The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum is proudly taking part in the Health Equity Can’t Wait! blog carnival celebrating National Minority Health Month. Participating bloggers are health, consumer, women’s rights, and provider advocates committed to promoting health equity.  You can find all the posts for the carnival here.

I am a woman, a first-generation American, and a person of color. I was raised by immigrant parents of South Asian descent who cared for me in the best possible way. As a person surviving at the intersection of many oppressions- sexism, racism, classism, and xenophobia- I know very intimately that a person’s wellbeing is impacted by the identities she carries. I also know that these identities can collude to create insurmountable predicaments.

This rings especially true in regards to health, one of the most basic human needs. When health care services are unaffordable, administered in culturally incompetent ways, and discriminate based on sex and gender, many people are shut out from receiving the care they need to live fully and with dignity. Shamefully, and unsurprisingly, it is the most vulnerable people who run up against the most barriers to health.

An Asian American or Pacific Islander (API) immigrant woman, for example, may be burdened by multiple structural discriminations. She may find that there aren’t any medical staff who can speak a language she understands. She may be further burdened by the sky-high costs of her doctor’s visit because her insurance company essentially charges her for being a woman- since pregnancy, domestic violence, and c-sections are considered “preexisting conditions.” Moreover, taboos around sex in her community may make her unaware of or reluctant to use contraception, elevating her risk for unplanned pregnancy.

And, of course, there is also interpersonal discrimination. She may not be given quality care or may be uncomfortable visiting a doctor’s office because of racist and anti-immigrant feelings toward her. She may even be burdened by a unique stereotyping faced by API community members- the myth of the model minority. That is, despite the fact that many API communities are struggling, we are lumped together under the blanket assumption that we are healthy, educated, and economically prosperous. As a result, many healthcare providers and policymakers are blind to the health concerns of API women.

At least in part due to the above barriers, API women can experience significant health disparities. For example, the rate of cervical cancer among Vietnamese Americans is five times higher than that for white women, representing the highest rate for any ethnic group.^[1]

Recognizing the tangled web woven by the multiple oppressions we face, and in an effort to keep API women from getting caught in it, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) is working to ensure that healthcare is delivered to our communities in culturally-competent ways that do not discriminate based on race, class, sex, gender, or sexual orientation. This is why we support the Health Equity and Accountability Act, or HEAA, introduced by leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, in collaboration with local communities and national health groups, to combat health care disparities. Building on the foundation of the Affordable Care Act, HEAA will improve the quality of care for immigrant women of color by making it easier to identify disparities through comprehensive data collection, ensuring workforce diversity, and making available culturally and linguistically appropriate health care services. 

If we are to improve health outcomes for communities like mine, we need solutions that take into account that we are not one-dimensional people. We are multi-faceted, and we need solutions that address our needs as whole people, affected by each identity we carry.

Shivana Jorawar is the Law Students for Reproductive Justice Fellow at the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. To contact Shivana, please e-mail sjorawar@napawf.org.

*For PDF version of Shivana’s article, click here.  

By Christine Soyong Harley, Policy and Programs Director, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum

The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum is proudly taking part in the Health Equity Can’t Wait! blog carnival celebrating National Minority Health Month.  Participating bloggers are health, consumer, women’s rights, and provider advocates committed to promoting health equity.  You can find all the posts for the carnival here.

When I was two years old, while my parents were on a date night, I found one of my grandmother’s sleeping pills and swallowed it. When my parents called to check in, my uncle told them that I was “acting funny.” My father tells me that after rushing home, they found me limp and unresponsive; I couldn’t even lift my head. They had to rush me to the hospital to have my stomach pumped. For some reason, my father’s light-hearted way of telling this story never conveyed the reality of that evening. Then, a few years ago, my mother told her version, and I could feel the fear of a first-time parent, not sure whether her only daughter was going to survive. For the first time, I could imagine what it must be like to be a parent when your child’s life is in danger. Fortunately, my parents can speak English, are US citizens, and could take me to the hospital. But for many in this country, that isn’t the case.

Fast forward thirty years and I’m sitting in a room full of women leaders from around the country who are participating in the We Belong Together campaign. We’ve descended on Atlanta, Georgia after the passage of HB 87 and are listening to women and youth tell us how this law, one of several anti-immigrant “papers please” laws that have been passed by states, has drastically impacted their lives. The law has led to widespread racial profiling and harassment by local police officers, and the women were sharing their stories of being afraid to take their children to school, to call the police to report a crime, and of being forcibly separated from their children and families.

