Filipino Advocates for Justice’s Civic Engagement Program has been a long-standing program to support leadership development of the Filipino and immigrant community in their growth in community organizing and political engagement. Our integrated civic engagement vision provides a pipeline of engagement for youth and immigrants accessing direct services to becoming engaged in their community’s push for economic and racial justice.
We are an active partner in community organizing and in initiating campaigns in response to attacks on the civil rights of individual Filipinos, sectors of the Filipino community and the broader community. In this role, Filipino Advocates for Justice strives to research and analyze emerging social and economic justice issues affecting workers, immigrants and youth. We develop a political analysis and build greater awareness of issues in the Filipino community through education and dialogue.
The Philippines is among the top 5 countries of origin for American immigrants accounting for 4.5% of the 41.3 million immigrants living in the US. At 1.5 million, Filipinos are the largest Asian group in California. Our community is over 60% foreign-born with an estimated undocumented population between 500,000 to 1 million.
Nearly 100,000 Filipinos live in Alameda County (6% of total population) with the majority living in Central and South County in cities including Hayward (16,882), Union City (14,516), Fremont (14,743), and San Leandro (8,286). About 55,000 are Tagalog speakers in Alameda County where Tagalog is a threshold language.