304. Collaborating with AANHPI-serving Nonprofits in Austin

Sandra P.: Hey y'all, I'm Sandra Pham. Minh V.: And I'm Minh Vu. And this is Asian in Austin. So for this month's episode, we decided to share a conversation that we actually had earlier this in May at the Austin Asian Professionals Summit. We were really honored to be invited by the organizers of the summit, Y. J. Lin and Rebecca Le, or at least those were the ones who did the initial outreach to us.

And we since then learned that it was a big collaborative effort with a whole slew of organizations.

I think like the Asian American Resource Center, the Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce, there is support from the Austin Asian Film Festival, Orchid Events, and North Shore Media, just a whole like collaboration of AAPI folks wanting to really create an opportunity for professionals in the city to come together and learn more about different work that like nonprofits are doing for the community.

So Sandra and I were able to join that summit and I was able to help moderate a specific conversation with some of our, our nonprofits. And we're really excited to kind of share this conversation with you all. I think it's really important to learn more about the different services that our brothers and sisters are doing in the nonprofit space and providing to our community. And even the event itself was a lot of fun. Sandra, what do you think of the, the event?

Sandra P.: Yeah, I think it was really great to see the community and the city kind of mobilize around just creating more bridges between corporations that are either based or have a pretty large presence.

And so, I mean, you name it, the Dells and the Samsungs and et cetera, indeed, and really kind of understand that there's importance in creating these ERGs or employee resource groups and make sure that there's representation and specifically the AAPI community and making sure that we also supporting these local organizations, right? We're thinking about fundraising and where employees can also give their time and money. So yeah, really great and positive to see the investment here.

And I hope that we just continue to see more. Minh V.: Yeah, so in this episode, you'll hear from representatives at the Asian Family Support Services of Austin, Asian Texans for Justice, the Austin Asian American Film Festival, and the Austin Asian Community Health Initiative, who will share more about what they, what they do for the community. So let's get into it. All right. Thank you all for being here with us today on a Friday afternoon, 5 p. m. We're here. We're doing it.

We're trying to build community. I love it. I love seeing this room and everyone that's here. Thank you again for sharing your time with us. I'm super excited to have this. Like diverse group of leaders here representing all different aspects of services that we offer our community. I'll do a quick introduction of myself. My name is Minh Vu. I co founded and co host a monthly podcast that amplifies Asian American stories in Austin.

So me and my co host Sandra over there interview a couple of folks every month to learn more about how their identity impacts their lives and what it means to kind of come into your own AAPI identity. And so I'm really excited to be able to help moderate this discussion today with our esteemed panelists. What I think we hope to get out of this discussion is really learning about ways that we can activate the places that we work at.

to be able to support the work that these organizations, these leaders do for the community as well, too. So hopefully we'll get into a good little discussion about that. And I think to start, I'd love because we have such a breadth of services from, like I said, cultural arts, civic engagement, direct support services. I'd love to learn a little bit more about what each of your organization does and the types of programs and services you offer the community.

So Zahra, do you want to start us off? Zahra S.J.: Hi, everyone. Good evening. My name is Zahra Shakur Jamal, and I'm a director of outreach and education at the Asian Family Support Services of Austin or AFSA. AFSA has been serving the Central Texas Asian API and immigrant community for the last 32 years. And we are Asian and immigrant facing, and we serve survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and trafficking.

And so we do that by offering a range of direct services, folks call our hotline or get connected through law enforcement or other service providers and can get services ranging from getting access to shelter or safe housing to legal needs, right? We had a lot of folks that have family law needs or immigration law needs to healing and really the whole gamut of services, including long term economic support and economic capacity building.

So how do we get folks on their feet after they've left an abusive relationship? So they're able to support themselves and their families and can really thrive and not just survive the abuse that's happening to them. We also want to make sure that we disrupt cycles of violence and we can't do that just by serving clients and folks that are experiencing abuse. So we take every opportunity in community to have conversations and normalize conversations about healthy relationships.

And violence and access to mental health services within the community to prevent violence from happening and also offer opportunities for folks to connect with resources when they are experiencing violence. Minh V.: Thank you. I appreciate that. That sounds like really important and meaningful work. Certainly some heavier topics.

