Fil-Am led health center gets $6M NY state grant

NEW YORK—A Filipino-American led community center is one of 37 recipients of funding from the New York State Department of Health’s safety net program.

The Department of Health’s Vital Access Provider/Safety Net Program, Phase II, awarded APICHA Community Health Center more than $6 million last month. The department recognized as an essential institution that fulfills the healthcare needs of underserved populations throughout the city.

The program is aimed at transforming the state’s healthcare system and increasing the availability of better health services for New Yorkers.

Safety net funds were awarded to hospitals, nursing homes, free standing clinics and home health establishments that have financial difficulties but are critical in the delivery of quality healthcare to communities across the state.

“We applaud the New York State Department of Health for acknowledging the essential role of organizations like APICHA have in addressing the need of healthcare access of New York’s most vulnerable communities,” says APICHA CEO Therese Rodriguez.

“Our decades of experience providing HIV prevention and care services have prepared us to be part of the solution to achieve the goals set by the New York State Department of Health of providing quality, cost-efficient healthcare,” Rodriguez adds.

For the past 23 years, APICHA has promoted awareness of and care for people living with HIV/AIDS in New York City. The center has grown from an HIV/AIDS coalition for Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs) to a health home that opened a Trans Health clinic in 2011.

As a Federally Qualified Health Center Look-Alike, APICHA provides general and HIV-specialty primary care, mental health and support services to underserved communities including those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, APIs and other people of color.

The safety net funding will be used over the next three years for enhanced financial and operational capacity, including hiring of additional primary care and mental health providers, support services staff and other essential administrative staff. The staff enhancement will enable to serve more people.

For more information about APICHA Community Health Center, log on to www.apicha.org.

source: globalnation.inquirer.net

Thousands expected at biggest Fil-Am arts fest in southern California

SAN PEDRO, California—Thousands are again expected to attend the Festival of Philippine Arts, one of the biggest annual events in this city. Organizers are counting on some 25,000 visitors and 500 artists to participate in what has come to be known as FPAC.

The celebration of Filipino culture through art, film, dance, poetry, literature and food marks its 22nd year on Sept. 7 and 8 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Point Fermin Park. Organizers have also launched a new storytelling program that began last July 20.

FilAm ARTS (Association for the Advancement of Filipino American Arts and Culture), the premier Filipino-American organization in Southern California, hosts the event whose theme this year is “For Community, by Community.”

The first FPAC was held in 1992 at Los Angeles City College, days after the Los Angeles “Rodney King riots.” It was part of a project conceived by Los Angeles County along with hundreds of artists and community leaders to help the city heal through cultural gatherings.

Since then, FPAC has become a staple in LA’s cultural programming, welcoming tens of thousands of attendees and hundreds of artists and volunteers. Last year’s headliners included Apl.de.Ap of Black Eyed Peas, comedian Rex Navarrete, R&B and Pop Fil-Am singing group Legaci and the Filipino-American Symphony Orchestra.

New storytelling project

FilAm Arts also unveiled a new storytelling program called The Saysay Project at the Echo Park Library Community Hall on July 20. The pilot event aims to become an outlet for a multicultural community to tell their personal stories in an intimate setting. It also wants to relate the experiences of Filipino-Americans from different perspectives. The Tagalog word “saysay” means two things: to have intrinsic value and to narrate.

Jilly Canizares, executive director of FilAm ARTS, said that many tales are left untold after big events such as FPAC, and people often forget to reflect on their experiences. “Because we’re going so fast, the need to share stories is important,” Canizares said. “We need to bridge the gaps.”

Leading the event was writer and performer Giovanni Ortega, author of the play “Allos: The Story of Carlos Bulosan,” which was presented at East West Players, and Leaves from the Silverlake Barrio, a compilation of poems and stories about growing up in the Philippines and  the US.

Ortega led a group of 40 people in discussions of childhood, living in the US and encounters with racism. The attendees came from an array of backgrounds—recent immigrants, first-generation Americans, Hapas (half-whites from Hawaii), mainland Filipinos, military kids and children of manual laborers.

The Saysay Project together with Philippine Consul General also launched an online essay and video contest for elementary and high school students. Students can submit an essay or video to describe an experience that made a positive impact on their identity as Filipino American. Six grand prize winners and 100 honorable storytellers can win cash and a chance to perform at this year’s FPAC.

source: globalnation.inquirer.net

Fil-Am lawyer: Obama's deportation record worse than Bush's

President Obama has been sending “mixed signals” on immigration, said lawyer Cristina Godinez.

