The second week of our Nikkei Community Internship started off with a tour of the Yu-Ai-Kai facility by Wes. He introduced us to all the people in within the organization that make it so successful. We met some of the seniors and volunteers in the senior day program, visited the nutrition center, and learned about the various activities and programs that Yu-Ai-Kai has to offer. He also took us to the new Akiyama Wellness Center down the street that should be opening next month. Although it is still under construction, the center will soon be able to serve the needs of not only the seniors, but the larger community as well.
Next we went to visit Amanda Baker and Tom Kinoshita at the Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits. There, they work with nonprofit organizations and make sure that they are not cut of their critical government funding. SVCN is not an ethnic-based group, but rather they exist to serve the entire community. Both Amanda and Tom talked a little about how it is different to work at the executive level of such a company, especially being a minority. Amanda also spoke on how for her, it was difficult at first to walk into a meeting and to find herself the only woman, person of color, and young person to be there. There is a growing need for diversity in many board of directors situations, and the only way to change this, is to step out of the comfort zone like Amanda did, in order to continue to have a lasting impact on the community.
After the visit to SVCN we went to see Tamon at AACI, or Asian Americans for Community Involvement, where we were to be staying for the remainder of the week. After lunch with Tamon and the two other interns, he gave us an extensive tour of AACI’s facilities as well as told us about the different programs that AACI offers. I was amazed at how large of an organization this was and the number of the programs that AACI has. Some of these include their Senior Services Center, which is a lot like Yu-Ai-Kai, their HIV/AIDS program, one of the few remaining places available for testing after work hours, the Youth Development Program, their Domestic Violence program, Mental Health Services, Alcohol and Drug Programs, a Center for Survivors of Torture, and Primary Health Care Services. Because AACI does cater to mainly Asian-Americans, they have multi-lingual individuals to help break down the language barrier and ensure that those in need are receiving the services and help that is available to them. After seeing what AACI has to offer, I realized how important it is to have services like these available to the Asian-American Community.
The long day was concluded with our attendance of the Asian Pacific Islander Justice Coalition Meeting located at the Issei Memorial Building. Upon arrival I assumed that the meeting was going to end up like every other meeting…long and boring. However, this API meeting was actually quite interesting. We had guest Judge Ladoris Cordell, the new Independent Police Auditor for the city of San Jose, come and speak to us during the first half of the meeting. She spoke about all that she has accomplished in her first 30 days of work, including being able to meet with all 1000 police officers in the city, which is pretty impressive!! I personally learned a lot from her short visit because I’m not too familiar with what Independent Auditors do in their line of work. Another interesting thing she spoke to us about was her filming of the new television show, “Make the Call,” that she was running to right after the meeting. This show focuses on the fact that in East Palo Alto, 50% of all homicides go unreported because people are too afraid to pick up the phone and make the call. This hit particularly close to home (literally and figuratively), as living and growing up in Los Altos, where Palo Alto is a neighboring city. Another interesting issue brought up in the meeting was the Arizona Immigration Law. Nick Kuwada from the Asian Law Alliance actually traveled with a group down to Arizona and discussed what he experienced. Just for “reasonable suspicion” you can be asked to show identification and proof of residence. And of course this reasonable suspicion is what leads to racial profiling. We seem to be backtracking historically in the human rights department…if racial profiling is something that is growing stronger, what should we be expecting next?
No comments:
Post a Comment