Feb. 14 (UPI) — Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren introduced a plan Thursday that would collect demographic data on specific ethnicities within the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities.
Under the plan dubbed the “Working Agenda for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders” Warren said she would seek data to dispell the “model minority myth” surrounding what’s known as the AAPI community which can perpetuate a view of Asians as well-educated and financially well-off and cause the needs of low-income or otherwise underserved groups to be ignored.
“Data equity is a civil rights issue,” Warren said. “And from the wage gap to the 2020 census, communities that have been perpetually erased are calling to be counted and have their experiences made visible.”
Warren pledges that within her first term as president she would form a White House task force on data equity to work with AAPI communities to collect comprehensive, disaggregated data in key surveys and implement a more inclusive census to ensure a full and accurate count of the 50 racial and ethnic groups in the community.
“I believe that you measure what you care about — and I care about building a government that works for everyone in the diverse AAPI community,” she said.
The plan also outlines Warren’s stances on issues such as affordable housing, disability rights and criminal justice reform and how this data would allow for policies that address these issues according to the needs of the diverse AAPI community.
“This is my commitment to AAPI communities. When I’m president, I will continue to fight and work with the communities to put real economic and political power in the hands of working people,” Warren said.
