APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

On this episode, host Miata Tan speaks with three guests from the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice (CCSJ), a leading community-based resource providing direct victim services for Asian Americans in San Francisco.

They unpack CCSJ’s approach to policy change, community advocacy, and public education, and reveal how their Collective Knowledge Base Catalog captures lessons from their work.

CCSJ‘s four founding partners are the Chinatown Community Development Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Chinese Progressive Association, and Community Youth Center.

[00:00:00] 

Miata Tan: Hello and welcome. You are tuning into APEX Express, a weekly radio show, uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans.

I am your host, Miata Tan, and today we are focusing on community safety. The Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, also known as CCSJ, is the leading community-based resource in providing direct victim [00:01:00] services for Asian Americans in San Francisco.

The four founding partners of the Coalition are Chinatown Community Development Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Chinese Progressive Association, and the Community Youth Center. You might have heard of some of these orgs.

Today we are joined by three incredibly hardworking individuals who are shaping this work. First up is Janice Li, the Coalition Director. Here she is unpacking the history of the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, and the social moment in which it was formed in response to.

Janice Li: Yeah, so we formed in 2019 and it was at a time where we were seeing a lot of high profile incidents impacting and harming our Asian American communities, particularly Chinese seniors.

We were seeing it across the country due to rhetoric of the Trump administration at that time that was just throwing, oil onto fire and fanning the flames. [00:02:00] And we were seeing those high profile incidents right here in San Francisco. And the story I’ve been told, because I, I joined CCSJ as its Coalition Director in 2022, so it says a few years before I joined.

But the story I’ve been told is that the Executive Directors, the staff at each of these four organizations, they kept seeing each other. At vigils and protests and rallies, and it was a lot of outpouring of community emotions and feelings after these high profile incidents. And the eds were like. It’s good that we’re seeing each other and coming together at these things, but like, what are we doing?

How are we changing the material conditions of our communities? How are we using our history and our experience and the communities that we’ve been a part of for literally decades and making our communities safe and doing something that is more resilient than just. The immediate reactive responses that we often know happen [00:03:00] when there are incidents like this.

Miata Tan:  And when you say incidents could you speak to that a little bit more? 

Janice Li: Yeah. So there were, uh, some of the high profile incidents included a Chinese senior woman who was waiting for a bus at a MUNI stop who was just randomly attacked. And, there were scenes of her. Fighting back.

And then I think that had become a real symbol of Asians rejecting that hate. And the violence that they were seeing. You know, at the same time we were seeing the spa shootings in Atlanta where there were, a number of Southeast Asian women. Killed in just completely senseless, uh, violence.

And then, uh, we are seeing other, similar sort of high profile random incidents where Chinese seniors often where the victims whether harmed, or even killed in those incident. And we are all just trying to make sense of. What is happening? [00:04:00] And how do we help our communities heal first and foremost?

It is hard to make sense of violence and also figure out how we stop it from happening, but how we do it in a way that is expansive and focused on making all of our communities better.

Because the ways that we stop harm cannot be punitive for other individuals or other communities. And so I think that’s always been what’s really important for CCSJ is to have what we call a holistic view of community safety.

Miata Tan: Now you might be wondering, what does a holistic view and approach to community safety look like in practice?

From active policy campaigns to direct victim service support, the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice offers a range of different programs.

Janice Li, the Coalition Director, categorizes this work into three different [00:05:00] buckets.

 Janice Li: It is responding to harm when it occurs, and that’s, you know, really centering victims and survivors and the harm that they faced and the healing that it takes to help those, folks.

The second piece is really figuring out how do we change our systems so that they’re responsive to the needs of our communities. And what that looks like is a lot of policy change and a lot of policy implementation. It’s a lot of holding government accountable to what they should be doing.

And the third piece is recognizing that our communities don’t exist in vacuums and all of our work needs to be underpinned by cross-racial healing and solidarity. To acknowledge that there are historic tensions and cultural tensions between different communities of color in particular, and to name it, we know that there are historic tensions here in San Francisco between the Black and Chinese communities.

We have to name it. We have to see it, and we have to bring community [00:06:00] leaders together, along with our community members to find spaces where we can understand each other. And most importantly for me is to be able to share joy so that when conflict does occur, that we are there to be able to build bridges and communities as part of the healing that we, that has to happen.

Miata Tan: Let’s zoom in on the direct victim services work that CCSJ offers. What does this look like exactly and how is the Coalition engaging the community? How do people learn about their programs?

Janice Li: We receive referrals from everyone, but initially, and to this day, we still receive a number of referrals from the police department as well as the District Attorney’s Victim Services division, where, you know, the role that the police and the DA’s office play is really for the criminal justice proceedings.

