The Orange County Community Foundation (OCCF) celebrates the rich diversity of our region’s Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) community, deeply rooted in Orange County’s past and essential to the continued progress of our county.
Generations of immigrants have shaped Orange County from our earliest beginnings to our present standing as an international hub of entrepreneurship and innovation. Nearly 950,000 immigrants live in Orange County, making up almost one-third of our county’s population. Orange County’s immigrant communities come from every region of the world, and Asia accounts for the largest share at 45% of Orange County’s foreign-born population. The top five Asian countries of origin are Vietnam, China, Korea, the Philippines, and India. In fact, Orange County has the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam.
In 2015, OCCF launched the OC Opportunity Initiative (OCOI) as a collaborative dedicated to ensuring that Orange County embraces the promise and potential of our immigrant communities to create a stronger future for our region. As part of a coalition of immigrant-serving organizations, OCOI partnered with Asian Pacific Islander (API) led and API serving nonprofits to provide outreach, education, and legal services to ensure Orange County’s API immigrants benefit from full participation in the economic and civic life of our community.
Our API nonprofit partners are advancing innovative cross-cultural and multi-racial work, building a coordinated infrastructure that both enhances their direct service capacity and provides a platform for collective action on shared goals. For example, VietRise and CHIRLA have been exploring the intersectional experiences of undocumented Vietnamese and Latinx communities in Orange County to analyze both the effects of anti-immigrant narratives and the opportunities for creating shared narratives around inclusion. VietRISE and NDLON conducted the Orange County Immigrant Rights Institute and a Bring Human Rights Home festival.
In these and other ways, our API partners are sparking cross-cultural discussions among nonprofits and funders on narrative change and the development of an inclusive advocacy agenda toward our collective vision of an Orange County where immigrant and refugee communities secure justice, solidarity, and a place of belonging in the socio-economic, cultural, political, and civic life of our region.
By supporting Orange County’s API communities, OCCF is working to ensure a vibrant and thriving region for all. To learn more about the broader AANHPI experience, and how to support organizations led by and serving the AANHPI community, please visit: https://www.ocgrantmakers.org/events/understanding-the-aapi-communities/