API Rise

Billy Taing (he/him)

“I’ve been impacted by the same white supremist system that continues to punish and profit from immigrants.”

API Rise (Asian Pacific Islander Reentry and Inclusion through Support and Empowerment) is working to dismantle the white supremacist system that continues to punish and profit from immigrants through criminalization and dehumanizing policies.

Formerly incarcerated in the California state prison system for more than two decades, Billy Taing serves as Co-director of API RISE. The journey to this role required him to navigate early childhood as a refugee from Cambodia at the age of three when his mother and older brother fled the Khmer Rouge because of their Chinese lineage. Then, like so many immigrant youths, he joined a youth gang where he found belonging and acceptance in his new home country, the U.S. A bad turn led to a life sentence in prison, an order for deportation, and separation from his family until the age of 43. As his life purpose came into focus, his spiritual training deepened, and his desire to serve grew - Taing successfully petitioned and received a full and unconditional pardon, a set aside of the deportation order, and an acceptance into a union-wage apprenticeship program to be an electrician. For many reasons, he chose to leave the union apprenticeship to serve his brothers and sisters in the API community.