Arts & Culture

`We All Belong' Campaign Raises Money for San Diego's API Community

By City News Service

Published June 3, 2021 at 9:59 AM PDT

This story was published more than 3 years ago.

Chinese-Japanese American student Kara Chu, 18, holds a pair of heart balloons decorated by herself for the rally "Love Our Communities: Build Collective Power" to raise awareness of anti-Asian violence outside the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, March 13, 2021.

A coalition of San Diego-based artists and designers launched a direct-action campaign Thursday to support San Diego's Asian and Pacific Islander community in what has been a difficult year for much of the API community as a result of the rise in anti-Asian harassment.

The "We All Belong" campaign invites the public to support the API community through purchases of artwork created by local API artists. All proceeds support the San Diego API Coalition, a group of San Diego API organizations which directly support API community members. Artwork can be bought through print-on-demand posters, T-shirts, hoodies, stickers and canvas bags. All work is printed on-demand.

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Led by the team at Mixte Communications, the campaign is also supported by the San Diego API Coalition, San Diego Workforce Partnership, Glen M. Broom Center for Professional Development in Public Relations and the Public Relations Society of America San Diego & Imperial Counties.

"Our AAPI brothers and sisters still need our support," said Jerralyn Davis, a digital public relations specialist with Mixte Communications. "`We All Belong' is our way of bringing attention to the powerful API communities who make our world better in so many ways. We invite all of you to make San Diego a community where we truly all belong."

Anti-Asian hate incidents have risen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Earlier this year, eight people — mostly Asian women — died in an Atlanta massage parlor shooting. In 2020, Stop AAPI Hate collected 42 reports of anti- Asian and Pacific Islander racist incidents in San Diego County. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent estimate, 16.7% of San Diegans identify as a member of the API community.

The "We All Belong website" — www.weallbelong.co/ — offers additional ways the public can get involved in supporting their API neighbors and colleagues, such as donating, speaking out against anti-Asian hate and sharing the campaign on social media.