FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 13, 2026
CONTACT:
CAUSE / comms@causeusa.org / 213-260-1678
KADC / kademcom@gmail.com
Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Organizations Across Southern California United to Share Information about Gubernatorial Candidates In-Language to Communities
LOS ANGELES – On April 18, 2026, a coalition of 40+ leading Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) organizations from across Los Angeles County, led by the Korean American Democratic Committee (KADC) and Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE), convened a historic California gubernatorial candidate forum in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, bringing together community members, leaders, and gubernatorial candidates for one of the largest multilingual AANHPI civic engagement efforts in California’s 2026 gubernatorial election cycle.
As the only gubernatorial forum in Los Angeles County hosted by and for AANHPI communities, the event created a powerful and unique opportunity for gubernatorial candidates to engage directly with one of California’s fastest-growing and most influential constituencies.
California is home to more than 7 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and over 4 million eligible AANHPI voters, making multilingual voter engagement increasingly critical to statewide civic participation.
The event was intentionally not livestreamed so the full forum could be translated and shared across multiple AANHPI languages, ensuring broader and more equitable access for communities whose primary language is not English or who have limited English proficiency.
Rather than treating translation as an afterthought, organizers centered language accessibility as a core part of the forum’s design from the beginning. Through collaboration with more than 40 AANHPI organizations, the coalition worked to identify language gaps across communities, including languages that are often excluded from traditional outreach and civic engagement efforts.
The result is one of the most expansive multilingual releases of a California gubernatorial forum for AANHPI communities to date, with translated captions available in 10 AANHPI languages, alongside English and Spanish.
“Though we talk about voter engagement, especially about how to meaningfully engage communities of color, we often fail to identify and address the barriers that prevent full participation,” said Esther Lim, president of the Korean American Democratic Committee (KADC). “From the beginning, we knew one of the biggest barriers for many of our communities was language access. We wanted our families and limited English proficient community members to feel included in this election season and to know these conversations were for them too.”
In Los Angeles County, there are 13 threshold languages, but organizers also recognized that many AANHPI community languages are still not included within existing language access systems. Significant effort went into identifying additional language needs, particularly for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities, and determining how to address those gaps. In preparation for the forum, translators requested by the community in Korean and Tagalog were onsite with equipment, alongside AI-supported technology to assist with live translation during the event.
“One of the most powerful aspects of this effort was the breadth and diversity of the coalition behind it,” said Nancy Yap, Executive Director of the Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE). “When we needed support identifying language gaps and translating the forum, our community partners stepped up immediately. Even within AANHPI communities, many people still do not have equitable access to civic information and language resources. We wanted this forum to reflect that everyone deserves access to these conversations and a voice in California’s future.”
The recordings with closed captions seven AANHPI languages as well as English and Spanish is available at: https://bit.ly/aanhpi-gubernatorial-forum-vid. Bengali, Hindi, and Punjabi are scheduled to be available Friday, May 22.
Thank you to our community partner organizations for providing the translated captions: Simplified and Traditional Chinese (AJSOCAL); Korean (KADC); Thai (Thai Community Development Center); Tagalog (Pilipino Workers Center); Vietnamese (PIVOT), Samoan (Le Gafa) and Spanish. With additional languages coming soon: Bengali (SAN), Hindi (SAN), Punjabi (SAN).
To view these translations on YouTube: click the CC button at the bottom of the video to turn captions on, then click the gear icon (Settings) → Subtitles/CC → and select your preferred language. The video also has timestamps so you can navigate between sections.
Gubernatorial candidates who participated included Xavier Becerra, Tom Steyer, Tony Thurmond, Antonio Villaraigosa and Betty Yee.
Lastly, don’t forget to cast your ballot by June 2! Vote-by-mail ballots have already been sent, and in-person voting begins May 23 in Los Angeles County.
CAUSE is also gearing up for its 2026 Together We Vote campaign, a series of Get Out the Vote (GOTV) activations taking place across Los Angeles County during the 10-day early voting period. Together We Vote is designed to meet voters where they already gather, bringing civic engagement into trusted neighborhood spaces and cultural spaces across Los Angeles County. Events include Community Culture Day in the San Gabriel Valley at Blossom Market Hall, the CAUSEtheVOTE Community 5K Run/Walk at the Rose Bowl Loop, Jeepney to the Polls in Historic Filipinotown at Thunderbolt LA, and more!
The official event calendar (May 23 – June 2) is now available on the CAUSE website, featuring all event locations and activities: https://www.causeusa.org/togetherwevote.
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About Korean American Democrats
The Korean American Democratic Committee (KADC) is a political action committee based out of Los Angeles, California. KADC is a countywide Chartered Democratic Club under the Los Angeles County Democratic Party. Since its inception in 1992, KADC has mobilized the Korean American community to vote and participate in the local, state and federal electoral process. Please visit their website: www.kademocrats.org
About Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE)
The Center for Asian Americans United for Self-Empowerment (CAUSE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization committed to advancing the civic and political empowerment of Asian and Pacific Islander communities. Since 1993, CAUSE has provided leadership development programs, civic education initiatives, and policy advocacy to build a stronger, more inclusive democracy. Learn more at www.causeusa.org.
Co-Hosting Organizations (40)
Korean American Democratic Committee (KADC); Center for Asian Americans United for Self Empowerment (CAUSE); Through Peace; World Mission University; AAPI Equity Alliance; UCLA Asian American Studies Center’s Asian American Pacific Islander Policy Initiative; Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts Political Science and International Relations; Pilipino Workers Center (PWC); Asian Dems of Los Angeles; 'Ahahui Kīwila Hawaiʻi o San Diego; Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California (AJSOCAL); Asian American Media Alliance (AAMA); Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Los Angeles County (APABA); Asian Pacific Community Fund (APCF); Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement; Cal State Los Angeles College of Ethnic Studies; Chinese American Citizens Alliance, Chinese American Museum; Daniel K. Inouye National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum (JANM); Empowering Pacific Islander Communities (EPIC); Faith And Community Empowerment (FACE); Hawaii's Daughters Guild of California; Khmer Girls in Action (KGA); Korean American Federation of Los Angeles (KAFLA); Leadership and Education through Gaagana Fa’asamoa (Le GaFa); Little Tokyo Community Council (LTCC); Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC); Nikkei Progressives; OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates of Greater Los Angeles; Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA); Pacific Islander Collective San Diego (PICSD); Pacific Islander Health Partnership (PIHP); Pilipino American Los Angeles Democrats (PALAD); PIVOT: The Progressive Vietnamese American Organization; Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA); South Asian Network (SAN); Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC); Southern California Pacific Islander Community Response Team (SoCal PICRT); Thai Community Development Center (Thai CDC); United Cambodian Community (UCC) and others.