It is to go through. What that form of criminal justice accountability. Could look like, but it’s [00:07:00] not in that way, victim centered. So they reach out to community based organizations like Community Youth Center, CYC, which runs CCSJ, direct Victim Services Program to provide additional community. Based services for those victims.

And CYC takes a case management approach. CYC has been around for decades and their history has been working, particularly with youth, particularly at risk youth. And they have a long history of taking a case management approach for supporting youth in all the ways that they need support.

And so they use this approach now for people of all ages, but many of the victims that we serve are adults, and many of them are senior, and almost all of them are limited English proficient. So they need not only culturally competent support, but also in language support.

And so the case management approach is we figure out what it is that person needs. And sometimes it’s mental health [00:08:00] services and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s trying to figure out in home social services, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes for youth it might be figure out how to work with, SF Unified school district, our public school system you know, does that student need a transfer?

It could be the world of things. I think the case management approach is to say, we have all of these possible tools, all of these forms of healing at our disposal, and we will bring all of those resources to the person who has been harmed to help their healing process.

Miata Tan: I’m curious. I know we can’t speak to specific cases, but. how did this work evolve? what did it look like then and what does it look like today?

Janice Li: What I would say is that every single case is so complex and what the needs of the victims are and for their families who might be trying to process, you know, the death of one of their loved ones. What that [00:09:00] healing looks like and what those needs are.

There’s not one path, one route, one set of services that exist, but I think what is so important is to really center what those needs are.

I think that the public discourse so much of the energy and intention ends up being put on the alleged perpetrator.

Which I know there’s a sense of, well, if that person is punished, that’s accountability. But that doesn’t take into account. Putting back together the pieces of the lives that have been just shattered due to these awful, terrible, tragic incidents.

 And so what we’ve learned through the direct victim services that we provide in meeting harm when it occurs is sometimes it’s victims wake you up in the hospital and wondering, how am I going to take care of my kids? Oh my gosh, what if I lose my job? How am I gonna pay for this? I don’t speak English. I don’t understand what my doctors and nurses are telling me [00:10:00] right now. Has anyone contacted my family? What is going on?

What I’ve seen from so many of these cases is that there aren’t people there. in the community to support those folks in that sort of like intimate way because the, the public discourse, the newspaper articles the TV news, it’s all about, that person who committed this crime, are they being punished harsh enough?

While when you really think about healing is always going to have to be victim and survivor centered.

Miata Tan: Janice Li describes this victim and survivor centered approach as a central pillar of the Coalition for Community Safety and Justices work.

I asked her about how she sees people responding to the Coalition’s programming and who the communities they serve are.

Janice Li: So the Direct Victim Services program is just one of the many, many programs that CCSJ runs.

Um, we do a wide range of policy advocacy. Right now, we’ve been focused a lot [00:11:00] on transit safety, particularly muni safety. We do a lot of different kinds of community-based education.

What we are seeing in our communities, and we do work across San Francisco. Is that people are just really grateful that there are folks that they trust in the community that are centering safety and what community safety looks like to us.

Because our organizations have all been around for a really long time, we already are doing work in our communities. So like for example, CCDC, Chinatown Community Development Center, they’re one of the largest affordable housing nonprofits in the city. They have a very robust resident services program amongst the dozens of like apartment buildings and, large housing complexes that they have in their portfolio.

And so, some of the folks that participate in programs might be CCDC residents. some of the folks participating in our programs are, folks that are part of CPA’s existing youth program called Youth MOJO.

They might [00:12:00] be folks that CAA have engaged through their, immigrant parent voting Coalition, who are interested in learning more about youth safety in the schools. So we’re really pulling from our existing bases and existing communities and growing that of course.

I think something that I’ve seen is that when there are really serious incidents of violence harming our community, one example Paul give, um, was a few years ago, there was a stabbing that occurred at a bakery called a Bakery in Chinatown, right there on Stockton Street.

And it was a horrific incident.  The person who was stabbed survived. And because that was in the heart of Chinatown in a very, very popular, well-known bakery. in the middle of the day there were so many folks in the Chinatown community who were  they just wanted to know what was happening, and they were just so scared, like, could this happen to me? I go to that bakery, can I leave my apartment? Like I don’t know what’s going on.

[00:13:00] So a lot of the times, one of the things that CCSJ does as part of our rapid response, beyond just serving and supporting the victim or victims and survivors themselves, is to ensure that we are either creating healing spaces for our communities, or at least disseminating accurate real-time information. I think that’s the ways that we can Be there for our communities because we know that the harm and the fears that exist expand much more beyond just the individuals who were directly impacted by, you know, whatever those incidents of harm are.

