The Legal Clinic- “Justice For Our Neighbors-Hawai‘i”

The Legal Clinic (TLC) provides confidential, compassionate and free immigration legal services to financially-eligible immigrants in Hawaiʻi, including COFA immigrants (from the Pacific islands nations of greater Micronesia, here through the Compacts of Free Association treaty). TLC also works closely with other immigrant-led and -serving organizations in advocacy and organizing. In particular, it has led an informal coalition called the Hawai‘i Coalition for Immigrant Rights united in advocacy and education for equal justice and community inclusion for immigrants.

Here's the Issue:

Hawai‘i’s state and local governments continually overlook their immigrant communities, leading to economic, political, and linguistic marginalization. Immigrants in Hawai‘i come from a wide range of countries—mostly Asian and Pacific Island nations—and speak many different languages. The diverse backgrounds, cultures, and languages are both a tremendous strength—adding richness to the state—and also a great challenge to community organizing and advocating for the needs of immigrant groups, particularly as some in the community may try to pit different immigrant groups against others. Many of these marginalized communities have organized themselves over the years and made their own voices heard, but the state’s shortcomings have persisted. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this has come into sharp focus. First, rates of COVID-19 in API immigrant communities, particularly Pacific Islander communities, were disproportionally high. Second, state language access failures resulted in civil rights denials and the inability to access safety net benefits. Finally, the recently published New American Economy (NAE) report found that Honolulu ranked 95 out of 100 in immigrant integration policies.

Our Solution:

The creation of a statewide immigrant advocacy coalition would address this issue by bringing the relevant stakeholders, grassroots leaders, service providers into regular discussion, unifying the voices of these communities that have not yet worked together. Hawai‘i has not had an immigrant-led and -serving organization that unites across immigrant groups and islands through a focus on building power through grassroots organizing, training youth, and flexing legislative campaign muscle across immigrant groups. In the wake of COVID, many task forces that temporarily brought these populations together will be disbanded. By continuing to gather them and pursue training, we will build on the lessons learned from the last year and raise a new generation of immigrant AA and PI leaders that can embrace their own uniqueness and power.

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

TLC has worked closely with other immigrant-led and -serving organizations over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic to 1) advocate for more inclusive state and local policies, particularly around language access, 2) provide COVID-19 relief services, and 3) promote indigent access to immigration legal services. In this work, TLC has worked with immigrants from many different immigrant communities, who speak different languages, and has collaborated with volunteers and partners across generations. TLC is the go-to non-profit in the state without federal funding restrictions working for immigrant justice in Hawai‘i.

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.