A moral audit (of sorts): How AAPI advocacy organizations use resources, money, and power to give back to the communities they claim to serve.
During a post-movie dinner with a group of fellow Filipinos, the conversation turned to a film little known beyond the broader Hollywood landscape but known within circles of Filipino folks in film & TV. I hated the title and, thinking I was in a safe space, said, “That title is horrible!”
A younger TV writer who had recently moved to Los Angeles gave me a look and said, “That’s crab mentality!” It’s as though he was ringing an alarm and letting everyone bear witness to the self-hating Filipino man who dares to speak ill of his own community.
No one needs permission to be critical of the communities to which they belong. I think it’s our right. In this particular case, it’s the Filipino and Filipino American community. In the grand scheme of things, it’s the Asian American/Pacific Islander community.
We tend to be the most critical of our family because of the high expectations we set for foundational relationships. The same thing can be said about communities in which we share identity and cultural experiences.
For those who are not in our inner circles, we don’t expect much, so there’s nothing to be disappointed by. With family and chosen family, there is plenty of room to be disappointed. The same can be said about community. However, it seems that one becomes ostracized once a modicum of criticism comes out of their mouth. This is particularly true within the confines of historically excluded communities.
Because marginalized communities have a history of discrimination, there is a need to stand in solidarity to protect from real external dangers. The community is an epicenter for belonging and safety. When there is dissent from the inside, the disloyal black sheep is branded as a threat. With scarcity bolstering a fear-fueled need to stand 10 toes in the ground for the community no matter what, feedback plays on repeat in an echo chamber and criticism gets suppressed. This isn’t a good thing. Look what happened in Lord of the Flies.
When criticism gets swept under the rug, it inhibits growth and the problems within the community worsen. And when an outsider eventually points out said problem, the community feels attacked, and the dissenter is standing there saying, “I told you so.”
It was announced that Gold House, one of the leading nonprofit AAPI cultural organizations in the country, has launched a new venture called Gold House Studios. Launched in 2018, Gold House has been in the spotlight as an influential platform for the AAPI community. From their Gold Open box office initiative to their annual Gold Gala, the organization has made sure it was at the forefront of what is happening in the AAPI community – especially in the world of entertainment.
With Gold House Studios, Gold House will develop and produce original and IP-driven stories across film, television, and digital media.
“Too many great films pull off a small miracle to get made only to go unseen,” said Yi in a statement to media. “As an impact-driven company, one of our top priorities is to develop compelling stories with leading roles for Asian Pacific talent and rich, nuanced, cultural context that feels novel or unexpected. But our highest priority measure of ‘impact’ will be our ability to reach audiences and resonate well beyond our own community.”
Major announcements like these resonate well within the community in a time when DEI is a naughty word, and execs will bend the knee to corporate, soul-sucking overlords who have as much empathy as a box of hair and as much artistic integrity as dry toast. Gold House has proven itself successful when it comes to bringing visibility to the AAPI community.
Normally, news like this will be met with nothing but praise. In my experience, not many people in the AAPI have publicly dissented beyond the comment section of social media or within their own friend groups. Writer and content creator Nathan Ramos-Park (no relation that I am aware of) was bold enough to go off script.
“I need to start some drama in the Asian American film community, and by drama I mean calling in because it’s embarrassing,” Nathan prefaced before giving his thoughts on the launch of Gold House Studios. He points out the heads of the studio: Brian Nemes and Christine Yi, who were hired within the existing Gold House staff. Yi has worked more in investments and ops. She led Gold House Ventures, Gold House’s tech VC fund, and still runs Gold House Labs, the org’s talent development programs.
Nemes has worked in investments and content development. He led Gold House’s promotional campaigns for films and series. He has also worked in development and marketing at Janet Yang Productions. However, Nemes is not of AAPI descent (as far as I know).
“There are so many Asian American execs who have years or decades of experience in [the film & TV] industry, and you’re telling me none of those people who have worked in the art of storytelling were available? I just feel like when Asians put profit over our people, all we are doing is selling out our skin to the highest dollar, to the highest bidder.”
Nathan mentions that Gold House is “a club” and is very “insular”. He doesn’t seem to have an issue with that. He asserted, “What I don’t like is using the community as the illusion of [AAPI] solidarity, but then turning around, showing your whole blown-out hole that it’s not actually for that, and if it’s not for that, then what is it? It’s just ultimately for white dollars.”