I'm curious, and I'll ask each of our leaders this too, but Zahra, if you can expand, why might it be important to focus specifically on the AANHPI community with those types of services? Zahra S.J.: Absolutely. So I am a Pakistani American. I grew up in a Muslim household, and I know that In the work that I'm doing with a lot of communities, not a lot of us grew up having conversations around even just what a healthy relationship looks like, and what you can expect in a partner.

And so we find that there's so much stigma in talking about violence when violence is happening. We know that folks that speak other languages, well, I speak Urdu, and I think a lot about how difficult it is to identify vocabulary that is in everyday use. to talk about violence. So there's so many additional barriers that we know folks in our communities face when they're experiencing violence.

That's on top of not being super familiar in some cases with our legal systems and our educational systems here, learning English or speaking English with some proficiency, but not as a native speaker. And so we have complex systems here that can Be helpful as people are seeking supports and justice, but it's not easy to do that alone.

It's not easy to do that while you're overcoming all the cultural barriers, whether it's shame or lack of accessible vocabulary to talk about violence and healthy relationships. So that's why we think that, It's so important for us to have these conversations in our community. In fact, we were founded 32 years ago by a group of volunteers that were volunteering at what's now SAFE, which was the local shelter in Travis County.

And they found that a lot of people from Asian Pacific Islander communities were not coming forward to seek services. And that's not because the shelter isn't well intentioned and wants to reach out and support everybody that is experiencing violence, but they weren't set up. To meet the needs of the communities that we serve. So that's how we started.

And we hold that very close to our mission, the ability to serve in a way that is culturally grounded and offer lots of professional training opportunities to law enforcement and judges and other providers so that people are able to serve our communities better. Minh V.: Thank you, Zahra. Hailey, I'd like to turn it over to you and ask a similar question.

Can you share a little bit more about what your organization provides to the community, the programs and services, and why might it be important to focus specifically on our community with those services? Hailey E.: Yeah, so I guess I'm wondering how many of you have been to the doctor in the past month? Minh V.: Doctor's visit? Anyone? Hailey E.: Yeah, so about half of you, maybe. Was it fun? Was it easy? No, it's not.

And so, and I'm assuming since you're all here and I don't see any interpreters here, you all speak English. And so, what AACHI does is we help folks navigate that whole process. And the difference is though, We don't really think about the steps that it takes to go to the doctor to get your fix, right? So you don't just appear at the doctor's office, right? You have to call, make an appointment. You have to confirm your appointment or else they'll cancel it. That actually just happened to me.

I even confirmed and they canceled it anyway. You have to get into your car or call a lift, go on the bus. Then you have to go to the doctor. You have to fill out your paperwork. You go to the doctor's, into the doctor. You have to listen to the thing, do the visit. Then you leave. Drive back home or get your ride back home.

A week or two later, you get a bill that looks like it says that you're being charged like 5, 000, but it's actually your insurance saying that like, this is how much we paid. But it kind of looks like a bill. And also, your doctor's office then sends you a bill for the same amount. And you have to deal with that. I want you to imagine doing that process entirely alone with no access to the language skills that are needed for that. So, try to get a Lyft in Korean.

Learn Go to the bus stop and read the sign in English, if you don't speak English. Even whenever you go to the doctor's office. So, there are laws that say that federally qualified health centers have to provide translation interpretation, but it's really at that one spot. So they can, you can go to the doctor, you'll get your translation, but when you get home and you get that 5, 000 bill, all you see are those 5, 000. If you don't read English, You're freaked out, right?

And you need someone to help you, or you might actually owe that money, and then you get called to collections. So, what AACHI does is we help everyone through that whole process, even before that, like, trying to get health coverage. Most of these services really only have language access at one part. of the process. So we're here to fill in the gaps to make sure that the process is entirely accessible so people can get the care they need.

So what we do is we have these really special positions called community health workers. Community health workers are people who represent the community they serve, speak their languages. They come from those communities. Most of the time they've been doing this job pro bono for free and their free time for years. So we have our community health workers who go and provide one on one health navigation. They also do health education classes for lots of different folks.

I forgot to mention, there's some stats that I've been looking at lately. 30 percent of folks who speak Asian languages in the Cedar Round Rock Georgetown area speak English less than very well. That means they have limited English proficiency and 60 percent of our Asian community are foreign born.

