EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
"We must have the courage to walk the talk, but we must also engage in the continuing dialogues that enable us to break free of old categories and create the new ideas that are necessary to address our realities, because revolutions are made not to prove the correctness of ideas but to begin anew. "- Grace Lee Boggs
Since March 2020, the Stop AAPI Hate (SAH) coalition has
received over 9,000 reports of hate incidents against Asian
Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). These firsthand reports
offer a glimpse of the realities facing AAPI persons and
communities, particularly during the pandemic. The Stop AAPI
Hate data offer insights into the large-scale patterns of AAPI
encounters with discrimination today, but they are only one
piece of the puzzle in achieving a comprehensive understanding
of the rich and diverse multitude of AAPI experiences.
The Asian American Foundation (TAAF) and the SAH coalition
are collaborating to facilitate the documentation of AAPI
experiences through multiple sources of data and
methodologies. To that end, TAAF and the SAH coalition formed
a working group to draft standards and practices for
community-based data collection. The overarching goal was
collaboration built on trust, transparency, and accountability for
improving anti-AAPI hate data quality.
Standardization is essential for establishing shared definitions
and facilitating communication. This working draft provides the
definitions for key terms related to documenting anti-AAPI hate
and the language used on the SAH coalition’s reporting site.