#197 Nahida Uddin

The National Coalition of Asian Pacific American Community Development is driven by a central question: how to advance the economic and social progress of members, amplify their voices, and tell their stories. Few nonprofits approach this challenge with as much rigor as National CAPACD. It starts with knowing its complex and nuanced base, 100 community-based organizations, from renowned community development corporations to start-up tenant organizations in 22 states and the Pacific Islands. And it requires dispelling a persistent model minority myth, that AAPI communities are well-off and monolithic. National CAPACD's Communications Director Nahida Uddin shares her experience with advancing a new narrative, one that centers the reality of AAPI poverty. And she recounts how National CAPACD is leading the way in achieving important wins, from the disaggregation of public data, which tells the story of specific communities, to guiding groups navigating gentrification and displacement and training members in financial empowerment strategies. Nahida is shaped by her family's own immigration story and her mother's advocacy for her community. She is the future of advocacy, which bodes well for this nation.