Even though our stats show that Asian Americans have, like, really great rates of health insurance and stuff, they're not thinking about all of the different complex identities that are within this community. So, that's what we're here for, is to address those things. Minh V.: Thank you. Yeah, and I think for a lot of us who might be able to relate, like, growing up in multi generational homes, It becomes a family project to navigate the health system.

It's like, I laugh, but it's traumatizing as well too, because especially if you're a young adult in the family, having to help your elders, it can be a lot to take on as a, as a young adult. And so it's great. That you have resources through your organization. Sabrina, I'll turn it over to you to talk a little bit more about Asian Texans for Justice and what y'all do and why it's important to focus on the community with y'all's services.

Sabrina S.: Yeah. So I'm the operations and development manager here at Asian Texans for Justice so we are an advocacy organization dedicated to connecting the 1. 9 million AAPI Texans to their civic powers. So what does civic power look like? It means everything from voting to testifying to even learning about Asian American studies in school to developing the next future generation of our community's leaders.

So we work to do that to ultimately create a Texas where all can feel bold in their belonging. A little bit of, about the programs that, like I said, is we invest from communities. We invest in communities to be able to access language, culturally competent and linguistically accessible voter materials. So voting is kind of difficult. You have so many different polling locations. You have so many different candidates to look from, things like that.

So we are nonpartisan, which means we just provide them information. We let them know these are the voting dates. These are the steps that they need to take. To be able to vote and then provide help to translations, election protections, and things like that. And then similarly, once the elections are over at the Capitol in Texas, legislative session is every other year. We connect our community to what's going on at the Capitol. Every law, every legislation impacts our community directly.

And most often times, our voices in our communities are not represented at the halls of the Capitol or not being heard when they're hearing bills that could potentially impact our community.

And so our goal is to help connect our community to that power to be able to testify, whether in person or submitting a written testimony, um, being able to connect them with that and again, training our future generation to be able to learn that and be able to become the future leaders in their community, training them the tools of advocacy, what advocacy looks like. Similarly, we are statewide, right? Texas is a big state.

Prior to ATJ's founding, there was no dedicated AAPI advocacy organization that serves statewide. And so what we do is we help build the coalition and build the infrastructure for Asians everywhere across Texas to be able to have access to that ability through sub granting, training, through helping uplift their work. We create kind of that baseline infrastructure for our community's advocacy. And yeah. Minh V.: That was great.

Thank you, Sabrina. What I'm hearing too is like, so often these systems that we have to operate in aren't built for all of us, you know, and it's really important to have organizations such as y'alls be able to help the community navigate these systems that, like I said, often aren't built for people like us. So I really appreciate all the, the work that y'all are doing. And Hannah, I want to learn a little bit more.

I mean, storytelling is, My favorite, but with the Austin Asian American Film Festival, tell us more about that and what y'all offer the community. I'm back on stage Hanna H.: again. Welcome back. Um, the first panel, my commission position is actually just what I do for fun. So this is actually my work. It's Austin Asian American Film Festival. I'm the executive director for it. We've been around for 20 years. We're going into the spring. Sweet 16 of our actual film festival program.

But our organization has been doing an organizing grassroots wise for 20 years in the city of Austin. We actually have a history exhibit about our organization at the history center that will be up until July 2nd. So if you're ever downtown and want to swing in and take a look, we have an exhibit about our long legacy. But a little bit more about what seems like just one festival in our name is we're actually a. Full-fledged nonprofit.

We used to be a volunteer run and we've expanded from just doing a few days a year festival program to, we're doing things year round. You might've seen our logo or our name around for film screenings at the AARC or maybe in partnership with some of our friends over here. And we also provide a lot of services. to local Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Highlander filmmakers.

So we're really, uh, behind crafting more of like a grassroots led identity and group and network for those as well, who are aspiring filmmakers, but also established filmmakers, who here has watched an Asian or Asian American film in the last like two days. It's like probably almost everyone. Maybe on YouTube. Raise your hands. Y'all watch TV. Y'all watch movies. And if you haven't, go turn on your Netflix or whatever streaming platform you want. There's plenty to watch.

