Deeana Jang, Policy Director, Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum

Deeana Laurie Jang, J.D. is the Policy Director for the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF) where she heads up the Washington, DC office. She leads APIAHF’s policy work which includes improving access to health coverage, improving quality of care including linguistically and culturally competent health care services, promoting a diverse health care workforce, improving data on Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander health, and increasing investment in community-driven health strategies. She worked in the California office of APIAHF from 1996 to 2000. Prior to her return to APIAHF in 2007, she was a Senior Policy Analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy working to improve access to early care and education programs for immigrant families. A native Californian, she moved to Washington, DC in the Fall of 2000 to work for the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services serving for five years as the lead senior policy analyst working to ensure that health and human services programs are accessible to immigrants with limited English skills under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

She was a legal services attorney for many years representing low-income families in domestic violence, immigration, school discipline and housing issues at San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation, Asian Law Alliance and the Asian Law Caucus. She also served as Special Assistant to the Honorable Yvonne Lee, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. She is a co-founder of the Asian Women’s Shelter, one of the first battered women’s shelters in the country to address the needs of Asian immigrant women and their children. She is a former chair of the board of the National Immigration Project and also served on the boards of the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum.

She is a frequent speaker and trainer for health providers, advocates, attorneys, judges, students and policy makers and has testified before three House subcommittees. She received the Legal Services Achievement Award from the State Bar of California Legal Services Section, the Pacific Asian Women Bay Area Coalition Woman Warrior Award and Community Leader Award from the Family Violence Prevention Fund. She received her BA from Oberlin College and her JD from King Hall School of Law at UC Davis.