In New York, the fight for data disaggregation recently secured a major victory after over a decade of work by CACF and other organizations through their Invisible No More campaign. That campaign helped author and pass AB 6896, which requires that state data for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders be broken down into 14 different ethnic subgroups. Although an earlier version of that bill had passed the state legislature, it had been vetoed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. But in December of 2021, Gov. Kathy Hochul—who assumed office after Cuomo’s resignation earlier that year—quietly signed AB 6896 into law.

“We made a major legislative push to really make sure this [bill] was on the [governor’s] radar and that she knew that the AAPI community really needs this,” Feng said.

The bill was the culmination of a considerable amount of collective advocacy. CACF engaged in outreach to community-based partners and allies outside of AAPI communities for additional support, as well as national scale organizations like AAPI Data and SEARAC. Its success opens a wider avenue of support and policy development that can target specific areas of concern for different AAPI constituents.

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