What we're doing with the festival program, which this year it'll be June 26th to 30th at AFS Cinema, is we're bringing new independent films. So stuff you cannot find anywhere else. on streamers yet. This is stuff that's just made. It's doing the film festival circuit. It's gathering awards. We are deep in the planning for the one coming up, and we have some fantastic news to share in the next week about our films that we're confirming and guests that we plan to bring.

I'll tell them in privately later, so. Come find us. You might hear some of it, but our opening night film will be quite fantastic. And I hope y'all can come out to, to that night on the 26th. The work that we're doing is really championing Asian American stories. That's like the simplest way to put it. And not just on like the screen and like in front of you, but behind the camera, that stuff doesn't get made.

By the people that are on the screen, like they're working certainly, but it's really all those that are involved in the creative process of getting film together and making and creating and iterating and approving it. That is so important, right?

And there's a statistic that always sticks to me that I want to share, which is, it's from USC Annenberg school, a school of media, and they have a statistic that 75 percent of the leading roles for AAPI in the last, I think, like, 10 or 20 years is, it's pretty much the rock. That's like the leading Asian American, yeah. So it's the rock. So that's not enough, right? That's not enough representation for one male person in our community to be the main Asian American lead.

So that means there's not enough roles going to other Asian American leads. And we need to change that. And I really, truly believe it starts with audience building and with Artist development. So these two areas are where you'll see us focus on. Some of our other year round programs you'll see is we curate in Asian American Video Club. And so we'll get a few suggested films that are playing at AFS Cinema or other cinemas around town, and we'll get you a discount.

The AFS Cinema discount's always 4 off the ticket for the films that we're suggesting. So that's the same as if you had an AFS membership. And AFS is Austin Film Society. They run a art house cinema in the Highland area. That's also where we host our film festival. And In terms of why it's important, I mean, I think most of us here can attest to the very, very few faces that looked like ours on the TV screens growing up, right?

Like, the fact that The one Hey Arnold episode, Christmas episode from 20 years ago now. Minh V.: For when? Yeah. Cowboy. He's a country artist. It's like taking its way back Hanna H.: and we all talk about it. That's like a core memory for a lot of Asian, young Asian Americans now, or millennial Asian Americans. So there should be more, right? And then even just Joy Luck Club, when that came out, and then the distance between when Crazy Rich Asians came out. That was 20 years. That's crazy.

So we want to shorten that. And we've seen that. We've really seen that activeness in on the national sphere, but on the local scale, we are very aware that will probably be the first film festival you come out to. Maybe you've gone to a screening here or there, but most people will not have attended a film festival when they come out to ours, and we kind of teach you the process, but on a more local scale.

We're also providing a, a really intimate chance for you to sit in the audience with your peers. And with a filmmaker, that's more than likely from your community, too. Minh V.: Alright, so a lot of us in the crowd are likely part of employee resource groups at the companies that we work with. And as we think more about finding ways to kind of build those inroads between the private and public sector, The nonprofit sector, the work that y'all do.

There's a question of like, how, how can we collaborate further together? Could one of y'all maybe share an example of like an intentional type of partnership that y'all entered into with a local company and what did that look like? How did it come about? I'm just going to pass it to the panel.

So anyone who wants to chime in there and y'all listen, cause we need to be hearing this so we can advocate for them at our companies and come up with these ideas too, to support the work that they're doing. Sabrina S.: So I'll start off. One thing that everyone can do at their employer is to do like the employer match system. So I'm going to answer from the development perspective because that's what I do. So development is fundraising.

And so one thing that y'all have the option to do, um, Assuming everyone works at like a bigger company is they'll always do an employer or they usually do an employer match where if you donate 50 from your paycheck to whatever organization, usually it has to be a 501 c three. But if you do like 50, a paycheck that goes to us and then your employer will actually match it so that donation becomes doubled.

And that's a Really, really amazing thing for a lot of us as non profit organizations, because that's a consistent source of funding to keep the programs that we do going. And that's something that everyone can ask their employer about, about the employer match. Minh V.: Yeah, that's a, that's a great point. I know at my company, we definitely have like an annual budget that they give their employees up to a certain amount that will, they'll match your donations to the nonprofit.