Miata Tan: And of course, today we’ve been speaking a lot about the communities that you directly serve, which are more Asian American folks in San Francisco.

But how do you think that connects to, I guess, the broader, myriad of demographics that, uh, that live here. 

Janice Li: Yeah. So, CCSJ being founded in 2019. We were founded at a time where because of these really [00:14:00] awful, tragic high profile incidents and community-based organizations like CA, a really stepping up to respond, it brought in really historic investments into specifically addressing Asian American and Pacific Islander hate, and violence and.

What we knew that in that moment that this investment wasn’t going to be indefinite. We knew that. And so something that was really, really important was to be able to archive our learnings and be able to export this, share our. Finding, share, learning, share how we did what we did, why we did what we did, what worked, what didn’t work with the broader, committees here in San Francisco State beyond.

I will say that one of the first things that we had done when I had started was create actual rapid response protocol.

And I remember how so many places across California folks were reaching out to us, being like, oh, I heard that you do community safety [00:15:00] work in the Asian American community. What do you do when something happens because we’ve just heard from this client, or there was this incident that happened in our community.

We just don’t know what to do. Just to be able to share our protocol, share what we’ve learned, why we did this, and say like, Hey, you translate and interpret this for how it works. In whatever community you’re in and you know, whatever community you serve. But so much of it is just like documenting your learning is documenting what you do.

Um, and so I’m really proud that we’ve been able to do that through the CCSJ Knowledge Base.

Miata Tan: That was Janice Li, the Coalition Director at the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, also known as CCSJ.

As Janice mentioned, the Coalition is documenting the community safety resources in an online Knowledge Base. More on that later.

Our next guest, Tei Huỳnh, will dive deeper into some of the educational workshops and trainings that CCSJ offers.

You are tuned into APEX [00:16:00] Express on 94.1 KPFA​

[00:17:00] Welcome back to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA.

I am your host, Miata Tan, and today we are talking about community safety.

Tei Huỳnh is a Senior Program Coordinator at Chinese Progressive Association, one of the four organizations that comprise the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice.

Here’s Tei discussing where their work sits within the Coalition.

[00:18:00] 

Tei Huỳnh: CPA’s kind of piece of the pie with CCS J’s work has been to really offer political education to offer membership exchanges with, um, other organizations workshops and trainings for our working class membership base. And so we offer RJ trainings for young people as well as, in language, Cantonese restorative justice training.

Miata Tan: For listeners who might not be familiar, could you help to define restorative justice?

Tei Huỳnh: Restorative justice is this idea that when harm is done rather than like implementing retributive ways. To bring about justice. There are ways to restore relationships, to center relationships, and to focus efforts of making right relations.

Restorative justice often includes like talking circles where like a harm doer or someone who caused harm, right?

Someone who is the recipient of harm sit in circle and share stories and really vulnerably, like hear each other out. And so the [00:19:00] first step of restorative justice, 80% of it in communities is, is relationship building, community building.

Miata Tan: These sorts of workshops and programs. What do they look like?

Tei Huỳnh: In our restorative justice trainings we work with, we actually work with CYC, to have their youth join our young people. And most recently we’ve worked with another organization called, which works with Latina youth, we bring our youth together and we have, uh, a four-part training and we are doing things like talking about how to give an apology, right? We’re like roleplaying, conflict and slowing down and so there’s a bit of that, right? That it feels a little bit like counseling or just making space, learning how to like hold emotion.

How do we like just sit with these feelings and develop the skill and the capacity to do that within ourselves. And to have difficult conversations beyond us too.

And then there’s a part of it that is about political education.

So trying to make that connection that as we learn to [00:20:00] be more accepting how does that actually look like in politics or like in our day-to-day life today? And does it, does it align?

More often than not, right? Like they talk about in their classrooms that it is retributive justice that they’re learning about. Oh, you messed up, you’re sent out. Or like, oh, you get pink slip, whatever. Or if that’s not their personal experience, they can observe that their classmates who look differently than them might get that experience more often than not  

And so building beginning to build that empathy as well. Yeah.

And then our adults also have, trainings and those are in Cantonese, which is so important. And the things that come up in those trainings are actually really about family dynamics. Our members really wanna know how do we good parents?

When we heal our relationship, like learning to have those feelings, learning to locate and articulate our feelings. 

To get a Chinese mama to be like, I feel X, Y, Z.