Listen. I giggled when he said “whole blown-out hole”, but this is a portion of the video that made me spiral into this need to do an audit of AAPI advocacy organizations.
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of nonprofit AAPI organizations across the country, each with a different focus but a similar goal: to provide support for the AAPI community. Some of them are more regional (Japanese American Citizen League, Southeast Asia Resource Action Center), while some are more media- and art-focused (Center For Asian American Media, Visual Communications, Kollaboration). There are very specific orgs like Stop AAPI Hate that have grown out of social movements, and there are culturally specific organizations that help advance civic engagement within certain diasporas such as LEAD Filipino.
From Khmer Girls in Action to Cinema Sala to the Hmong American Partnership to South Asian Americans Leading Together, there is no shortage of opportunities for the AAPI folks to support and build community.
Three organizations are often in the AAPI spotlight that I would like to focus on – mainly because of their work in narrative change, film, TV, and media: Gold House, The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), and Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE).
Gold House brought together AAPI executives to ring the closing bell at Nasdaq (May 2024)
According to its website, Gold House is “a platform where culture shapes global opportunity.” Their mission statement states: “Our platform backs stories that move minds and companies that move markets. And by bridging power across industries, we unify the global majority and beyond to produce positive, sustained outcomes for tomorrow.”
In addition to Gold House, there’s The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), which was launched in 2021 in the wake of the Atlanta spa shootings. TAAF positions itself as “a convener, incubator, and funder committed to accelerating opportunity and prosperity for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.”
The most senior of the three is Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment (CAPE), an organization that works with more of a grassroots mentality by “championing diversity by educating, connecting, and empowering Asian American and Pacific Islander artists and leaders in entertainment and media.” CAPE specifically helps foster emerging writers and executives in film and TV with programs like the New Writers Fellowship and Leaders Fellowship.
Darren Criss, Lea Salonga, Diane Paulus, Shoba Narayan, Francis Jue, David Henry Hwang, and Shanelle Kaul at TAAF Heritage Month Summit 2025
Nathan was a New Writers Fellow in 2017, and that program gave him a boost in his career in the industry. It helped open doors and to understand how the industry works. “It was incredible being in a room with AAPI writers, directors, producers and execs,” Nathan said. “However, I do think that this program has recently had diminishing returns to newer writers, as the industry has felt the impact of tech disruption and a general contraction of the industry at large.”
Despite the uncertainty of the entertainment industry, CAPE, Gold House, TAAF, and many other AAPI organizations offer members of the community an opportunity to connect, engage, and feel a sense of belonging. Nathan’s experience with CAPE’s New Writer’s Fellowship program is a success story. It’s exactly how community is supposed to work.
Currently celebrating its 35th anniversary, CAPE has “advanced representation in film and television by championing people, stories, and culture.” It is considered one of the world’s longest-running nonprofit organizations that help bolster success for AAPI folks in Hollywood.
“We run a diverse slate of professional development programs and filmmaking grants, provide cultural consulting, and bring our community together through accessible in-person and virtual programming,” a CAPE rep tells DIASPORA. “We started as an entirely volunteer-run nonprofit, which grew to one full-time [staffer], then two… and we maintained those modest staff numbers for a long time. We are currently at a team of six full-time staff members – the largest the organization has ever been.”
CAPE is small but mighty, with an all-female team and CEO and Executive Director Michelle K. Sugihara leading the charge. They continued, “Our approach is to identify and work toward solving the gaps in the entertainment industry.” And they work with seasoned professionals to fill those gaps. “We don’t want to do the same things everyone else is doing.”
Actor and community organizer Judy Lei has supported CAPE over the years and particularly sees CAPE’s Radiance Gala, an annual celebration of women and non-binary folks in Hollywood, as a good way to connect to community. As opposed to many other formal affairs that charge an arm and a leg for a ticket, Lei points out that CAPE often has community rates, which is very beneficial to emerging artists. “I’ve been able to meet a lot of like-minded artists – and also people who I look up to,” Judy tells DIASPORA.
