Ep 21. Pacific Gateway Center with En Young

world. These podcasts are made possible by a grant from the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, also known as CTAHR and the Seeds of Wellbeing or SOW project, and is supported by a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture.

I'm going to do. You know, I think that with the world pivoting, you know, we want to try to create supports, that farmers can at least look at some some different products, and with that, there's, as you know, there's going to be a tremendous amount of support in assisting farmers to grow new things. A lot of people who don't do ag think that if you can grow lettuce, you can grow a tomato, but those are two very different things, right?

wonderful. Not everyone necessarily may be familiar with Pacific Gateway Center so could you just briefly explain what is it that you guys do? Sure. So Pacific Gateway Center, we were originally formed in response to the huge exodus of refugees and

migrants from Southeast Asia. So Vietnam war, communism, khmer rouge, all those, all those really, really, you know, horrible experiences that people have to go through that, you know, there's huge out-migration at that time, and Hawaii was the gateway, you know, to the United

States. And so, you know, we started doing immigrant services, mostly legal immigrants, services, asylee, refugee paperwork processing, those kinds of things, and after a while, you know, immigrants being the entrepreneurial minded and hardworking people that they are, you know, we really got to start focusing around business development and you know, some of the businesses that immigrants can do with limited English proficiency were for example, well still are, farming, food businesses,

culinary businesses, those kinds of things. You know, there's always cultural sharing your own food, and people always appreciate food from from different cultures, so that became a natural fit and, you know, that's kind of what our service profile looks like

today. We have 176 acre farm out, in Kunia, where we incubate farm businesses, primarily immigrants, and we have our culinary business incubator, which is 11 certified kitchens, where we incubate food businesses, food, catering, food, trucks, those kinds of businesses. And we still provide those wraparound services where we do immigration legal services, as well as assist victims of human trafficking, and all those associated legal entanglements that come with with being an immigrant. So

yeah, that's, that's us. That's us in a nutshell.

the ag. Could you share a bit of what you see as the current main stressors for this particular group? So these particular groups?

commonality there. You know, whenever folks get busy, whenever there's increased risk, whenever there's stress on families, I mean, those are all ingredients, you know, that really affect how people are able to live their lives, you know, and mental health is such a basis for how successful people are not only monetarily, but just, you know, their, their perception of whether they're successful, or not, you know.

For, I can speak for a couple different industries that we work with, you know, I mentioned, we work with food businesses, and also, we work with food businesses, and also we work with, with farmers, and for the farmers, especially, farming is such a high risk gig, you know, you plant the seeds, you know, as we're talking about, you know, Seeds of Peace, you plant the seed, and you just kind of hope that you get a harvest, that's, that's bountiful, you know, you make

some projections based on that, and a heavy rain, or a hurricane, or any of those things can happen, and it's already extremely stressful. You have to put up all kinds of cash upfront in order to really invest in that, in that product and so, you know, there's, there's a ton of uncertainty, you know, around that, you know, with COVID, obviously, there's a ton of uncertainty around the pandemic, and, and those kinds

of things. On top of that, you know, the markets really kind of reset themselves over the COVID

period. You know, restaurant and catering had really dropped off and, you know, as far as high value clients, where you sell your grade A produce as a farmer, those were really the the high end markets, I think people don't necessarily know, but most stores don't necessarily buy grade A produce, and a lot of the folks who are farming, you know, rely on those channels, restaurants and catering, you know, high-end chefs to buy that kind of that high-end produce, and that's

where they make their margin. Right. So it took away a huge, you know, market segment for for those folks. So, you know, it was, it was definitely, definitely difficult for for them to kind of weather the

storm. You know, there were some subsidies, of course, you know, the city and county came in very generously worked with Hawaii Farm Bureau to purchase a lot of that produce and get it out to the community, and I think, you know, that did provide, well, it did provide some, some relief to the farmers and it made them you know, help them feel good that they're assisting the community. But those things don't last forever. And so, you know, you added another layer of uncertainty on top of their

