Dear Beloved Community,

As the Executive Director of API Chaya, I am proud to reflect on another year of growth, resilience, and commitment to our mission of supporting survivors, cultivating healing, and building accountable communities across Asian, South Asian, Pacific Islander, and all immigrant people. Over the past year, we continued to provide essential, culturally specific services, ensuring that our community members have access to the advocacy, resources, leadership development, and healing spaces they deserve, despite overwhelming hardships across the globe. 

At API Chaya, we know that the systems we live under were not built to support us. From colonization of our homelands to detention centers today, anti-immigrant and pro-police government policies have long been used to divide, control, and harm our communities. These policies do not keep us safe—they tear apart families, criminalize survival, and push our loved ones into the shadows. All are connected to the conditions that allow for intimate partner violence, sexual abuse, and labor exploitation to continue in our homes and neighborhoods.

But we also know that we have never waited for these systems to save us. Our history is one of resilience, solidarity, and care. We have always created our own—our own ways of keeping each other safe, our own ways of healing, and our own ways of building power. Whether through mutual aid, organizing, or cultural resistance, we continue to shape a future where our people can thrive outside of and in spite of oppressive systems.

We remain committed to standing with all survivors, all immigrants, all communities of color, all queer and trans people, all people with disabilities, all who are incarcerated and targeted by state violence, all who are pushed to the margins. We will continue to build alongside our communities, knowing that our collective action and collective care is stronger than any policy meant to divide us.

As we look ahead, API Chaya is proud to share transformative changes inspired by our two-year strategic planning journey. These include new priorities, a reimagined organizational structure, a 20% expansion in our staff, and a dynamic roadmap designed to keep us agile and attuned to the evolving needs of our community. Guided by your input, these changes reflect our commitment to accountability to our communities.

As we enter our 30th year, we are thrilled to be alongside you in creating the communities we want to see another three decades from now, another three generations from now. We are working towards a world where people have the skills to move through conflict and harm in which relationships, families, and communities can remain intact. A world where all people have robust and skilled support systems across their lifetimes. Put simply, a world where “survival” is a notion of the past because we have what we need to thrive. A world we are creating together everyday.

With love and solidarity,

Priya Rai
Executive Director