Empowering Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Texans to act on their political power.
By Sarah M. Vasquez
Starting a non-profit was not Lily Trieu's intention. She initially thought she would continue to work in the corporate marketing space, but as she got older, she found herself thinking about the type of work she would find the most meaningful. After she completed her MBA in 2019, she decided to pivot to the nonprofit space, hoping to improve the lives of people like her – a child of immigrants and a first-generation college student. “It very much did happen by accident, and I don’t know if I would have ever predicted my career to go down this path,” said Trieu.
Trieu is the co-founder and Executive Director of Asian Texans for Justice (ATJ), an organization that serves more than 1.9 million Asian American and Pacific Islander Texans with civic action to build personal and political power through civic engagement, policy advocacy, youth leadership development and coalition building. The staff and board come from different backgrounds and areas of work, but with a shared mission to serve the Texas AAPI community.
Asian Americans are the fastest growing population in Texas, according to the Texas Tribune. There was a 5.5% increase in Asian American population from 2022 to 2023 in the state4. This increase of 91,921 people means more potential voters to help shape electoral outcomes. “We can be the margin of victory, but maybe don't know it yet,” said Sarah Xiyi Chen, ATJ Board President and civil rights attorney.
Last year, ATJ worked with Asian Americans for Texas, a collaboration of nonprofits that seek to increase civic engagement, to launch a campaign that educated AAPI voters across the state about elections – not just federal and state elections, but local as well – through direct mailers, calls, texts, door knocking and digital ads. They provided a ballot builder that was available in various languages so voters could prepare their ballot before heading to the voting booth.
ATJ also launched its first yearlong Asian American Studies program at Round Rock High School providing students the opportunity to explore their historical, political, social and cultural experiences. In addition to the high school program, ATJ also hosts the annual civic engagement fellowship that brings AAPI youth from across the state to learn community organizing skills so they can empower their community. The 10-week program was held virtually in past years, but this summer will be the first time the students will meet in person.
These education programs have been the most meaningful to Trieu. As a product of the Texas public school system, she said that she didn’t learn what it meant to be Asian American or an Asian Texan, and feels that it impacted her and her trajectory.
“I think all kids deserve to see someone who looks like them in our textbooks and in our history books,” Trieu said. “To see just how confident these students are when they finish that class, and how they have a deeper understanding of what it means to be Asian American and a deeper understanding of what it means to be American, that's the power of Ethnic Studies. And to see our youth lead in advocating for that, and to see our youth really benefiting from that, that's been really special.”
ATJ officially formed in 2021 as anti-Asian violence increased across the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. About one-third of Asian adults said that they knew another Asian who was threatened or attacked because of their race or ethnicity, according to Pew Research Center. “We saw with the rise of COVID, there was a lot of racial scapegoating and that there were these oftentime, violent and aggressive physical attacks on the Asian-American community, oftentimes elders,” Trieu said.
The state legislature was also introducing bills in 2021 on issues including voting rights, health care and redistricting that would keep Republican lawmakers in control. Trieu said that the ATJ founders realized that there were a lot of important policy conversations going on that didn’t account for how the AAPI community would be impacted. They wanted to provide their voice.
It all started over Zoom. In 2020, during the thick of the pandemic, there were virtual gatherings to help people stay connected as everyone was stuck at home to prevent the spread of the disease. A group of local organizers and activists wanted to motivate AAPI people to vote because the 2020 election felt so important that it led to the formation of ATJ. “We wanted a statewide organization that could bring the AAPI voice, the AAPI perspective, to statewide policy making and to statewide elections in a way that we hadn’t seen before,” Trieu said.
Chen was working on redistricting after the 2020 census and heard testimony at the State Capitol from people across the state. This group of people – led by Trieu and Ashley Cheng, ATJ co-founder and former board president – shared their stories on what it meant to be Asian American in Texas.
“I’m very committed to ATJ’s mission,” said Chen, who joined ATJ in 2021. “I have a young child. I see the work that ATJ does with education, with policy. All of it directly is impacting my life, his life, the lives of all Asian Texans. I would be volunteering with them and donating to them, and doing as much as I could for them even if I weren’t on the board.”
Chen and Trieu both said it is not intentional that their team and board are all female. “We’ve just been really lucky to have such amazing women who want to be part of ATJ,” said Chen. “If you want to get involved, we welcome you.”
Deciding on where to focus their advocacy is one of the hardest parts of ATJ’s job. Trieu said that AAPI people are the most diverse racial group in Texas, so the challenge is determining how they can ensure that their work is reflective of what AAPI people are experiencing, as well as reflective of what they want to see. The way they tackle that is through research. “We do try as hard as we can to be data driven on how we approach the work,” said Trieu.
In 2022 and 2024, ATJ commissioned a research firm to learn what issues are the most important to the Texan AAPI community and what would motivate them to vote. The organization then used that data to prioritize their time and determine their areas of focus.
“Understanding where those policy priorities are, understanding where people are and where they could be voting and sending their kids to school, all of that, I think, goes to helping show how much impact we can have if we work together,” said Chen. “If we don't focus on all the differences, but we just focus on where we do have that overlap, we can really advocate and become much stronger and have more impact.”
Chen admitted that there is room for improvement in reaching more parts of Texas. Because of Texas’ size, the small staff of this fairly young organization try to make connections with smaller groups and organizations that work in different cities and focus on specific groups. Last year, ATJ awarded subgrants to local organizations that serve AAPI people for voter registration resources and community engagement.
Something Trieu thinks about is that the state’s AAPI community mostly consists of immigrants. 67% of the AAPI Texans were born outside the U.S., and 76% of them speak a non–English language, according to ATJ’s 2024 voter polls.
“What that means is a lot of the AAPIs in Texas probably don't speak English fluently, or they don't speak English at home,” said Trieu. “They may not have grown up here. Our democratic systems may not be so familiar to them. Engaging in our elections and in our policy-making can sometimes feel scary for some of these groups.”
What inspires Trieu to stay motivated in this work is watching AAPI Texans participate in the system, whether it’s providing testimony at the State Capitol or protesting, rallying and pushing back against policies that are unfair and discriminatory. “People who look like my parents, older people who had to go through a lot to make it here, to the US, being able to see them be so unapologetic and take up space and make demands for the things that they deserve, those are the types of things that really keep me going and that keep me motivated and encouraged to do this work,” said Trieu.
Chen truly believes that ATJ has chosen projects thoughtfully and carefully, which are meaningful to her from the lens of a mother. She always thought she would work in U.S./China relations as her parents immigrated to the U.S. before she was born. She wanted to make their sacrifices and immigration journey worth it by making the most of being Chinese American. “One of the great privileges that my parents gave me is that I am Asian American and that I can be part of this vibrant, diverse, political identity and social identity,” said Chen.
She feels that, in times like these, people can feel discouraged and wonder why they should bother or why someone's story matters. But to her, these records matter in changing policy and changing history.
“Whether or not they have a personal connection to our work, there are people like Lily, there are organizations like ATJ working across the state,” said Chen. “It’s incredible how gritty and powerful people working for social justice are here, and so wherever you find your personal inspiration, there's room for you to do it. And it’s really, really powerful, even if it's like one story at the Capitol.”
To learn more about ATJ, visit asiantexansforjustice.org.