already uncertain industry. And it really did take a toll and continues to do so. You add into that, if you remember, just this past year, in December and early January, there was an extreme amount of rain. There's two heavy flooding events. And, you know, a couple of our farm of our farmers got wiped out with the product they had. Of course, you know, they picked as much as they could, prior to that to that event, because, you know,

we did know it was coming. But the fact of the matter is, you know, they had planted ahead, you know, for summer season and a lot of those things got wiped out. So, you know, it was a disruption not only to the current cash flow, but to future cash flow. And so, you know, they come to us as PGC, you know, being a provider to assist with, you know, federal grants, recovery, those kinds of things. And, you know, we try our best. And I'll say in a lot of the some of the specific cases that,

you know, our farmers. When what, when your budget needs to take a hit, you know, you're going to cut the things you think of as frills, and so, you know, some of that a lot of time is marketing, but in this case, what had happened was a lot of our farmers had reduced their crop insurance, because they just didn't have the cash flow to make it work. And so, you know, a couple of them who ordinarily would have would have been covered, we're not in this

flooding example. And, you know, the stress is definitely there, the uncertainty is definitely there. You know, we as a nonprofit, nonprofit service provider, can, you know, hook them up with USDA grants and, and relief, and those kinds of things, but it's just not gonnaʻ be enough to, to cover. So, you know, I'll say, in short, that, you know, there is there's, there's a ton of stress in the farming community right now, at least the ones we work with.

know, their family supports. You know, so you know, just problems in the household, you know, I won't go into too much detail, but, you know, definitely problems, problems in the household. Problems getting along with, with other farmers.

Just general desperate behavior, you know, you're looking at, and this is, this is COVID-wide, you know, with a ton of people being under stress, because, you know, I can't blame certain people for certain things, but, you know, we're just seeing, we're seeing an increase in agricultural theft, you know, we're seeing an increase, and then just just crying just, you know, theft in

general. So, you know, it's, and then, you know, we really do try to have, to build trusting relationships with our farmers and any of our clients. And so, you know, just to hear that desperation in their voices, you know, a lot of the times they'll come, they'll sit down, and they'll, you know, they'll fill

out the forms with us. And they'll know, you know, for federal grants, it could be 50/50, or even really more like 25/75, you know, whether you're going to actually get these grants or not, but, you know, the, the follow up these days is, you know, head and shoulders above what it usually is, you know, they're calling on a

weekly basis. "Hey, you know, did you hear about the grant, you know, are there other things I can access?" And, you know, asking about asking about additional ancillary services that maybe they had never asked about before, you know, "Can I get my kids vaccinated?" And, you know, "Where can I get dental and where can I get health?" So, you know, just just asking us to try to provide more relief than than what we ordinarily provide is,

some ways. Like you mentioned, desperation, or are you seeing these are signs of ways in folks are coping?

is or what you think you do. You know, they're going to come in and they're going to try to leverage that trusting relationship, as well they should, you know, to get their needs met. You know, as far as the, you know, it's a great point about coping mechanisms, and it just sparked something

else. I mean, Thao, is, you know, we actually in the last couple months had two, again I'm not going to name names, but we have two car accidents where people were, you know, drinking, basically, and drove into the ditch, you know, on the farm, and we had to, we had to pull them out. So, you know, we haven't had any incident like that, you know, in years, and now all of a sudden, we get hit with two, so.

buffer? And are those reserves there to help buffer these stressors that they come when they come?

provide it in, in all areas. But I do think, you know, that being farmers being entrepreneurs, and, you know, I'd like to, I'd like to have your audience understand that, you know, immigrants, they're very resilient, especially the ones, you know, that we have contact with. You know, they've uprooted their homes, you know, they've taken major, major risks, you know, to come to this country,

and try to make it work. So, you know, being able to cope with stress is something that kind of comes with the territory for them. So, so to see them, you know, in these dire straits, really, I mean, it hits home and

hits home pretty hard. You know, if us as the Pacific Gateway Center, if and beyond us, you know, other nonprofits, government agencies, the city and county, you know, the feds, all those folks, you know, if we can provide certainty in at least one or two of the areas, you know, maybe that'll just turn down the dial just enough so that they can cope with, with with what's remaining, you know, I tend, you know, well, I think we all as Americans tend to think of the economic issues

first, but they are all interrelated, you know, the home environment, the economic environment, you know, actually putting food on the table, and those kinds of things. So, you know, our, and I'll be honest too, you know, are people necessarily after relief or hand out? No, not necessarily. You know, they want to be able to just ply their trade, and, you know, get back into the routine, that's, that's worked for them, that's worked for them before.

