OCA Intern Alum: Jaslin Kaur
Interview by Jesse Wu / Written by Amelia Lagna and Kent Tong
REFLECTING ON HER OCA INTERNSHIP, Jaslin Kaur couldn’t have imagined how much that experience would shape her life. After graduating from Nassau Community College and participating in a leadership summit hosted by Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, she sought to get her feet wet in advocacy, especially in AAPI spaces. She stumbled upon OCA’s summer internship program through a Google search, applied, and joined the 2018 cohort.
Kaur's advocacy is shaped by her multifaceted identity: as a South Asian woman, a Sikh American, a child of working-class immigrants, and a domestic violence survivor. She’s passionate about labor and immigrant rights, empowering women, and fighting gender-based violence. As a college student, she presented research to the United Nations on politically charged sexual violence in Kenya and Syria, moderated a panel on child marriage, and co-founded RefuGirl, an organization supporting young women through leadership and mentorship. Politics is personal to her—she’s seen the barriers an elderly family member faced in obtaining a green card and accessing disability and language support. “I am more interested in understanding how to make resources more accessible for AAPI folks looking to become acclimated and integrated into the United States,” she said when she applied to OCA.
OCA placed Kaur as a policy and advocacy intern at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, where she focused on immigration and reproductive health injustice affecting AAPI women and families. She felt this was a great time for her to be doing this kind of meaningful work because this was during the first Trump administration, where immigrant and abortion rights were under attack. She lobbied members of Congress in coalition with reproductive justice organizations, contributed to a report on the effects of detention and deportation on Southeast Asian American women and families, read pages of Supreme Court decisions and analyzed their impact, and rallied outside of SCOTUS as critical rulings on reproductive rights and immigration unfolded. “It really felt like watching history unfurl,” she says of her time in D.C.
Jaslin Kaur (back row, center) with OCA summer interns and OCA’s CEO Ken Lee at the OCA National Convention awards gala in Washington, D.C. (2018)
The OCA internship helped solidify Kaur’s values during a time of transition. She had just graduated from community college, relocated to D.C. from New York City for the program, and was still figuring out her life’s purpose. Witnessing what other AAPIs were doing in the nation’s capital made her realize advocacy didn’t have to be a side passion. “This was something I could do for my career,” she says. Organizing, she learned, could be practiced daily to support one’s community. “There’s value in dedicating your life’s work to causes that really matter.”
While she didn’t know it then as a 21-year-old student, Kaur—now almost 30—points to her OCA internship as a catalyst for her run for public office. In 2021, she ran for New York City Council on a platform of transit justice, housing justice, and support for labor unions and gig economy workers, garnering support from Senator Bernie Sanders, 1199 SEIU, Run For Something, and the Working Families Party. “It was because I cared so much about how good legislation can change people’s lives,” she says of her decision to run. Being surrounded by young Asian Americans with similar ambitions during the OCA internship made her feel at home, and the experience “set me up for something that was much bigger than myself.” The city council seat had never been represented by an Asian American or a woman, and seeing AAPI women in leadership positions during her internship gave her “something bigger to strive for.”
Jaslin Kaur with “get out the vote” canvassers for her campaign for New York City Council. (June 2021) / Photo Credit: Facebook: Jaslin Kaur for City Council District 23
Though she didn’t win that race—she placed second in a crowded primary—Kaur remained committed to her community. Her father, a taxi driver, was deeply affected by the 2014 taxi medallion market crash caused by predatory loans, leaving her family in massive debt; she had to drop out of university because they couldn’t afford tuition. (She later earned her bachelor’s degree from Hunter College.) After her campaign, she organized with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a 21,000-member union, to win $350 million in debt relief for cab drivers. “It’s one of the craziest, most life-changing things I’ve done with my life,” she reflects. Even without winning the election, she achieved one of the goals that inspired her to run in the first place.
Today, Kaur is the senior manager of community outreach and civic engagement at the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the nation’s oldest Sikh advocacy organization. She focuses on outreach to Sikh Americans with little civic engagement, especially those with lower English proficiency, empowering them to become informed participants in the political process. She’s worked closely with houses of worship and faith leaders, developed a nonpartisan 2024 presidential election guide, and conducted “Know Your Rights” trainings in Punjabi and English. “I’m really glad I get to do what I do now,” she says. Whether through advocacy, campaigning, or community education, Kaur’s commitment to uplifting her community remains unwavering.