“I see myself closely aligning with CAPE on a personal level because they’ve been working hard to champion actors [and] storytellers in Hollywood for years,” Judy said. “I also love the leadership and staff there. I see CAPE as a beacon of hope… they genuinely care about [all generations of AAPI] actors.”
CAPE’s third annual Radiance Gala Celebrating API Women & Non-Binary Achievement in Entertainment, March 2025
Among their initiatives, CAPE developed their Executives Fellowship out of the New Writer’s Fellowship program. After their alumni gave feedback saying that they wish they had a similar program when they started as assistants, CAPE launched the Emerging Executives Committee, which supports assistants and coordinators. The organization also launched the Julia S. Guow Short Film Challenge and teamed with TAAF for the CAPE x TAAF Rising Filmmakers Fund, which supports independent filmmakers making their second to fifth feature film. Films like Beth de Araujo’s recent Sundance award-winning Josephine, starring Gemma Chan and Channing Tatum, is a recent recipient of the fund.
The fund was a solution to a common problem for indie filmmakers: money. CAPE recognized that filmmakers were maxing out credit cards and having difficulty in the super-duper competitive filmmaking grant world. The Finishing Fund is a direct result of listening to the community and responding to their needs – alongside TAAF, which has become a high-profile organization since its launch in 2021
TAAF was created in response to the rise in anti-Asian hate during the pandemic. Prominent AAPI leaders came together to raise $250 million, the largest amount in the history of AAPI organizations.
Since launching (and as of the publishing of this article), TAAF has raised $1.1 billion via its AAPI Giving Challenge. According to their website, this “more than doubles the annual resources on hand for AAPI nonprofit groups over the next five years.”
The AAPI community is 7% of the U.S. population. A 2021 analysis found that only 20 cents of every $100 in philanthropic funding was designated for our communities. You can see that this is a big deal.
With a considerable financial foundation, TAAF aims to bolster not only AAPI visibility but also create structural change within the community. “We are explicit about these goals when we initiate our individual programs, and when allocating resources across our pillars of safety, belonging, and prosperity,” a TAAF representative told DIASPORA.
TAAF particularly does extensive work in AAPI history education through its AAPI History Hub, a comprehensive library of over 320 curricular materials for K-12 educators. This includes lesson plans and classroom tools developed with partners including the New York City Department of Education. TAAF was also part of the TEAACH Implementation Collaborative, which helped bring mandated Asian American history curriculum to Illinois and New Jersey schools. TAAF points out how this provides structural change within the education sector.
TAAF has also partnered with the popular Wong Fu Productions for the YouTube series The United States of Asian+America, which spotlights AAPI innovators and pioneers.
In addition, TAAF worked with Gold House to bolster ticket sales for Here Lies Love on Broadway, and CAPE worked with the org to launch “The Gold List”, honoring the top AAPI achievements in film. All three groups have co-hosted the Sunrise Collective at Sundance for the past couple of years. This signifies a strong sense of unity.
Throughout the years, I’ve always been surrounded by conversations about these three organizations. People praise the groups for everything they are doing right and criticize when they disagree with their actions.
When I would get invited to certain high-profile events and many of my friends weren’t invited, I wondered “Why?” and part of me felt guilty because it was as if I was leaving people behind. When I left my post at Deadline, and people realized I couldn’t give them a headline in one of the biggest Hollywood trades, access started to dwindle – including within the AAPI community.
I started to get used to it because I tend to be a homebody anyway.
In addition to Nathan, Judy, and representatives from Gold House, CAPE and TAAF, I interviewed AAPI folks (some of the names have been changed for those who chose to remain anonymous ) within the film, TV, media, and cultural advocacy sphere about how power and money move through these nonprofit groups, who’s doing the work, and who’s benefiting the most? Most of all, how much do these organizations give back to the community they claim they represent?
Sasha’s life and work have been shaped by many organizations such as Visual Communications in LA, CAAM, Asian CineVision, and CAPE. She points out how these groups provide essential festival exhibition, programmatic vision, and grassroots promotional support.
“They do the real work,” Sasha tells DIASPORA. “They center storytelling arts to build collective power, spark action, and nurture community… The audiences are mostly Asian, Pacific Islander, and dedicated allies. The work is transformative because it is directly accountable to the people in the room.” She says that this context matters when looking at groups like Gold House or TAAF.