resiliency. And I think for, for immigrant groups, or even for Hawaii, the sense of family is very important that having a strong family is a huge foundation to be able to weather some of these uncertainty, and when, but when you, when you mentioned that family, when the fabric of the family, there's, there starts disshoveling, it starts unraveling, or there's conflict within the family, and that no longer provides that buffer or that strong foundation, then that's a big

sign that something needs to be

strengthened. So that the foundation of the family is is very strong, particularly for these groups who, when you're coming to a new country, who do you have, you have family and you have your particularly ethnic community that helps to buffer some of those stressor, but it's not not there, then you begin to see desperate behavior, right and maybe different on the mainland, because mainly, you know, there are different cultures, you know, we talked about culture here, where the

sense of individualism is very strong, like, I can do it on my own, I'm just gonna, like, you know, just, you know, weather through it with will and force and no matter what. Whereas in maybe another culture, that sense of collectivism, we call it like this sense of like, we're all in this together, even though it's really stressful, we're all doing this together, it helps to buffer some of that.

And so, if you hear that somebody feels like they're alone, they don't have the family support, and that's why they're not drinking and they're going in the ditch or for whatever reason, that's a clear sign that, well what is going on now, for this community. With that, would you agree with that?

that. And prior to when that relief comes, there's a lot of stress, you know, folks trying to bring over their family from the Philippines, you know, in the Duterte regime, you know, obviously, a lot of turmoil in the Philippines. So, you know, a lot of stress associated with that. So, you know, on the farm with our 176 acres, you know, the tenants, they know each other, right. And so, you know, a lot of times they'll rely on each other for that, that

support system. So when things come in, like that agricultural theft, which may, which may have been none of them, you know, could have been somebody, somebody jumping the fence from from outside, you know, sowing that mistrust among the community really strains, that relationship between folks that they, they have kind of considered at least their agricultural professional

family. And, you know, again, I think it feeds into what we see as a nonprofit service provider, which is they lean more more heavily on us because, you know, that's the question, right? Who, who do I trust in this environment? You know, who can? Who can assist me with my specific, my specific issues?

Now, you know, there's, there's such an interesting dichotomy, in that there is so much money out there right now, you know, coming from the federal government. And, you know, it really does highlight the fact that money isn't everything, you know, just because people or you know, the government or whoever it is, you know, puts out money doesn't necessarily mean that the capacity is there in the community to carry out the will of this money, right? I mean, you look at the construction

industry, right? When construction is booming, no matter how much money you have, you're not going to be able to get a contractor because everybody's busy. Right. And that's kind of the, that's kind of the case with with nonprofits right now. You know, the burnout rate is obviously huge, you know, were talkinʻ about the great resignation in nonprofits and that capacity is, is not exempt from that, not exempt

from that either. That being said, there's a lot of people who want to expand businesses who actually did well, you know, during during the pandemic, and so, you know, there's the there's the talent war, on top of that, you know. Where do I get good people, and how much do I have to pay? And if it's more, than again, you know, that's an additional stressor on top of, on top of nonprofits, and, and in our limited budgets for sure.

So, you know, the stress level is, is high, you know, I think that, you know, you talked about family, you know, although I'm not related to the folks in the office, you know, we form a family around the cause, you know, and being cause-driven is part of why, you know, we get paid less, you know, to work in nonprofits, because, you know, there's a different kind of satisfaction there. So, you know, we're holding it together. That will only last for so long,

for sure. But that being said, you know, we see the need, we want to respond and a lot of the times, you know, to your point about the reserves, you know, we'll dig in, we'll dig into our reserve to get it done.

