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HANA Center – Citizenship, Immigration, Housing & Legal Services

Visit the HANA Center website for more information on all of their citizenship, immigration, housing & legal services: https://www.hanacenter.org/ihls

As a DOJ recognized organization, the HANA Center assist immigrants at varying stages of the immigration process, providing a wide array of application services: citizenship, adjustment of status, Consular processing, family petition, re-entry permit, and the smaller steps in between (passport, interpretation and “Green Card” renewal and replacement.

As a Housing and Urban Development-certified housing counseling agency, HANA Housing Services address barriers to affordable housing faced by Korean and other immigrants through one-on-one counseling, information, and referral services. We also host workshops in related areas. The goal of the program is to aid immigrants with limited English proficiency (LEP) to access affordable housing resources and understand tenant-landlord rights & fair housing law. HANA Housing Services help low to moderate income families remain in their homes via financial planning or even post-purchase education. Our housing program also assists LEP seniors in exploring housing options through public housing lists and aids in completing their senior housing applications.

HANA Center administers the IDHS’s Welcoming Center’s Housing and Utility Assistance Project, which was established to provide temporary emergency assistance to immigrants, refugees, and Limited English Proficient (LEP) individuals who have experienced a COVID-19 related financial hardship between March 1, 2020 and December 30, 2020.

FREE LEGAL CLINIC – Our free legal clinic volunteer attorneys provide initial direction and advice in Spanish, Korean, and English. Immigrants have great difficulty in accessing or understanding the United States legal system. In addition to the significant monetary barrier for low income families, immigrants also face difficulties in securing legal services that are linguistically and culturally competent. They are often left with no option but self-representation, despite having no legal training or support. This situation too often results in individuals unable to communicate with court officers, and being unable to read and interpret court documents/notices. To address this base language barrier, they often bring friends or their children to provide translation. Nevertheless, because these translators are also unfamiliar with legal terminology, interpretations are often fraught with errors. While low-income immigrants have a great need for legal services (particularly in the areas of immigration, housing, credit and finance, domestic violence, and employment law), they are unable to meet these challenges.

 

 

Letters for Black Lives

Letters for Black Lives is an open letter project on anti-Blackness.

“Letters for Black Lives is a set of crowdsourced, multilingual, and culturally-aware resources aimed at creating a space for open and honest conversations about racial justice, police violence, and anti-Blackness in our families and communities.”

“We began as a group of Asian Americans and Canadians writing an intergenerational letter to voice our concerns and support for the Black community. We have since grown to include other immigrant groups and communities of color. Our goal is to listen, support, and amplify the message of Black Lives Matter within our communities.”

“We encourage people from all communities to adapt and build off of these resources.”

Visit the website at https://lettersforblacklives.com/

BLM | #Talk about Trayvon Toolkit (Spanish)

Read the entire Toolkit in Spanish here

Materiales Digital de la Campaña para Organizadores y Activistas Negro y de Color en el Quinto Aniversario de la Muerte de Trayvon Martin

La campaña digital de #TrayvonMeEnseñó explica el comienzo del movimiento Black Lives Matter (Vidas Negra Importan) y cómo el asesinato extrajudicial de Trayvon y el compromiso de su familia de poner fin a la violencia armada y fortalecer las comunidades motivó a una generación de organizadores y activistas a tomar acción por las vidas de la comunidad negra. Cinco años más tarde, las mismas condiciones que resultaron en la muerte de Trayvon se han exacerbado bajo la administración de Trump. La anti-negritud es omnipresente e implícita, y los niños y adultos negros siguen siendo sometidos a juicio por nuestros propios asesinatos.
Las percepciones de los negros y la negritud en América, y en el mundo, han resultado en una ausencia de reconocimiento de las contribuciones culturales únicas de los negros. Además, perpetúan los prejuicios, la policía letal, la legislación racista y la violencia interpersonal. La muerte de Trayvon Martin provocó un movimiento. #TrayvonMeEnseñó nos permite captar cómo él y el movimiento cambio todas nuestras vidas.

Reviving Sisterhood | COVID-19 Resources in South Asian Languages

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood for Empowerment has created a variety of resource materials in various South Asian languages, including:

  • Ramadan Guides from the Minnesota Department of Health in three different languages
  • Video tutorials  – We know COVID-19 has exacerbated the barriers to healthcare that many refugee and immigrant populations face. Church World Service (CWS) worked with medical professionals and community experts from refugee communities in the United States to create informational videos in 11 languages, many of which are spoken by communities that don’t have COVID-19 information specifically tailored for them.