What’s even more grating to this immigration attorney is that Obama has not delivered on his campaign promise and that his administration has deported more people than the previous government of George Bush.

Four years after he vowed to fix the broken US immigration system as a presidential candidate, “his administration has yet to deliver on his campaign promise,” said Godinez at a February 26 Café Migrante discussion in Queens organized by the Philippine Forum.

“Instead, there have been more deportations under Obama than there have been in the two full presidential terms of George Bush,” she said.

It looks like the same focus will continue. To illustrate, Godinez pointed out that the Department of Homeland Security budget proposal next year is quite revealing. The budget allocates six times more money to immigration enforcement agencies than to its agency that grants immigration benefits to non-citizens, she said.

The enforcement agency Customs and Border Protection is allocated 21 percent of the proposed 2013 budget, according to Godinez, and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement 10 percent. Contrast that with the US Citizenship and Immigration Service that processes visas, green cards and citizenships, which is earmarked a “measly” 5 percent of the budget.

“This reflects the US government’s immigration priorities,” she said.

Godinez said, “America proudly declares itself a nation of immigrants and yet forces some 11 million people to live in the shadows as undocumented persons by ‘congressional default.’”

She defined “congressional default” as the failure of the U.S. Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform law that reflects social and economic realities.

“It has resulted in a confused patchwork of state and local immigration laws and an enforcement-heavy immigration policy on the federal level,” she explained further.

Immigrants, she warned, have the power to influence the outcome of this year’s election. Citing a 2011 study from the Pew Hispanic Center, Godinez said that one in eight Americans is an immigrant. She also noted the economic power of the foreign-born population, citing a study by the Selig Center of Economic Growth in the University of Georgia. The purchasing power of the Latino and Asian communities in 2010 reached $1.544 trillion, according to the report.

“Immigrants have the number and the resources,” she said. - The FilAm

source: gmanetwork.com

Fil-American Talent Tries Local Showbiz

MANILA, Philippines — Filipino-American talent Hansen Nichols is out to give local showbiz a try. This former PDA “scholar” has the looks (thanks to his Irish-Spanish-Filipino lineage) and the talent to make it.

His name may not ring a bell yet to most, but not to viewers of ABS-CBN’s “Pinoy Dream Academy (PDA).”

“It makes me happy and excited to know they somehow remember me from my ‘PDA’ stint,” Hansen said in a recent interview at Sir Boy’s Food Republique in Quezon City.

Hansen also announced he will have a solo concert on March 14 at Metrobar-West Ave.

“Hansen at the Metro” will see the upstart singing “We Found Love,” “Just The Way You Are,” “Kahit Isang Saglit,” “Minsan Lang Kita Iibigin,” among others.

Hansen, who was born and raised in California, credits his fluency in Filipino Tagalog to The Filipino Channel (TFC). “Even as a young boy, mahilig na ako manood ng mga teleserye at Tagalog movies. I listen to the dialog of the stars and I learned how to speak Tagalog through them,” he related.

Hansen is a cancer survivor. He had thyroid cancer but he was lucky he has been cured and has been on remission for years now.

“Hansen at the Metro” is presented by Sir Boy’s Food Republique and La Carmela de Boracay.

article source: mb.com.ph

Two Fil-Am cylists get Olympic boost

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines’ bid to send more athletes to the 2012 London Olympics got a boost when the US Olympic Committee granted permission to Filipino-American cyclists Alexis Vergara and Daniel Caluag to represent the country in international competitions leading to the Games.

At the same time, the Usoc, in a letter sent to Philcycling president Abraham “Bambol” Tolentino and Philippine Olympic Committee secretary general Stephen Hontiveros recently, noted that the USA Cycling has also given its approval for the two BMX riders to compete under a Philippine UCI license.

With the assurances, Tolentino, the mayor of Tagaytay City, will field Vergara and Caluag to the Asian BMX Championship, a qualifier for the Olympics, slated in Hong Kong on March 3.

Tolentino had requested for the clarification of the status of Vergara and Caluag to avoid a repetition of the incident in last November’s Palembang Southeast Asian Games, where Vergara and Daniel Caluag were barred from competing in the West Java cycling event because they held dual UCI licenses from both the US and the Philippines.

What irked Tolentino then was the fact that Vergara, once ranked ninth in the US Elite Pro Tour, and Caluag, a four-time BMX national No. 1 BMX pro, were already on the entry list of cycling a day before their events.

According to Tolentino, the real reason for their disqualification was because they did well during the trial runs and were gold medal threats.

source: http://sports.inquirer.net/34997/two-fil-am-cylists-get-olympic-boost