“These newer entities excel at mainstream visibility and corporate access,” she continued. “However, they only have that platform because legacy institutions laid decades of groundwork first. There is a clear difference between real community service and platforms focused on self-visibility or prestige.”
Many of the other people I interviewed shared the same sentiment.
“No system is fair,” Nathan admitted. “The systems that are in place right now in Hollywood are white adjacent, capitalist – money driven – ego-centered, and elitist. The problem is extraction. Once there’s a talented Asian individual, they are extracted and made to work to uphold the system.”
Nathan says that Asians with money at the top of the pyramid only want to funnel more capital to the top. He explains how they get to choose who to uplift to “keep the system running as intended.” Nathan paraphrases Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. “Those in power are all just spokes on a wheel… crushing those on the ground… I’m not going to stop the wheel. I’m going to break the wheel.”
Sam, a content creator, says that organizations like CAPE, TAAF, and Gold House operate more to support individuals who are already on a promising career trajectory as opposed to supporting talent not yet on the industry radar. “They help create more opportunities for those who already have them, which leads to overall more visibility for AAPI projects, but they do not increase the breadth of which AANHPI folks get into the pipeline overall.”
He continued, “They can take AAPI C-listers and make them B-listers, but they do not increase the numbers of AAPI D- and C-listers.”
Max, who works on the music side of film and TV, feels the same way: “The opportunities go to a select group of people, particularly those who are more established, and opportunities for newer talents are not very available.” They add that the opportunities that are made available are primarily for those in front of the camera and writers and directors, and not so much other crew members working in the industry.
Others see these organizations as a net positive. “I love that we have a panoply of AAPI organizations to support us at every stage of our career, from fledgling to mid-career to mover and shaker,” says writer/director Steven. “The best organizations, though, get us into the pipelines for jobs and I would love to see more of those.”
In my interview with Raven, a Los Angeles-based film producer, she said something that aligned with what I wanted to dive deep into: “In this town, people with the least amount of power seem to be the loudest about what power they have. People with power seem too busy to talk about it. Or are letting other people do it on their behalf.”
* * * *
When I interviewed folks from the AAPI community, I asked them how welcomed they felt when they walk into an AAPI space or event. On a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 feeling very welcomed and 1 feeling not welcomed at all, half of the folks I interviewed scored this question a 3 or below.
Katya was an honoree of the prestigious Gold House A100, an annual list that the organization releases that recognizes the 100 most impactful Asians of the year. She was honored for the work she has done for the community in entertainment and media. However, she scored 1 for the aforementioned question.
“It felt as if my only value to Gold House was when I was seen as being in a position of potential service as a conduit to the mainstream,” Katya bluntly tells DIASPORA. “It makes me wonder if community is conditional to them as a body.”
Bob, a multiple Emmy winner, also scored the question low and did not mince words. “Gold House sucks,” they said with a laugh. “[Gold House] is an example of how these organizations can be very selective — whether purposely or not.” When Bob won a major award with another AAPI person, they said that they reached out to Gold House to see if they were the first AAPI folks to win in the category, which would be a great thing to promote.
“They shrugged and said, ‘we don’t know’,” Bob explained. They said that’s where the conversation ended. “I know they are strapped for resources, but maybe if we had been some higher profile people they would have prioritized this more, because I’ve certainly seen more public celebration for less.”
The common denominator between CAPE, TAAF, Gold House and every other AAPI organization is a sense of belonging. You can’t claim to build and bolster community when nearly half the people who show up in your rooms don’t feel like they belong there. In some cases, they aren’t able to get anywhere near the door.
This belonging gap isn’t just one more data point. It’s arguably a root issue, and it flourishes into more specific problems like who gets credit, who gets funded, who gets access, and who reaps the benefits.
Events, galas, panels, and programs are the easy part. Making people feel like they actually belong is more difficult. It’s the less visible work — and right now, it’s not happening.
The Business of Belonging is a three part essays series for DIASPORA’s “Community, Interrupted” column. The series dives into the work of advocacy groups in the AAPI film, TV and media community and who is doing the work, who has the power, and who is benefiting the most. Interviews were sourced from an open call to the AAPI community via social media channels.
*I reached out to representatives for Gold House for an interview and as of this publishing, response has been pending. Stay tuned for Part 2!
