A Conversation with Sydelle Barreto, Policy Manager of The National Asian Pacific American Women_s Forum

Asian American History 101

Welcome to Season 4, Episode 39! Our guest today is Sydelle Barreto, the Policy Manager of The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. The NAPAWF (pronounced “NAP-off”) is the only multi-issue, progressive, community organizing and policy advocacy organization for Asian American and Pacific Islander women and girls in the United States.

Founded in 1996 by a group of 100 AAPI women, these “founding sisters” came together to establish an organization that would amplify AAPI women’s stories and experiences. They recognized that the voices of AAPI women all too often went unseen and unheard, so they founded NAPAWF to center their lived experiences within the broader public narrative.

NAPAWF focuses on four key issues that include: Reproductive Health and Rights, Economic Justice and Equal Pay, Immigrant Rights, and Racial Justice. They recently published a report called Clocking Inequality: Understanding Economic Inequity, the Wage Gap, and Workplace Experiences of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Women. It’s amazing what you discover when you disaggregate the data on the AANHPI community when you’re researching wage gaps.

In this conversation, we talk to Sydelle about her journey to NAPAWF, the Clocking Inequality report, some of the key details, the policies we can adopt at the federal and local levels to support the AANHPI community, and what we can do as individuals to support change. To learn more, read the Clocking Inequality report, visit the NAPAWF website, and follow them on Instagram @napawf.

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