Elders to be more in touch with their emotions and then to want to apply that to their family life is amazing, to like know how to like talk through conversations, be a better [00:21:00] parent partner, whatever it may be.

Miata Tan: Something to note about the workshops and tools that Tei is describing for us. Yes, it is in response to terrible acts of hate and violence, but there are other applications as well.

Tei Huỳnh: And you know, we’ve seen a lot of leadership in our young people as well, so we started with a restorative justice cohort and young people were literally like, we wanna come back. Can we like help out? You know, and so we like had this track where young people got to be leaders to run their own restorative justice circle.

It might sound like really basic, but some of the things we learn about is like how we like practice a script around moving through conflicts too. and that, and we also learn that conflict. It’s not bad. Shameful thing.

This is actually what we hear a lot from our young people, is that these tools help them. With their friends, with their partners, with their mom. One kid was telling us how he was like going to [00:22:00] get mad about mom asking him to do the dishes he was able to slow down and talk about like how he feels.

Sometimes I’m like, oh, are we like releasing little like parent counselors? You know what I mean? Uh, ’cause another young person told us about, yeah.

When, when she would, she could feel tension between her and her father. She would slow down and start asking her, her what we call ears questions. and they would be able to slow down enough to have conversations as opposed to like an argument .

It makes me think like how as a young person we are really not taught to communicate. We’re taught all of these things from what? Dominant media or we just like learn from the style of communication we receive in our home , and exposing young people to different options and to allow them to choose what best fits for them, what feels best for them.

I think it’s a really, yeah, I wish I was exposed to that .

Miata Tan: From younger people to adults, you have programs and workshops for lots of different folks. What are the community needs that this [00:23:00] healing work really helps to address?

Tei Huỳnh: What a great question because our youth recently did a survey Within, um, MOJO and then they also did a survey of other young people in the city.

And the biggest problem that they’re seeing right now is housing affordability because they’re getting like, pushed out they think about like, oh yeah, my really good friend now lives in El Sobrante. I can’t see my like, best friend we have youth coming from like Richmond, from the East Bay because they want to stay in relationship.

And so the ways that, like the lack of affordability in the city for families, working class families has also impacted, our young peoples.

Sense of health.

And, this is actually a really beautiful extension of, growth, right? In what people are seeing termed as safety, From like a really tangible kind of safety previously safety was like not getting punched, interpersonal violence to now understanding safety from systemic violence as well, which includes, like housing and affordability or [00:24:00] gentrification.

Miata Tan: Through the workshops that Tei runs through the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice Communities are also exposed to others with different lived experiences, including speakers from partner organizations to help make sense of things.

Tei Huỳnh: It was a huge moment of like humanization.

And restorative justice is really about seeing each other, I remember too, like after our guest speaker from A PSC, our young people were just so moved, and our young people saying like this was the first time that they’ve shared a room with someone who was formerly incarcerated. they were so moved with like, how funny he was, how smart he was, how all the things you know, and, and that there are all these stories to shed.

We really bring in people to share about their lived experiences with our Asian American youth.

And then people wanted to like follow up and also Mac from A PSC was so generous and wanted to help them with their college essays and people were like, [00:25:00] yes, they wanna keep talking to you.

You know? Um, and that was really sweet. In our. Recent restorative justice work, and our most recent training with POed which works with Latina youth while we saw that it was harder for our young people to just, connect like that, that they were able, that there were like other ways that they were building relationships with 

Miata Tan: What were you seeing that went beyond language?

Tei Huỳnh: I think it was really sweet to just see like people just trying, right? Like, I think as like young people, it’s like, it’s also really scary to like, go outside of your, your little bubble, I think as a young person, right?

One year we were able to organize for our adult session and our youth session, our final session that happened on the same day. and so we had we had circles together, intergenerational, we brought in a bunch of translators and youth after that were so moved,

I think one young person was [00:26:00] talking about how they only like. Chinese adults, they talk to other parents and to like hear these Chinese adults really trying, being really encouraging. There’s like something very healing.

Restorative justice is not an easy topic for young people. I think at the first level it is about relationships in community to hold those harder feelings.

I was really moved by this, a really shy young girl, like choosing to like walk and talk with another young person that they didn’t have like that much of a shared language, but Wiley was, they were just really trying to connect.

There are moments like when the, youth, like during our break, would wanna put on music and would try to teach the other youth, how they dance to their music. You know, like it’s just, it was just like a cultural exchange of sorts too which is really sweet and really fun 

​[00:27:00] [00:28:00] 

Miata Tan: You are tuned into APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, a weekly radio show uplifting the voices and stories of Asian Americans.

