street, 3rd Floor

Please complete the form below to register! If you have any questions, please email justice@caaav.org.

How it works:

It’s $15 at the door to come dance with us! No dance experience necessary! The last person standing at the dance-a-thon will be crowned the “Dancing Machine”. See prize below.

If you want to go an extra step and have folks sponsor you for the dance-a-thon, see instructions below.

To raise funds:

Link your friends to this page.  And tell them in the field “Dedicate your gift” to put your name and email.  We will also track these and let you know when donations come in.

Championship Prizes:

• The “Dancing Machine” is the last standing dancer at the end of the night and wins the Fabulous Prize. Hint: Style and stamina will get you far! Prize: Exclusive yoga brunch session!
• The certified “Shake-Your- Money-Maker” is the dancer who raises the most funds with at least 10 sponsors and wins the Baller Prize! Hint: Make that money! Prize: 1 free domestic plane ticket.
• In the rare event, if you’re really a diva i.e. raise the most funds and are the last person standing, you’ll be crowned “Grand Master C – C is for CAAAV” and take it all.

SAVE THE DATE!
CAAAV: 25th Anniversary Celebration
Friday, May 20, 2011, 6:30pm

25 years of Creating Vision, Taking Action, and Making Movements

LOCATION
32BJ SEIU Building
101 Avenue of the Americas, Grand Hall
(between Canal & Grand Sts)
Subway: 1/A/C/E trains to Canal St

TICKETS
$75 per person, purchase through our website here

QUESTIONS + SIGN UP FOR LATEST UPDATES
Email 25years@caaav.org

www.caaav.org
twitter.com/caaav

CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities (also known as Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence) was founded in 1986 as one of the first organizations in the United States to mobilize against racially motivated violence against Asian communities. Over time, CAAAV has broadened its work to focus on a wide range of issues affecting our communities, including in concentrated urban poverty, displacement and gentrification, detention and deportation, worker exploitation, police violence, and criminalization of youth and workers. Our strategy is guided by a global analysis of migration, labor and poverty, and how these experiences are shaped in the U.S. by nationality, immigration status, gender, race and class.

Click here for NY1 Coverage (NY1, 9/7/10)

On September 7th, residents from 197 Madison Street protested landlord retaliation after they had spoken out about living with hazardous conditions.

It is with much pride and enthusiasm that we announce the recent hire of CAAAV’s new Executive Director, Helena Wong.   Following an extensive national search, Helena emerged as the most qualified candidate to lead CAAAV into its 25^th year of mobilizing Asian immigrant communities.

With over 15 years of involvement with CAAAV, Helena brings to the position both a strong knowledge of the organization’s work and a deep understanding of community organizing in the Asian immigrant, working-class community.   Helena first joined CAAAV as a high school intern in 1995 and stayed involved as a summer youth program volunteer for 8 years.  During this time, she honed her skills as a political educator and organizer on police brutality, systemic violence and gentrification issues.   A proven leader, Helena joined CAAAV’s Chinatown Justice Project (CJP) as staff in 2003.   Under her direction,CAAAV founded the Chinatown Tenants Union which  has grown to over 200 members and 2,000 supporters.   She enjoyed a number of campaign victories including working with a city-wide coalition on the landmark passage of New York City’s Executive Order 120, a policy that mandates language access services at all city service agencies and a number of successful building campaigns.  Helena has represented CAAAV on the steering committee of national alliances like Right to the City and collaborative spaces and brings to the ED position a deep commitment to CAAAV’s mission.

We are thrilled to have Helena bring her organizing vision and solid administrative skills to advance our work.

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Meet Helena in person!

Join us on September 9th from 6:30-8:30pm at our Chinatown office, 46 Hester Street, Manhattan

Light snacks and drinks provided.

“Why the Asian Community Needs to Fight SB 1070 and Support Real Immigration Reform”

Contact: Esther Wang, (212) 473-6485, (347) 703-4754 (cell), ewang@caaav.org

July 29, 2010, New York, NY – Today, CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, an organization based in New York City whose mission is to build the leadership of Asian immigrant and refugee communities to fight systemic racial and economic inequality, marched with thousands of others to condemn racist and anti-immigrant laws such as Arizona’s SB 1070, and to call for immigration reform that does not continue to criminalize and detain immigrants.

CAAAV issued the following statement:

“As Arizona’s racist immigration law, SB 1070, goes into effect today, we are more committed than ever to fighting racism in all its forms. We understand fully that SB 1070 – which allows police officers to detain anyone whom they “suspect” is undocumented, which allows for jailing any documented person who is merely in the same car or location as an undocumented person—did not become law in a vacuum. In fact, the conditions for this so-called ‘immigration reform’ have been building for decades.

For Asians, like all other immigrant groups, the question of immigration reform is another moment in the long and tortured fight for equality and justice in the U.S. Alongside the myth of great opportunity, advancement, and freedom, the reality of economic exploitation and exclusion resulting from our nation’s discriminatory immigration and civil rights policies have equally defined the experience of Asians in the U.S.

Although Asians have been in the U.S. in large numbers since the mid-1800s, we could not become citizens until 1943. Beginning in 1882, in response to growing racism and xenophobia, immigration from China was halted and in 1924, these exclusionary laws were made applicable to immigrants from throughout Asia. It was not only through laws that we were excluded and barred from entering – in 1904, the first border patrol was created in order to detain and deport Chinese immigrants who were crossing the border with Mexico into the U.S. It was only in 1965, during the height of the civil rights movement, that these restrictions to immigration were repealed.

