80-20 Educational Foundation Takes Proactive Steps to Protect Community Against Potential Xenophobia

WASHINGTON, April 7, 2020 (Newswire.com) - 80-20 Educational Foundation, (“80-20”) announced that it is taking action to help protect the Asian American community from a potential tsunami of xenophobia in the face of an escalating crisis created by COVID-19. 80-20 is an Asian American advocacy organization with 125,000 Asian American email addresses that it can reach within hours and an endowment of $3 million.  

80-20 has taken two initial proactive steps. First, 80-20 has invited numerous Asian American national and regional organizations to form a temporary coalition of equals to combat the potential increase in racist attacks. 80-20 has offered to share resources and the workload without taking a leadership role. Second, 80-20 has contacted the Jewish Council of Public Affairs (“JCPA”), which along with more than 70 other Jewish community organizations, had pledged on Feb. 21 “to help ensure that Chinese people feel safe.” 80-20 hopes to form a loose Jewish-Asian coalition to face the looming danger.

S.B. Woo, President of 80-20, said, “If one thinks today COVID-19 related statistics look alarming,  wait till you see what the statistics will be in the coming weeks. If current trends continue, in 2 weeks’ time, there may be 16,000 deaths from COVID-19 per day in the U.S. In the last two weeks, already 10 million people have filed for unemployment benefits. Some economists estimate that in a few months, the number of unemployed may go up to 34 million. We fear that people will look for someone to blame. The easiest target is Asian Americans. Last week, various news outlets, including NBC, have reported 650 anti-Asian acts in one week as a result of the crisis.”

For more information, see https://conta.cc/2w4ph6a

Media Contact

S.B. Woo
(302) 740-0050
sbw@udel.edu