When Oakland’s Chinatown community comes together on July 20 for a night market with food, drink, performances, a wellness corner with massage and herbal tea, and speakers, attendees will celebrate the Asian Pacific Environmental Network’s 30th anniversary.
Beyond fun, the event will symbolize APEN’s decades of work in California’s Asian immigrant and refugee communities, said Alvina Wong, APEN basebuilding director. In Chinatown and in Richmond, APEN has fought and continues to fight for environmental justice—and more—for the communities it serves.
APEN’s hard-won victories include its early 2000s battle to compel a Fremont chip electronics factory, AXT, which employed many workers from Chinatown, to clean up a work environment contaminated with 21 times the legal limit of arsenic dust.
“The workers reached out to us. There was a language barrier, and they were being exploited,” said Kenneth Tang, APEN Oakland organizing director. A court case settled in the workers’ favor included lifetime screenings for harms created by the dust, and won APEN members for life as well. “Now they fight for others,” he said.
The drawn-out saga of “where are the A’s moving to” at one point included a proposal to take over the Laney College site, which would have displaced large numbers of Chinatown residents. APEN helped form a coalition, including residents, Laney College students and faculty, and others concerned about the proposal, which at one point was being fast-tracked, said Wong.
“Our members said, ‘No! You never talked to Chinatown,’” she said. In 2017, not only was the proposal scuttled, but APEN secured a commitment from the Laney College chancellor’s office that it would not return. “This is what people-power looks like,” Wong said. “A future designed by us, for us.”
That battle developed the local leadership, she said, which continues to be a core APEN value. It was also key in APEN’s contributions to fighting city plans to use eminent domain to build market-rate housing around the Lake Merritt BART station, again displacing Chinatown small businesses and longtime residents. The current plan found approval only after extensive consultations with the community, and now includes affordable housing and community benefits, Wong said. “Now, [city officials] know we will be asking, ‘How does your project help support the livelihood of Chinatown?’”
Today, Kenneth Tang said, APEN focuses on a broad definition of “resiliency” for the Chinatown community, embodied in its five-plus years of work creating a “Lincoln Resiliency Hub” at popular Lincoln Recreation Center. It helped secure $18 million in state and city funding to create a neighborhood resource that residents, especially seniors, can use as climate change continues to create challenges such as the recent heat wave. “Many of [our older residents] don’t know where to go or what to do,” he said. “This will be a safe place for them.”
Groundbreaking for the hub is expected to begin later this year, he said.
APEN has also piloted Healing Circles, in which residents speak openly about the trauma Asian communities experienced during the pandemic, inviting in other partners, such as Restore Oakland, to participate, Tang said.
One such meeting included an inspirational moment for Wong. “An elder, who has since passed, spoke up. She said, ‘If we are ever to truly have peace in this world, we need to love each other, beyond race, gender and age,’” Wong said, still clearly moved by those words.
From its inception, APEN Action also maintained a presence in Richmond, where it still works to voice the views of the large immigrant Laotian community. Its Richmond membership now also includes other Southeast Asian youth, said Megan Zapanta, Richmond organizing director, APEN Action.
Through networking, APEN Action formed alliances with Communities for a Better Environment Action, Urban Tilth, the Sunflower Alliance, the United Teachers of Richmond and other entities, all of whom worked successfully to put the “Polluters Pay” initiative on the November ballot. If approved, this would create a refinery tax on Chevron, estimated to bring in $60 to $90 million each year to Richmond’s general fund, according to environmental organization 350 Contra Costa Action. These funds could then be used to clean up polluted water and land, provide health services, “and begin to cover the costs ahead of a transition when the Chevron Refinery closes,” according to 350 Contra Costa Action.
A Chevron-sponsored lawsuit aimed at preventing the initiative from appearing on the ballot will not deter APEN’s multi-pronged campaign to support it, Zapanta said. “We’ll be doing field programs, community events and door-knocking,” she said. “[This initiative] is not an exceptional legal precedent. Passing it is step one. Continuing to monitor that the funds are used as promised is step two.”
APEN 30-Year Celebration Night Market, 4-9pm, July 20, The Overlook, 344 20th St., Oakland. Free.