Today, our communities continue to face barriers to immigration, with hundreds of thousands of us waiting to join our families here in the U.S. Once here, millions of us work long hours for below the minimum wage as a result of oppressive labor policies such as employer sanctions, which result in unfair wages for all low-wage workers, not just immigrants. Asians have also faced the harsh impact of the post-1996 immigration reforms, which have led to the detention and deportation of hundreds of thousands of our community members.

In the wake of the current economic crisis, the immigration debate has been reframed into a debate about how immigrants are criminals. The use of the term ‘illegal immigrants’ is rife with images of yellow and brown people stealing land and jobs from ‘real Americans.’

This criminalization is not new – communities of color have been criminalized for centuries, and pushed to the margins of our society. From the time of slavery to today, with the huge growth in the prison population, examples abound that make clear how this idea that people of color are criminals is a way to prevent us from attaining full citizenship (even if we have our papers).

But the real criminals are not immigrants, or black men, or queer youth – the true criminals in our country have destroyed our economy, yet still collect multi-million dollar compensation packages. The real criminals shoot people of color and are not held accountable. The real criminals have polluted our water, air, and our land. The real criminals fight tooth and nail against laws that would protect the civil rights of LGBTQ communities. The real criminals started two wars that have devastated millions of lives and cost us trillions of dollars.

As Asians, we have experienced how the promise of the American Dream has benefitted some and marginalized most. We know first-hand that even with money and citizenship status, we will be regarded as immigrants – and thus as less than fully human – because of our skin color. And we know in a country that likes to define race in terms of Black and White, most people would like it if we just remained quiet and invisible.

We stand together as Asians from diverse backgrounds in our demand for fair and just immigration reform. U.S. immigration policies should reflect this country’s highest values: that all people should be treated equally with respect for their basic human rights, including the ability to work with dignity and at a fair wage. We must cease to view immigrants solely as cheap labor and recognize that migration is driven by global economic and political conditions, often caused by the U.S.’s own unfair economic practices at home and abroad.”

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About CAAAV:
CAAAV works to build grassroots community power across diverse poor and working-class Asian immigrant and refugee communities in NYC. Through an organizing model constituted by five core elements, base-building, leadership development, campaigns, organizational development, and alliances, CAAAV organizes communities to exercise self-determination and participates in a broader movement for racial and economic justice.

On July 29th, as SB 1070 is set to be implemented in Arizona, RTTC-NY join thousands nation-wide & in NYC to raise our voices.

We march to stand in solidarity with the people of Arizona and to oppose laws like SB 1070 that have spread throughout the nation, including right here in NYC. We march to condemn racial profiling and racism in all forms! RTTC knows that there are huge neo-liberal issues behind this unjust law…this is about corporate rule and government enforcement being pitted against people of color trying to provide for their families. This is about the criminalization of communities of color- but RTTC knows who the real criminals are!!

Criminal is turning our ocean black and brown – not being black or brown.
Criminal is causing economic collapse and giving yourself billion dollar bonuses – not working 12-hour days on low wages to support your family.
Criminal is stealing people’s land, taking their natural resources, and denying them labor rights so that they are forced out of their own countries to survive- not risking your life to cross the border in order to provide for your family.
Criminal is profiting off of people’s homes and leaving them homeless- – not trying to provide a better life for your family.
Criminal is denying detainees health care – leaving 107 detainees to die.

Bring yourself, your friends, your family, and your noisemakers and we’ll bring the posters and meet you to raise our voices and march together with sister movements in New York against the criminalization of people of color!

9:30am Gather at Middagh Street and Cadman Plaza (just off the C train exit, we will meet across from Cadman Plaza)
(take A/C trains to High Street, OR 2/3/4/5/R trains to Borough Hall)

10:00am March across Brooklyn Bridge

11:00am Press Conference & Rally at Foley Square in Manhattan
(take 4/5 to Brooklyn Bridge OR N/R/W to City Hall)

Organized by:
New Sanctuary Movement, Families for Freedom, Immigrant Defense Project, Black Institute, Churches United to Save & Heal, Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant & Refugee Rights, DRUM-Desis Rising Up & Moving, VAMOS Unidos, American Friends Service Committee, Wind of the Spirit (NJ)

Endorsed by:
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, Damayan, Sistas and Brothas United, NY Immigration Coalition, World Can’t Wait, Sikh Coalition, Urban Youth Collaborative, Immigrant Communities in Action, Center for Immigrant Families, Sikh Coalition, United for Peace and Justice, South Asian Americans Leading Together, Boycott Arizona Coalition, Muslim Consultative Network, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, CAAAV, Center for Constitutional Rights, Peekskill Area Pastors Assoc., La Union, National Economic & Social Rights Initiative, Coney Island Avenue Project, Youth on the Move , Sikh Coalition, SA Bar Assoc. of NY, Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund, Adhikaar, NYS Youth Leadership Council

CAAAV organized weekly actions and outreach to build broad support for 81 Bowery residents, highlighting how gentrification is negatively impacting Chinatown. As a result, Council person Alan Gerson has committed to work on legislation addressing the problem. We are happy to report an important victory for 81 Bowery residents: as of this writing, most of the 81 Bowery tenants have returned to their homes. We are working with MFY Legal Services to get the other tenants back into their homes and to address outstanding conditions and repairs. Looking ahead, we know that as the economic crisis continues to unfold, low-income residents and workers in Chinatown may feel the brunt for years to come.