I’m your host Miata Tan, and today we are [00:29:00] talking about community safety.

Since 2019, the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, also known as CCSJ, has been leading the charge in helping Asian Americans in San Francisco to heal from instances of harm.

From Direct Victim Services to Policy Work. The Coalition has a range of programs.

Our next guest is Helen Ho, research and Evaluation manager at Chinese for affirmative action in San Francisco.

Her research helps us to better understand the impact of these programs. Here’s Helen describing her role and the importance of CCS J’s evaluation 

Helen Ho: My role is to serve as a container for reflection and evaluation so that we can learn from what we’re doing, in the moment, we’re always so busy, too busy to kind of stop and, assess. And so my role is to have that [00:30:00] time set aside to assess and celebrate and reflect back to people what we’re doing.

I was initially brought on through an idea that we wanted to build different metrics of community safety because right now the dominant measures of community safety, when you think about like, how do we measure safety, it’s crime rates.

And that is a very one dimensional, singular, narrow definition of safety that then narrows our focus into what solutions are effective and available to us.

And, and we also know that people’s sense of safety goes beyond what are the crime rates published by police departments and only relying on those statistics won’t capture the benefits of the work that community organizations and other entities that do more of this holistic long-term work.

Miata Tan: The Coalition for Community Safety and Justice, has been around since 2019. So was this [00:31:00] process, uh, over these five years, or how did you come into this?

Helen Ho: Yeah. The Coalition started in 2019, but I came on in. 2023, you know, in 2019 when they started, their main focus was rapid response because there were a lot of high profile incidents that really needed a coordinated community response.

And over time they. Wanted to move beyond rapid response to more long-term prevention and, uh, restorative programming.

And that’s when they were able to get more resources to build out those programs. So that’s why I came on, um, a bit later in the Coalition process when a lot of programs were already started or just about to launch.

So what I get to do is to interview people that we’ve served and talk to them about. Their experiences of our programs, how they might have been transformed, how their perspectives might have changed and, and all of that. Then I get to do mini reports or memos and reflect that back to the people who run the programs.

And it’s just so [00:32:00] rewarding to share with them the impact that they’ve had that they might not have heard of. ’cause they don’t have the time to talk to everyone .

And also. Be an outside thought partner to share with them, okay, well this thing might not have worked and maybe you could think about doing something else.

Miata Tan: Certainly sounds like really rewarding work.

You’re at a stage where you’re able to really reflect back a lot of the learnings and, and, and work that’s being developed within these programs. 

Helen Ho: The first phase of this project was actually to more concretely conceptualize what safety is beyond just crime rates because there are many, Flaws with crime statistics.

We know that they are under-reported. We know that they embed racial bias. But we also know that they don’t capture all the harm that our communities experience, like non-criminal hate acts or other kinds of harm, like being evicted that cause insecurity, instability, feelings [00:33:00] of not being safe, but would not be counted as a crime.

So, Um, this involved talking to our Coalition members, learning about our programs, and really getting to the heart of what they. Conceptualized as safety and why they created the programs that they did. And then based on that developed, a set of pilot evaluations for different programs that we did based on those, ideas of what our, you know, ideal outcomes are.

We want students to feel safe at school, not only physically, but emotionally and psychologically. We want them to feel like they have a trusted adult to go to when something is wrong, whether. They’re being bullied or maybe they’re having a hard time at home or, um, you know, their family, uh, someone lost their job and they need extra support.

And that all, none of that would be captured in crime rates, but are very important for our sense of safety.

So then I did a whole bunch of evaluations where I interviewed folks, tried to collect [00:34:00] quantitative data as well. And that process. Was incredibly rewarding for me because I really admire people who, uh, develop and implement programs.

They’re doing the real work, you know, I’m not doing the real work. They’re doing the real work of actually, supporting our community members. But what I get to do is reflect back their work to them. ’cause in the moment they’re just so busy then, and, and many people when they’re doing this work, they’re like: Am I even doing, making an impact? Am I doing this well? And all they can think about is how can I, you know, what did I do wrong and how can I do better? And, and they don’t necessarily think about all the good that they’re doing ’cause they don’t give themselves the time to appreciate their own work because they’re always trying to do better for our communities.

Miata Tan: The Coalition for Community Safety and Justice is cataloging their learnings online in what they call a Collective Knowledge Base. Janice describes the [00:35:00] Knowledge Base as the endpoint of a long process to better understand the Coalition’s work.

Helen Ho: The Coalition for Community Safety and Justice was doing something, was building something new in San Francisco, and the idea was that there may be other communities across the country who are trying to build something similar and contexts across country, across communities. They’re all different, but there is something maybe we could share and learn from each other.