know. When there's, when there's not as much money, I think we get into, into a competitive mindset, where, you know, we think, oh, you know, I gotta get this grant and, you know, to a large extent, the foundations or governments, you know, they make it competitive, you know. I think for them, it's that competitive process, at least in their minds, assures quality, which is not necessarily the

case. But in this environment, because, you know, all, we're all bursting at the seams, as far as capacity goes, and there is money out there, I really think that the only way to get the money out into the community and assure quality services is that collaborative piece, you know. We're gonna have to work together, leverage each of our strengths, and I think that's important for Pacific Gateway Center to prevent burnout as well is, you know, not not to

try and do too many things. Not to try and venture into things that we don't necessarily have the expertise to do. But that being said, you know, the need is, is there. So, you know, we'll have to find those collaborative partners who can, who can fulfill those needs, and really think collaboratively and generously. And that, look, if we're not the right, nonprofit to do this or that, but we get a grant to do it, that we make sure that, you know, our partners get get compensated for

that. And that's just the, you know, the structural side, right? You know, to be able to align the supports and make sure they're timely, there's gonnaʻ be a tremendous job of of coordination, although the resources are out there, right?

You know, CTAHR, and you know, I mean, just other farmers, you know, so if we can create that community and then again, on that collaborative piece, as restaurants start to build back, as caterers start to build back, you know, have those conversations and say, "Okay, what is what is that need gonna be?" And how can we build towards that, together to really create a match between what they feel the demand is going to be, and, you know, what, what we can supply as, as agricultural

communities. So I think those things, you know, hopefully, creating that community will provide some relief in terms of mental health. You know, just getting out there and knowing you're not the only one, that's, that's going through it, but also provide a little bit of certainty in, you know, the, the push pull for, for, for supply and for demand. And then, you know, there's us as individual citizens and consumers, you know. How do we patronize restaurants? Do we demand local

food? Or, you know, do we vote with our dollar as far as purchasing local food and, and that kind of thing? And, you know, what, what can we do individually to help that along?

growing eggplant. And, you know, they'll, they'll talk about it. Of course, you know, there's there is a language barrier, but that being said, you know, I think for us as PGC, you know, we act in our capacity as a as the land manager, you know, to property manager to some extent, and, you know, we make an effort to bring the farmers in once a quarter, and just talking about issues. You know, anybody's free to, you know, bring up whatever

they want. As far as the training goes, you know, when we bring in CTAHR or USDA or whoever it is to do our trainings, you know, we try to make sure that we have interpretation for limited English proficiency farmers so that everybody can feel they're getting the information, the same information at the same time. You know, we're not playing any favorites with any particular group. And again, you know, we talked about sowing the seeds of mistrust. That's the kind of thing that does that,

you know. Oftentimes we try to, well, service providers will try to isolate a group and say, Okay, well, today we're going to do the Thais, and today we're going to do the Laos. And you know, what that happens, what happens there is that, you know, people start to question, you know, did they get different information from us? You know, or are they the favorite because they got Monday, you know, when, when everybody knows that Friday is the market day, so half of us

couldn't show up. And, and that kind of thing. Right. So I think, you know, just being consistent, and trying to be fair, on our part, I hope, you know, has led to the farmers engaging a little bit more. And I'll say one more thing too, that, you know, for example, we have a lot of common infrastructure, right. So, you know, if something happens with, say, the irrigation system, you know, everybody feels it. So, you know, there are, uh while that's a problem, it is a common

problem. And so, you know, it affords an opportunity to kind of rally around something like that. And, you know, gives gives the farmers, I guess, a version of water cooler talk, you know, how's your water pressure?

there. And, you know, part of people getting vaccines is really their comfort level, right? You know, we looked at folks who kept saying they didn't want to get vaccines, and a lot of that was around, they just were, they just didn't feel comfortable in the setting that was was provided to them. So, you know, when we moved, I'll

give you an example. You know, when we moved the vaccination event from a specific health center, to their church, and their pastor was there, and they had an interpreter that, you know, was able to answer the questions, other specific questions, you know, you have people who wouldn't ordinarily get vaccinated come in and get vaccinated. And they told us that, you know, "Thank you for making a comfortable environment for us." So we've been trying to extend that out to the

agricultural community. Of course, we've covered our farmers, weʻre also going up to North Shore. I know, there's some pockets of Lao and Thai farmers out there as well. And so, you know, we've, we've done that over the past few months. And in fact, we're going to be out in Hauula tomorrow doing, doing the same thing. So, yeah. Vaccine vaccine misinformation. Definitely, definitely one piece. And I think, you know, the other piece is federal relief or even governmental

relief, you know. If they don't know it's out there, you know, they're not going to be able to access, access the programs and even you know, when a grant opportunity gets out there you know, the language that the government writes it in sometimes, although it looks like English, you know, it sounds very different from I think how regular people speak.