As we listened to these women, one story stood out for me. Alicia told us about her daughter, who at the age of 1, began to experience seizures. Georgia’s law makes it illegal to drive without a license, so Alicia told us that the only time that she risks driving is when she must take her daughter to the hospital during a seizure or other serious illness. One time, while driving her daughter to the hospital, she was caught in a police check-point and it was only due to a stranger’s sympathy and willingness to drive, that she was able to get her daughter the health care that she needed.

Listening to Alicia, it is crystal clear that health care is a critical, basic human right and one that no person in this country- indigenous, citizen, or immigrant- should ever be forced to go without. At the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), we believe that health care, including access to women’s comprehensive reproductive and preventive health care services, is a human right. That is why we support the Health Equity and Accountability Act (HEAA), which builds on the Affordable Care Act to reduce barriers to health care for hard to reach populations and bring us one step closer to universal health care.

We know that some API communities are disproportionately less likely to have health insurance coverage and that many API women suffer from disparities in accessing preventive care services. As a result, some API women experience extraordinarily high rates of preventable diseases. Additionally, when approximately 60% of the API community is foreign-born, and many households speak English “not well,” we know that API patients with limited English proficiency struggle to communicate with health care providers. This affects their quality of care as well as their ability to understand prescription instructions and communicate about sensitive reproductive health matters.

These are health disparities that we have the resources, knowledge, and technology to prevent. No one should have to die from a preventable disease. No patient should have to worry that the language they speak will prevent them from telling their doctor what hurts. No parent should have to worry about being arrested for driving their infant child to the hospital for life-saving treatment.

At NAPAWF, we believe that health care is a human right and we are fighting to ensure that API women and other communities receive the health care they deserve.

*For PDF version of Christine Harley’s blog, click  here. 

*The Fierce Women I Know*

The Fierce Women I know
Have fled countries carrying nothing
But the memory of their homeland on their skin.

They have outlived world wars
Been bought, enslaved, persecuted
And denied the right to an education.

They have engaged in battles for their bodies
Witnessed power corrupt their families
And felt the force of a fist against flesh.

The Fierce Women I know
Have survived history’s attempts
To break us down and wipe us out.

They use their strength to rewrite what’s been miswritten about us
Fighting slogans and stereotypes
Stamped across our chests.

They roar from rooftops and cages
From City Hall to the steps of Congress
Demanding equal access to resources.
For everyone.

Fierce women know their own minds.
They call you out on your ignorance
And love you at the same time.

Fierce women know their own hearts
Though doubts may set in once in a while.
We take on too much
But we take care of one another.
We cry out in unison when our spirits are broken
And wander alone, together until grown enough to return home.

Fierce Women may hold grudges but we remain critical and conscious
Knowing the movement’s beyond us
And the time and space we occupy.

My Fierce Sisters and I misbehave and play outlaw
Bound to nothing and no one but to who we are.
We are survivors, community organizers, lawyers,
Students, poets, movers and shakers.
We are mothers, daughters, sisters, partners
Holding up the sky.

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The NAPAWF-DC Board shares their visions for the next 15 years of NAPAWF working to advance social justice and human rights for API women and girls.

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The National Governing Board of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum seeks energetic, visionary, fabulous, fierce nominations for new board members. Read our official announcement here!

NAPAWF’s Mission

Founded in 1995, NAPAWF’s mission is to build a movement to advance social justice and human rights for Asian and Pacific Islander (API) women and girls in the United States. NAPAWF implements our mission by increasing the leadership, political power and visibility of API women and girls through community and public education, advocacy, collaboration, and grassroots multi-issue organizing.

NAPAWF Priorities 2010-2012

NAPAWF’s current priorities are to expand the membership and visibility of the organization by building our grassroots membership, supporting strong chapters, and continuing to advocate and organize on policies that affect the lives of API women and girls.  As we embark on 2012 – the year of the Dragon: welcoming innovative ideas, happiness, and financial success! – One of our Board’s top priorities is revamping our organizational strategic plan in order to keep NAPAWF at the forefront of the social justice movement.  We are seeking committed visionary leaders that will bring passion, creativity, and innovative thoughts to the table as we move forward in elevating NAPAWF’s profile and strengthening our impact in the API community and beyond.

Board Responsibilities

Board members are crucial to the success of the organization. NAPAWF’s board members are expected to serve a term of three years. The focus of the board of directors is on governance and fund development. Members are expected to participate on bimonthly conference calls, and two face-to-face meetings a year.  In addition, members are expected to fundraise, serve on at least one committee, and act as ambassadors for NAPAWF.

NAPAWF has identified a few specific skills that we hope to bring onto the board.