And so with this Knowledge Base Catalog, the impetus was to recognize that we’re not experts. we’re just trying things, building things, and we, we make a lot of mistakes and we’re just doing the best that we can, but we’ve learned something and we’ll, we’ll share it. and this.

Kind of approach really reminded me of a recipe book where you develop a recipe after many, many, many times of testing and tweaking and [00:36:00] building, and there’s a recipe that really works for you. And then you can share it. And if you explain, you know, the different steps and some of the. You know, ingredients that are helpful, the techniques and why you chose to do certain things.

Someone else can look at that recipe and tweak it how they want. And make it suitable for your own community and context. and once I got onto that analogy it blossomed to something else because. Also the act of creating food, like cooking and feeding our communities is something so important , and yet sometimes it can be seen as not serious.

And that’s really similar to community Safety is a very serious issue. But then. There’s some worries that when we talk about like restoration and healing that’s not a serious enough reaction response to safety issues, but when in fact it is crucial and essential, you know, healing and [00:37:00] restoration are crucial for our communities as much as cooking and feeding our communities and both are serious, even if some people think that they’re not serious. 

Miata Tan: I hear you. I love that metaphor with cooking and the recipe book as well.

For our listeners, could you explain where the Knowledge Base Catalog lives online and how people can access it?

Helen Ho: Sure. You can go to our [email protected] and there’s a little tab that says Knowledge Base. And you can either access it through the PDF version where you can get all of the catalog entries in one file, or you can search our database and you can filter or search by different things that you’re interested in.

So there a lot of programs have, cross functions or cross, aspects to them that might be of interest to you.

So for example, if you. We’re interested in programs to cultivate trusted community figures so you can look at the different programs that we’ve done that in different contexts in housing, at schools, or in business [00:38:00] corridors, because when you cultivate those trusted figures, when something bad happens, people then know who to go to, and it’s much easier to access resources.

You can also, if you’re interested in, in language programs, you know, how did we think about doing programming for immigrant communities in their native languages?

You can look at our tags and look at all of the programs that are in language. So our Chinese language, restorative justice, or our Chinese language victim services. You can look at all the different ways that we’ve, done our programming in language and not just in terms of translating something that wasn’t English into Chinese, but creating something from the Chinese cultural perspective that would be more resonant with our community members.

Miata Tan: How are you reflecting back this work through your research and the Knowledge Base Catalog? 

Helen Ho: Before each evaluation, I interviewed the implementers to understand, you know… what’s your vision of success? If your [00:39:00] program was successful beyond as wildest dreams what do you think you would see? What do you think people would say about it? And based on those answers, I was able to create some questions and, and measures to then understand. What you know, what assessment would look like in terms of these interviews with, um, program participants or collaborators.

And so then I was able to reflect back in these memos about, insights that program participants learned or feelings that they, that they had or for. Program collaborators, what they’ve seen in their partnerships with us and what they appreciate about our approach and our programming.

And also avenues that we could improve our programs.

Because we know that harm and violence, although we often talk about them in terms of singular incidents, it’s actually a systemic issue. And systemic is a word that people throw around and we don’t even know. Like it’s so thrown around so much out. I, I don’t even remember what it means anymore, but.

But we know that there are [00:40:00] big societal issues that cause harm. There’s poverty, there’s unaddressed mental health and behavioral health issues. There is just a lot of stress that is around that makes us. More tense and flare up and also, or have tensions flare up into conflict which makes us feel unsafe.

And so there are policies that we can put in place to create a more. Complete instead of a patchwork system of support and resources so that people can feel more secure economically physically, uh, health wise. And all of that contributes to a, strong lasting and holistic sense of safety.

 Miata Tan: As Janice and Helen have both mentioned The Coalition was able to grow in part due to funding that was made during 2019 and 2020 when we were seeing more acts of hate and [00:41:00] violence against Asian Americans.

California’s Stop the Hate program was one of those investments. Helen explains more about how the work has continued to expand.

Helen Ho: Another reason why the Coalition has been able to evolve is the, government investment in these programs and holistic safety programming. So. The city of San Francisco has been really great through their grants in looking in funding, holistic programming for different racial and ethnic communities and the state. Also, through their Stop the Hate grant has been able to fund programming and also the research and evaluation work that allows us to learn and evolve. Improve and also. Take these learnings beyond when grant programs might end and programs might end, and so that we can hopefully hold onto this, these learnings and not have to start from scratch the next [00:42:00] time

Miata Tan: Thank you for laying all that out, Helen. So it sounds like there’s a lot of different stakeholders that are really helping to aid this work and move it forward.

