Asian Media Access

Established in 1992, Asian Media Access (AMA) is an organization dedicated to using multimedia and technology for social betterment. AMA utilizes comprehensive strategies to enrich lives, especially for immigrant/refugee youth. The mission of AMA is to “Connect the Disconnected.” Essentially, AMA exists to provide available opportunities for people to use multimedia technology to engage in healthy and creative activities, so that they can participate in the decision-making process and to resist negative socioeconomic pressures.

Here's the Issue:

Lack of culturally- and linguistically-appropriate information to support limited English proficiency (LEP) AAPIs.
Lack of AAPI’s voices in most multimedia platforms and channels, although AAPIs have the highest rates of technology access, cell-phone ownership, and at-home internet access in the US.
AAPIs shy away from active communication, due to cultural teaching – “Silence is a Virtue.” Often AAPIs choose not to engage in communicating Pan-Asian issues despite working hard internally to overcome barriers, not sharing our progress with the general public.
AAPI youth are discouraged from opportunities in public speaking and showcasing their talents; often AAPIs do not recognize that voicing our opinions is not showing off, but a way join the participatory decision-making process, and is a basic democratic right for everyone in order to better build a safe, supportive environment together for all of us.

Our Solution:

Sharing our voice widely and training AAPI youth as cultural brokers to speak up and produce content in both English and heritage languages through diverse multimedia tools.
Establishing a multi-lingual digital presence featuring localized as well as interdependent AAPI contents and information, supported by trained AAPI cultural brokers and diverse local partners, to deepen public understanding of the benefits of AAPI inclusion.
Developing an Asian-Pacific Minnesotan (APM) TV. The APM TV will be built on youtube, through an Asian American Community Influencer Network in partnership with Asian and mainstream media networks in MN. APM TV will feature multi-cultural, multi-lingual entertainment and health promotional information with language-specific playlists that present original content to connect AAPIs with our content providers, community-based partners and media affiliates. We hope this CULTURETAINMENT reaches all Asian Pacific Minnesotans on social media in addition to millions more in podcasting, streaming video and print distribution.

We're the right people to do the work because:

Serving average 15,000+ low income members, 500+ youth and 1,200+ families a year, Asian Media Access (AMA) has more than 27 years of experience in researching, developing and/or adapting communications strategies for specific cultural and language groups such as American Indians, Africans, African Americans, Southeast Asians and Hispanics. AMA demonstrated its ability in researching, developing and/or adapting communications strategies for specific cultural and language groups. AMA has produced media campaigns in multimedia formats in Chinese, Hmong, Khmer, Korean, Somali, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese and English languages, etc. Many agencies choose to work with us because of our specific strengths in communicating intercultural issues to the general public.

With our abundant multimedia experience, and on-going showcasing the broader societal impact with AAPI’s contributions through English and Heritage languages, AMA is the right group with right mission at the right timing to support APM TV.

Manisha G. Bewtra, AICP

Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor to Tucson Mayor Regina Romero

Manisha Bewtra, AICP (she/her) is Mayor Romero’s Planning, Mobility, and Development Advisor. In this role, she leverages her passion for planning for thriving, healthy, and inclusive communities with her love for policy-making and politics as the Mayor’s liaison on transportation and land use issues. Manisha is an experienced public process facilitator and project manager and works collaboratively with the Mayor’s team and city departments to apply an equity lens to all city initiatives.
Manisha has built her career on bringing divergent perspectives together, facilitating conversations around change, and generating data-informed solutions that move communities forward. She is driven by public service and champions equitable policies and inclusive community engagement.
Prior to her current role, she worked at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in Boston as a senior regional planner and the manager of the analytics team, at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership where she was a statewide technical assistance provider, as an adjunct city planning instructor for Master’s degree program courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and at Arizona State University, and in municipal government and nonprofit community development organizations in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Chandler, Arizona.
Manisha has served on various equity-focused organizations and committees and is a graduate of Emerge Massachusetts, the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership, and the Massachusetts Commonwealth Seminar, three organizations dedicated to training underrepresented groups to influence public policy and to run for office. She has a Master of City Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a BA in Economics and Art from The University of Iowa, and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She currently serves as a member at large for the American Planning Association Arizona Southern Section and is a member of the executive team for the Asian American and Political Islander Caucus for the Arizona Democratic Party.
Before moving to Tucson in the summer of 2020, she lived in the Boston area for twelve years. During her years in Melrose, Massachusetts, she served as a Human Rights Commissioner and subsequently as a City Councilor. When elected to the Melrose City Council, she became the first person of color ever to serve in elected office in Melrose. She grew up in Iowa and identifies as Desi/Indian-American. She, her husband, and her son felt welcomed and right at home in Tucson when they moved here – even in spite of a pandemic and searing summer heat.

Arnie Saiki

research, writer, program director

Broadly focusing on regional economic and geopolitical themes in the Asia and Pacific regions, Arnie Saiki is currently leading a working group on data, statistics and valuation in the Pacific. His book “Economic and Ecological Accounting: Towards Intemerate Values,” was published last year by the Pacific Conference of Churches, the Pacific Theological College and the University of the South Pacific.

Since the publication, this campaign has been introduced to the Ecological and Economic Justice program at the World Council of Churches and he is participating in a G8 Interfaith forum for the inclusion of Wellbeing indicators into our economic accounts.

While national statistics and ecological accounting normally fall under the purview of government, academic or international institutions, Arnie has been campaigning in democratizing our ecological data, seeking support for a proof-of-concept accounting program that would enable poor, impacted, and indigenous peoples to actively participate in how we account for our socio and economic biodiversity. Intemerate Accounting is an equation that helps to correct accounting disparities that have, to a large extent, excluded the Global South. Revising our accounting system can provide access and opportunities that cross wide campaign sectors, bringing hope, action and efficacy to reverse climate change, restore our ecological biodiversity, and redistribute global wealth more equitably.

Arnie has been actively promoting and working on global justice campaigns since 2007 when he received a “We the People” grant from the Hawai’i Council of the Humanities for his work on Hawai’i Statehood. He has organized conferences with Hawaiian national independence groups, managed the Save Rapanui campaign after the Chilean military forced a lockdown of Easter Islanders. Arnie spoke at the World Bank representing the Pacific Island Forum, and participated in discussions around regionalism in the Pacific. He was recently appointed the US-Pacific Diplomacy and Solidarity Mission for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), and is on the management team of the Deep Seabed Mining Campaign.

In 2011, Arnie received the blessing from Dr. Kekuni Blaisdell to organize a counter-conference in Honolulu while APEC was there and coordinated the Moana Nui conferences, an international partnership between the International Forum on Globalization and Pua Mohala I Ka Po. For the last ten years he has been campaigning on issues around trade, development, ecological resources, indigenous issues and militarization in the Pacific.

His essays, “TPP at the End of the Line: a briefing on economic cooperation and capacity building” was published in American Quarterly by John Hopkins University Press, and “Manifesting the Liquid Continent,” was published by Yunnan National University, as part of the 1st International conference on Asia and Pacific Ethnology and Anthropology.