Asian Texans for Justice

About the Organization:

We connect Asian Texans of all identities to meaningful civic action to build personal and political power for future generations.

The Issue:

Texas has the third largest population of Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI) in the United States with over 1.5 million people. In 2020, the U.S. Census reports that the AAPI community is the fastest growing racial group in Texas, growing 66% since the last Census.

Still recovering from the lingering impact of xenophobia and racism stemming from the COVID-19 response over two years ago, AAPI communities are still attacked and brutalized, physically and politically. Just this year in Dallas, Texas we saw another racially motivated shooting and in the 2021 legislative session, our AAPI communities were left in the lurch of Texas’s most recent redistricting session.

Voter turnout in 2020 was unprecedented, with nearly double as many AAPIs voting compared to 2016. And yet 282,328 registered AAPIs still did not vote that year, and with young AAPIs turning 18 every day, these groups – and unregistered folks – present opportunities to expand the electorate.

In response to our huge turnout growth (82%), our state responded to our growing voice by gerrymandering and redistricting the AAPI community to divide and draw us out of our political power.

The Solution:

ATJ was founded to be a voice for our state’s diverse AAPI community — to claim our space and inspire Texas to invest in our stories. We envision a future where all people feel bold in their belonging. Our mission is to connect Asian Texans of all identities to meaningful civic action to build personal and political power for future generations.

Currently, there is no statewide organization devoted to advancing social justice, civic engagement, and advocacy of the Texas AAPI community. ATJ’s strategic programming focuses on:

Advocacy & Civic Engagement
Community & Coalition Building
Youth Leadership Development

ATJ, in partnership with other AAPI organizations, created and executed the largest investment in AAPI turnout in our state’s history in the 2022 Primary elections. From identifying priority policy areas, to enacting statewide campaigns, and creating advocacy tool development, we invest in AAPI civic engagement from organizing, voter engagement to issue-based advocacy. Currently, ATJ is building a statewide movement to advocate for the creation and state approval of an Asian American Studies election course for Texas public high schools.

By building a community, unity, identity, & sense of belonging, ATJ facilitates collaboration and coalitions by uplifting other statewide AAPI-serving organizations. Through sub-granting, organizing around data and evidence-based priority issues, and statewide “Day of Action” at Texas legislature for rallies, marches, testimony, and advocacy days.

We believe in investing and building the bench of the next generation of leaders. ATJ is leading the movement by piloting the first statewide AAPI centered civic engagement institute. This year, we started our inaugural class of Civic Engagement Fellows, our flagship 10-week Fellowship program to lead a community project on the 2022 Elections and build “The AAPI Organizer’s Vision-book.”

Manisha G. Bewtra, AICP

Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor to Tucson Mayor Regina Romero

Manisha Bewtra, AICP (she/her) is Mayor Romero’s Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor. In this role, she leverages her passion for planning for thriving, healthy, and inclusive communities with her love for policy-making and politics as the Mayor’s liaison on transportation and land use issues. Manisha is an experienced public process facilitator and project manager and works collaboratively with the Mayor’s team and city departments to apply an equity lens to all city initiatives.
Manisha has built her career on bringing divergent perspectives together, facilitating conversations around change, and generating data-informed solutions that move communities forward. She is driven by public service and champions equitable policies and inclusive community engagement.
Prior to her current role, she worked at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston as a senior regional planner and the manager of the analytics team, at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership where she was a statewide technical assistance provider, as an adjunct city planning instructor for Master’s degree program courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at Arizona State University, and in municipal government and nonprofit community development organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Chandler, Arizona.
Manisha has served on various equity-focused organizations and committees and is a graduate of Emerge Massachusetts, the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership, and the Massachusetts Commonwealth Seminar, three organizations dedicated to training underrepresented groups to influence public policy and to run for office. She has a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in Economics and Art from The University of Iowa, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She currently serves as a member at large for the American Planning Association Arizona Southern Section and is a member of the executive team for the Asian American and Political Islander Caucus for the Arizona Democratic Party.
Before moving to Tucson in the summer of 2020, she lived in the Boston area for twelve years. During her years in Melrose, Massachusetts, she served as a Human Rights Commissioner and subsequently as a City Councilor. When elected to the Melrose City Council, she became the first person of color ever to serve in elected office in Melrose. She grew up in Iowa and identifies as Desi/Indian-American. She, her husband, and her son felt welcomed and right at home in Tucson when they moved here – even in spite of a pandemic and searing summer heat.

Arnie Saiki

research, writer, program director

Broadly focusing on regional economic and geopolitical themes in the Asia and Pacific regions, Arnie Saiki is currently leading a working group on data, statistics and valuation in the Pacific. His book “Economic and Ecological Accounting: Towards Intemerate Values,” was published last year by the Pacific Conference of Churches, the Pacific Theological College and the University of the South Pacific.

Since the publication, this campaign has been introduced to the Ecological and Economic Justice program at the World Council of Churches and he is participating in a G8 Interfaith forum for the inclusion of Wellbeing indicators into our economic accounts.

While national statistics and ecological accounting normally fall under the purview of government, academic or international institutions, Arnie has been campaigning in democratizing our ecological data, seeking support for a proof-of-concept accounting program that would enable poor, impacted, and indigenous peoples to actively participate in how we account for our socio and economic biodiversity. Intemerate Accounting is an equation that helps to correct accounting disparities that have, to a large extent, excluded the Global South. Revising our accounting system can provide access and opportunities that cross wide campaign sectors, bringing hope, action and efficacy to reverse climate change, restore our ecological biodiversity, and redistribute global wealth more equitably.

Arnie has been actively promoting and working on global justice campaigns since 2007 when he received a “We the People” grant from the Hawai’i Council of the Humanities for his work on Hawai’i Statehood. He has organized conferences with Hawaiian national independence groups, managed the Save Rapanui campaign after the Chilean military forced a lockdown of Easter Islanders. Arnie spoke at the World Bank representing the Pacific Island Forum, and participated in discussions around regionalism in the Pacific. He was recently appointed the US-Pacific Diplomacy and Solidarity Mission for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), and is on the management team of the Deep Seabed Mining Campaign.

In 2011, Arnie received the blessing from Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell to organize a counter-conference in Honolulu while APEC was there and coordinated the Moana Nui conferences, an international partnership between the International Forum on Globalization and Pua Mohala I Ka Po. For the last ten years he has been campaigning on issues around trade, development, ecological resources, indigenous issues and militarization in the Pacific.

His essays, “TPP at the End of the Line: a briefing on economic cooperation and capacity building” was published in American Quarterly by John Hopkins University Press, and “Manifesting the Liquid Continent,” was published by Yunnan National University, as part of the 1st International conference on Asia and Pacific Ethnology and Anthropology.