What have you seen, like what are folks saying have had an impact on their community in a, in a positive way? 

Helen Ho: Yeah. There’s so much that. The Coalition has done and, and many different impacts. But one program that I evaluated, it was community Youth Center, CYC’s, School Outreach Program in which they have teams of adults regularly attending lunch periods or school release periods at several schools in the city.

And the idea here is that. At lunchtime or at score release period, kids are free. They’re like, we’re done with class, we’re just gonna be out there wild. And they’re figuring how to navigating social relationships, how to be in the world, who they are. , That can come with a lot of conflict, [00:43:00] insecurity a lot of difficulties that then end up, if they escalate enough, could turn into harm.

For example, it’s middle school kids are playing basketball and so when someone loses a game, they might start a argument and what the school outreach team would do is they’re there. They’ve already built relationships with the students. They can step in and say, Hey, what’s going on?

Let’s talk about this. And they can prevent. Conflicts from escalating into physical harm and also create a teaching moment for students to learn how to resolve their conflicts, how to deal with their difficult emotions of losing and equipping them with tools in the future to then also navigate conflict and, and prevent harm.

And so I was able to interview the school collaborators uh, administrators or deans to understand, you know, why did they call on CYC, why did they want to establish this partnership and let adults outside the school come into the [00:44:00] school? And they were just so appreciative of the expertise and experience of the team that they knew.

That they could trust the team to develop warm, strong relationships with students of all races and, and identities. That there was not going to be a bias that these adults, the team would be approachable. And so this team brought in both the trust, not only social emotional skills and conflict navigation, but also the organization and responsibility of keeping students physically safe.

Another program which is the development of in-language Chinese restorative justice programming and also restorative justice program for Asian American youth. And in interviewing the folks who went through these training programs, I myself learned, truly learned what restorative [00:45:00] justice is.

Essentially restorative justice takes the approach that we should, not look to punishment for punishment’s sake, but to look at accountability and to restore what has been harmed or lost through, you know, an act of harm in order to do that, we actually have to build community you know, restoring after harm has been done requires relationships and trust for it to be most effective.

And so what was really transformative for me was listening to.

Youth, high schoolers learn about restorative justice, a completely new idea because so much of their life has been punitive at the home. They do something wrong, they’re punished at school, they do something wrong, they’re punished. And it’s just a default way of reacting to quote unquote wrong. But these youth learned.

All of these different [00:46:00] skills for navigating conflict that truly transform the way that they relate to everyone in their life. youth were talking to me about, resolving conflicts with their parents. To believe that their parents could change too.

So, you know, what does that have to do with criminal justice? Well, when we think about people who have harmed, a lot of times we’re hesitant to go through a restorative route where we just want them to take accountability rather than being punished for punishment’s sake for them to change their behavior.

But one criticism or barrier to that is we think, oh, they can’t change. But you know, if your middle-aged immigrant parent who you thought could never change, could change the sky’s the limit in terms of who can change their behavior and be in a better relationship with you.

Miata Tan: These workshops are so important in helping to really bring people together and also insight that change.

Helen Ho: We also wanna look ahead to [00:47:00] deeper and longer term healing.

And so what can we do to restore a sense of safety, a sense of community and especially, um, with a lot of heightened, uh, racial tensions, especially between Asian and black communities that you know, the media and other actors take advantage of our goal of the Coalition is to be able to deescalate those tensions and find ways for communities to see each other and work together and then realize that we can do more to help each other and prevent harm within and across our communities if we work together.

For example, we’re doing a transit safety audit with our community members, where we’ve invited our community members who are in for our organization, mainly Chinese, immigrants who don’t speak English very well to come with us and ride.

The bus lines that are most important to our community coming in and out of Chinatown [00:48:00] to assess what on this bus or this ride makes you feel safe or unsafe, and how can we change something to make you feel safe on the bus? it’s so important because public transportation is a lifeline for our community, And so we completed those bus ride alongs and folks are writing in their notebooks and they shared so many.

Amazing observations and recommendations that we’re now compiling and writing a report to then recommend to, um, S-F-M-T-A, our transit agency the bus. Is one of the few places where a bunch of strangers are in close quarters, a bunch of strangers from many different walks of life.

Many different communities are in close quarters, and we just have to learn how to exist with each other. And it could be a really great way for us to practice that skill if we could just do some public education on, how to ride the bus. 

Miata Tan: I asked [00:49:00] Helen about how she hopes people will access and build on the learnings in CCS J’s Collective Knowledge Base.