1. Community organizing skills: NAPAWF seeks board members with seasoned organizing experience to assist with development of base building and advocacy campaigns.
2. Strategic communication skills: NAPAWF seeks board members with media and communications experience who can help expand NAPAWF’s message to wider audiences.
3. Public policy skills: NAPAWF seeks a board member with progressive policy expertise, immigration and reproductive justice focus a plus.

NAPAWF also seeks a diverse board and strongly encourages applications from women leaders living anywhere within the United States of Southeast Asian, South Asian, Japanese, Hapa, or Pacific Islander ethnicities and/or those who identify as LGBTQ.

Timeline:

• Nominations due by April 30, 2012
• Information sessions and interviews in April and May.
• National Governing Board approves board candidates in June 2012.
• New board members attend July 13 – 15, 2012 board member orientation and board meeting in Seattle, Washington.

To be nominated, please submit a completed nomination form to
boardnominations@napawf.org. You are absolutely free to, and invited
to, nominate yourself!

If you have any questions, please contact:
Miriam Yeung, Executive Director, at myeung@napawf.org

March 23, 2012

Today marks two years since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law. As it turns two, President Obama’s landmark health care reform will be challenged in the Supreme Court, and health advocates across the country are bracing themselves.
While questions of law remain unanswered, we do know the answer to what is, in my opinion, the most important question—“Who is at stake?”

Next week, as we witness what promises to be a historic Supreme Court case and the media blitz that will follow, we should think foremost of the people whose lives have been and will be improved.

For Asian American and Pacific Islander (API) women, the ACA is a giant leap forward. Like other women, we make less on average than our male counterparts, and are less likely than men to see a doctor because of cost. Moreover, API women are disproportionately reliant on Medicaid or are uninsured; thirty-one percent of Asians and a startling 45 percent of Pacific Islanders fall into this category, compared to just 26 percent of Caucasians.

Thanks to health care reform, more API women than ever before can take advantage of basic medical services for themselves and their families. In 2011, 2.7 million APIs became eligible for free preventive services, which starting in August will include mammograms, well-woman visits, well-child visits, flu shots, and birth control. More than half a million APIs have already used this coverage.

If the ACA survives constitutional challenges, the year 2014 will bring many more benefits for API women. The law will halt discriminatory insurance practices, banning insurers from denying us coverage based on so-called “preexisting conditions” like pregnancy, cesarean sections or domestic violence. Additionally, all new health care plans will be required to cover maternity care, and many insurers will no longer be permitted to charge us higher premiums than men.

Also in 2014, the ACA’s Medicaid expansion will make nearly 10 percent of Asian Americans and 55 percent of women newly eligible for comprehensive Medicaid coverage. The gains will be even more pronounced for certain ethnic groups.

Illustrating just how impactful health care reform is for women’s lives, Jenny Ton, a Vietnamese-American woman, told her personal, and powerful, story during a White House briefing coordinated by the National Asian and Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF). Bravely speaking through tears, Jenny shared how her mother, an immigrant to the U.S., was unknowingly relying on only one kidney for 25 years- a situation that could have become fatal. Without enough money of their own to pay for medical care, Medicaid was a blessing for the Ton family. Thanks to Medicaid benefits, Jenny’s mother lived to see her grow up and to see her grandchildren be born.

API women are critical beneficiaries of the ACA. For us, defending it means fighting for the health and lives of all those in our community without health insurance. It means defending ourselves from choosing between reproductive health care and putting food on the table. It means making sure we are not denied coverage simply because we are women, because companies would rather improve their bottom lines than our health.

At its core, the healthcare debate is about what—and who—we as a society choose to value. Next week, as this law becomes even more shrouded in political debate and legal jargon, I believe it is imperative that we keep the people who are at stake at the center of this conversation. The health and lives of millions of Americans depend on it.

Please submit a cover letter, resume, and brief writing sample to hr@napawf.org with “Immigrant Rights Project Manager” in the subject line. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

NAPAWF*Sacramento Board Sisters (left to right) Sondra, Mary June and Cecilia

My name is Mary June G. Flores. I am very excited and humbled to be a part of NAPAWF*Sacramento’s leadership this year. Before working as a full-time Legislative Aide in the office of Assemblymember Roger Hernández, I organized with various grassroots, community-based, non-profit Bay Area organizations to address pressing issues seen in low-income communities of color and immigrant communities. With these experiences, I understand the need to create, cultivate, and maintain safe and empowering spaces that allow us to work on issues impacting our communities.

I believe NAPAWF*Sacramento provides a valuable and focal space for individuals who are intentional about continued education and advocacy, and for individuals who are strategic about creating progressive change. I am ecstatic to build upon the momentum of NAPAWF*Sacramento and hope to do so this year.

Cecilia Tran (Treasurer)