So definitely, if you haven't done that at your company, or if your company doesn't offer that, it might be worth suggesting that as a employee perk. Hailey E.: We're all 501c3's here. So Minh V.: they all are on that list that you can donate to. And Sabrina S.: it's like a set it and forget it kind of thing. Like you just do it once. And you don't have to think about it and it's really easy and we love it. So Minh V.: any other examples that y'all would want to, Zahra S.J.: I can chime in.

So I think that there's a couple of different ways that I think about it. I think that a lot of us that are, if you're curious about any of our nonprofits, follow us on socials, attend some programming, I'll say. A lot of the partnerships that we've had with corporations were really driven by that one person that was like, I would like my company to be a more responsible participant in this community that I am part of. And so a lot of folks will.

Take the time to learn a little bit about the work that the nonprofit is doing. And we do a lot of ERG events. So like we'll come talk about our work, talk about something that's relevant to you. So for example, a lot of folks will have a share, something about the model minority myth and how to work against it, or how to be more aware of it in the spaces that we're occupying as highly educated, in some cases, doing pretty well, Asian folks that are in this space. Corporate setting, right?

So I think that really thinking about what are relevant ways of hosting these conversations in the spaces you occupy and introducing any one of our nonprofits in those settings, because people are looking to connect and give back and have community. And so I think that's a nice way to do it. We also find that individuals will step forward, right? So. So we have client facing work, and if someone's interested in supporting a client one on one, there are some high training requirements.

I know Hailey will probably share that, some of those. But there are opportunities for you to work directly with survivors of violence. We also run a school based program. So, Serving as a mentor to a young person from a newly arrived immigrant or refugee family. That's within attending a public school system. Usually a Title I school in our case in AISD. So there are opportunities like that as well. Again, we have a gala every year. So if you're a gala goer, sponsor a table. Let's go dress up.

It's on November 2nd this year. So get a table, bring some friends. There are many ways to support us and your time is as important as the dollars, but we also need the dollars. And the last thing I'll say is that I think that we, all of us, are connected to folks that, when we think about interpersonal violence, we often think that it's this thing that happens very far away from where I am, right?

And I Went to law school and I, you know, I'm educated and I'm doing well and we think that those are protective factors and one would hope that they are, but they unfortunately are not so a lot of spaces that we occupy. We have to be brave and normalize these conversations, right? And the statistics are so high, right? One in four folks will experience interpersonal violence. The numbers for sexual violence are also pretty high, and those numbers are underreported.

And we know that the numbers are even further underreported in Asian communities. So really just normalizing the conversation, putting yourself out there. And if you need help in having those conversations, then that's what we're here for. Reach out and host those conversations in all the spaces that you're in. Minh V.: Yeah, thanks for those answers.

And I think one thing that I hear is being creative about how you partner with these organizations and that all of them are open to that type of creativity and that partnership. Think about your company OKRs, your company goals, see how it can intersect. I work in corporate clearly, honestly, like you can advocate for these nonprofits that way and make it an easier self or the employer to invest and to cough over open their purse strings.

You know, I know one last example that I'll share is I know another company that I've seen. seen do like a field day where they split into two teams, they nominate, they participate on behalf of one of the organizations to help raise money for them. So employee engagement is a big buzzword in corporate too. So yeah, I was Hailey E.: going to say, I think ERGs could run fundraisers within themselves. I think that's a really great idea.

Another thing is that some of us have products that we sell, like they have, uh, Asian Texas for justice have really cool t shirts. Deal? Sabrina S.: Yes. Hailey E.: And so you can buy some for your whole ERG and then that's going to go to their work, or we have the family style passport. You can buy one for your whole ERG and then go eat out together. And then I think one more thing is just volunteering.

So, Just keep in mind, volunteering, especially for these folks who we're helping is a little challenging, a little complicated because there's a lot of shame involved with receiving help and it's just complicated. So. I think something to keep in mind is that we actually need your expertise in the fields that you're in and even the resources. So like we actually reached out to Waymo and we were like, Hey, do you want to give us some free rides? Cause our clients need rides.

So maybe you could advocate for services or resources that you could share with nonprofits that we wouldn't normally have access to. Minh V.: That's great. Yeah. Thank you. All right. We've got a couple minutes for Q and A. I think all of y'all have tables in the back or most of y'all. So if you have, if you want to learn more, please go learn more over there. But yeah. Any questions? What y'all got? Y'all got something.