So yeah, there's, there's there's definitely an access issue around, around the fair distribution of, of governmental relief, especially in the agricultural sector where, you know, a large, a large number of the farmers who are actually growing food are English as a second language folks or limited English proficiency. So yeah, so maybe you'll have a better pulse on this, how large is our limited English proficiency community that works in ag? Do you have a number?

right? You know, you look at some of our biggest, our biggest agriculture industries, coffee in Kona, supported largely by Spanish speaking immigrants, as well as as well as Filipinos. Mac nuts, supported largely by Filipinos. And then, you know, if you look at a lot of the ethnic vegetables, we're talking about, you know, the bitter melons, the eggplants, those kinds of things, primarily, Thai, Lao, Vietnamese farmers, Filipinos as well.

is. I mean, we have folks from Africa, we have folks from Russia, we have folks from, you know, we have Hmong, we have Thai, we have Lao, we have Vietnamese, we have Filipinos we have I mean, we have people from all over the world over here, you know, so? Yeah, I think that's, that's, it's definitely a perception that needs to needs to change.

already. So it's, it's a place they can start, you know, some of them have come over on temporary work visas, you know, specifically to work farms, and have that experience prior. So you know, when they do make them the migration or the immigration, they have a history there, and are networked within the within the farming community. And then as you know, you know, there are companies that do this, that do this specifically on a global basis.

And as you can probably remember, precipitated one of the largest human trafficking cases in history in Hawaii, you know, from from these companies. I'm not saying they're all bad, but what I am saying is that what that does is it does create a network and a foundation for migrants from different countries who become immigrants, to have that foundation in the in the agricultural community and and network that way.

with? Key champions, and whether it be a pastor or a monastic person, or whoever it is, that's well recognized within the specific community to work with that individual or individuals to offer strategies to manage stress, or I don't know, because, you know, we can't just, I mean, we take what we develop in one particular group, we cannot automatically assume it's going to work in another group.

you know. So just having people recognize at a basic level, that there is, you know, an imbalance in equilibrium, you know, as far as their mental health is concerned, is, you know, I think for our folks where, where I think we can start there, You know, again, some of these folks coming from extremely stressful situations, you know, extreme turmoil in their home country,

and that kind of thing. You know, they may have a different level of normalization, you know, as far as what, you know, constitutes constitutes a stressor, you know. Not eating for two days might be, "Oh, well, you know, we, you know, in the home country, we didn't eat for a week, you know. We're in prison, or we're running from folks" or, you know, whatever it

is. So, you know, I think setting a baseline, and getting that into a format, that's understandable, and, you know, be able to communicate these these ideas in their, in their native language, I think would go a long way towards at least helping them identify amongst themselves, you know, what's, what's going on internally, because, you know, they're not going to seek help if they don't see these things as, as an issue, right?

know. Be it, I don't have money this week, or, you know, I'm having problems at home or whatever it is, you know, when you when you get to a meeting with with that, with our particular group of farmers, you know, people are bringing food, people are making sure that people are taken care of. People are checking in on other people's lots. People are. I mean, you name it, of course, you know, there's some squabbling back and forth here and then, but, you know, isn't that what families do, right?

You know, we get on each other's nerves every once in a while,

We have a lot of sayings around the world, you know, "it takes a village" you know, all those, all those kinds of things that we're, you know, people understand that collaboration and helping your neighbor is, is really a positive way to it's a way to make it in this world. And, you know, Hawaii is not a, Hawaii is not an easy place to live. It's not an easy place to, to make a go of it economically, but, you know, everybody's

everybody's making it work. And like I was saying, they're doing it together.

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