Ignatius Bau, J.D., is a Program Director at The California Endowment, directing the foundation’s program on cultural competency, language access and health workforce diversity. He manages program development, grantmaking, grant administration and monitoring, technical assistance and evaluation activities.
Prior to his position at The California Endowment, Bau held several positions at the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF), a national advocacy organization seeking to improve the health and well-being of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, most recently as its Deputy Director for Policy and Programs. Bau and APIAHF led community efforts that successfully advocated for the creation of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in 1999. He was the principal author of the January 2001 report from the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders as part of the implementation of that White House Initiative.
Bau has served on numerous nonprofit, community-based organizations’ boards of directors, including the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center, the Northern California Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the California Budget Project, and the National Minority AIDS Council. He also has served on a number of government committees and task forces including the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, the National Institutes of Health’s Office of AIDS Research Prevention Science Working Group, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National HIV Prevention Planning Group, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health National Minority HIV Plan Working Group, the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on HIV Prevention Strategies Non-Governmental Organization Liaison Panel and the California Department of Health Services’ Task Force on Multicultural Health. He also was a member of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations Public Advisory Group, the National Quality Forum Work Group on Minority Healthcare Quality Measurement and Reporting, and several Technical Advisory Committees for the California Health Interview Survey.
Prior to his work at APIAHF, he worked for ten years as a civil rights lawyer, focusing on immigration-related issues. He was a member of the legal team that challenged the U.S. policy of returning Haitian refugees to Haiti without an asylum hearing and forced the Immigration and Naturalization Service to allow HIV+ Haitian refugees detained at Guantanamo Bay into the U.S. He also worked on class action litigation involving language access in government benefit programs, work authorization for immigrants and refugee resettlement funding and on legislative and administrative advocacy on behalf of immigrants and refugees. Among his publications are a chapter on immigration law in the book "AIDS and the Law" and a book on the sanctuary movement for Central American refugees.