Helen Ho: Each community will have its own needs and community dynamics And community resources. And so it’s hard to say that there’s a one size fits all approach, which is also why the recipe book approach is more fitting because everyone just needs to kind of take things, uh, and tweak it to their own contexts. I would just say that for taking it either statewide or nationwide, it’s just that something needs to be done in a coordinated fashion that understands the. Importance of long-term solutions for safety and holistic solutions for safety. The understands that harm is done when people’s needs are not met, and so we must refocus once we have responded to the crises in the moment of harm, that we [00:50:00] also look to long-term and long lasting community safety solutions.

Miata Tan: So with this Knowledge Base, anyone can access it online. Who do you hope will take a peek inside?

Helen Ho: Who do I hope would take a peek at the Knowledge Base? I would really love for other people who are at a crossroads just like we were in the early. Days who are scrambling, are building something new and are just in go, go, go mode to come look at some of what we’ve done so that they just don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

They could just take something, take one of our templates or. Take some of our topics workshop topics. Something where it just saves them a bunch of time that they don’t have to figure it out and then they can move on to the next step of evolving their programs even more. Um, I think that’s my greatest hope.

I think another this might be too cynical, but I also feel like with [00:51:00] the political. Interest waning in Asian American community safety, that there’s going to be a loss of resources. You know, hopefully we can get more resources to sustain these programs, but in reality, a lot of programs will not continue.

And it is a tragedy because the people who have developed these programs and worked on them for years Have built so much knowledge and experience and when we just cut programs short, we lose it. We lose the people who have built not only the experience of running this program, but the relationships that they’ve built in our community that are so hard to replicate and build up again.

So my hope is that in however many years when we get another influx of resources from when people care about Asian American community safety, again, that somewhere some will dust off this Knowledge Base. And again, not have [00:52:00] to start from scratch, but, start at a further point so that we can, again, evolve our approach and, and do better for our communities.

Miata Tan: That’s really beautiful. Hoping that people for the future can access it. 

Helen Ho: Another thing about, people either from the future and also in this current moment when they’re also asking what’s being done. Because I think a part of feeling not safe is that no one’s coming to help me and the cynicism of no one’s doing anything about this.

And and also.  a withdrawal from our community saying, oh, our Asian, the Asian American community, they’re approaching it in the wrong way or not doing the right what, whatever it is that your criticism is. But my hope is that folks in our community, folks in the future, folks outside of our, you know, Asian American community, can come to this Knowledge Base and see what we’re doing.

[00:53:00] Realize that there are, there is a lot of work being put into creating long-term, equitable, holistic safety solutions that can heal individuals in our community, heal our communities at a as a whole, and heal our relationships between communities. And there’s so much good being done and that. If more folks join in our collaborations or in our efforts to get more resources to sustain these programs, we can really continue doing great things. 

Miata Tan: With this Knowledge Base catalog, is there a way you hope it will continue to evolve to help better inform, I guess someone who might be on the other side of the country or in a totally different place? Miles away from San Francisco.

Helen Ho: I would love to be able to do more evaluations and documenting of our work. I mean, we’re continually doing more and new stuff. , Even [00:54:00] in a period where we don’t have as many resources, we’re still doing a lot of work. For example. We are continuing our work to get SFPD to implement a language access policy that works for our communities.

And we’re doing more and more work on that. And to be able to document that and share that new work would be really exciting. Um, and any other of our new initiatives

I will say, going back to the recipe book analogy or metaphor, I don’t know if this is just me, but when I have a cookbook, it’s great. It’s like so long. There’s so many recipes. I only use three of them and I use those three all of the time. so that’s what I was also thinking about for the Knowledge Base where there’s a lot of stuff in here.

Hopefully you can find a few things that resonate with you that you can really carry with you into your practice.

Miata Tan: Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Helen. 

Helen Ho: Thank you for having me.

​[00:55:00] 

Miata Tan: The music we played throughout today’s [00:56:00] episode was by the incredible Mark Izu check out stick song from his 1992 album Circle of Fire. Such a beautiful track,

Now, a big thank you to Janice Tay and Helen for joining me on today’s show. You can learn more about the Coalition for Community Safety and Justice via their website. That’s ccsjsf.org 

Make sure to check out their fantastic Knowledge Base Catalog that Helen spoke to us about from examples of victim centered support programs to rapid response resources during instances of community harm. There’s some really important information on there.

And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in.

For show notes, check out our website. That’s kpfa.org/program/APEX-express.

APEX Express is a collective of activists that include [00:57:00] Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. 

Tonight’s show was produced by me, Miata Tan.

Get some rest y’all . 

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