This past Saturday morning, our home doorbell rang, and I sprang up with the expectation of greeting someone interested in trimming our mesquite trees or painting our house (both of which do need to be done). However, to my surprise, I found myself greeting Dr. Leland Fairbanks. Dr. Fairbanks is a retired physician well known in Arizona for his tireless work in tobacco control. Indeed, he is a public health icon and one of my local heroes.
He handed me a set of campaign brochures for various candidates for Tempe City Council and patiently explained why he supported each candidate. I listened to him for a bit, thanked him for his information, and assured him that I would be voting in the upcoming election.
We had actually met at an Arizona Public Health Association meeting many years ago, but I don’t believe he remembered me. So, before he walked off, I felt compelled to express my admiration for his past work. But before I could utter anything, he noticed the name on our door (“Casa de Hirano”) and commented that a woman with the last name of “Hirano” used to work on tobacco control with the state health department. I confirmed that my wife Rosalie had directed the state tobacco control program in the late 1990s. He smiled and said to say “hello” and then ambled off to visit with my neighbors.
I recount this story not as a chance encounter with a public health icon, but because I was so inspired that a man in his early 80s was going door to door on a Saturday morning advocating for things in which he believes. If anyone has earned a leisurely Saturday morning, it is he. I promised myself that on Monday morning I would make a few phone calls in support of a hepatitis B funding bill currently under consideration by Congress. Please consider taking a moment in the upcoming week to advocate for something you believe in.
We were recently asked to join other Asian American community members in a press conference demanding the resignation of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. One may wonder why an agency with a mission towards health improvement would want to go out on a limb against a county sheriff. I’m providing the text of my comments as an explanation:
My name is Doug Hirano. I am the executive director of the Asian Pacific Community in Action. We’re a non-profit agency that works on behalf of the rapidly growing Asian American and Pacific Islander community to ensure that they have equal access to the health services and information that can help them achieve good health.
Since 2002, we’ve helped thousands of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders get immunized, get screened for life-threatening diseases, and find a regular source of medical care. All of our programs are tailored to serve first generation immigrants and refugees facing real challenges of poverty, language, education and unemployment. In our 10 years of service, our work has taught us the power of grassroots advocacy, and so we also work to promote policies and practices that are fair to the needs of all Asian American and Pacific Islander individuals -- regardless of country of origin or citizenship status.
It has become clear that the policies and practices of the Sheriff’s Office are a problem for communities of color, including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, many of whom are recent immigrants and refugees. Many of our service recipients come to the United States seeking a just and fair society. Unfortunately, the discrimination, racial profiling and unconstitutional retaliatory actions taken by the Sheriff’s Office are reminiscent of the policies and actions for which they originally left their home countries.
We are concerned that our community members are not seeking the government services they need and are entitled to because of the hostile and fear inducing atmosphere created by the Sheriff’s Office. Data indicate that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are over-represented among the very poor, but do not utilize government-funded services such as behavioral health care, cancer screening and nutrition services proportionate to their population size. For an agency charged with improving the health and well being of our communities, this is unacceptable.
We believe that government services and policies are meant to level the playing field for all. We believe that law enforcement must protect everyone’s safety and rights equally. We believe in equal access to justice. Under Sheriff Joe Arpaio, none of these beliefs can be realized. Change is demanded.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” We therefore request that Sheriff Joe Arpaio resign from office immediately. Thank you.
The Asian Pacific Community in Action recently held a birthday party for the Affordable Care Act, which was passed on March 23, 2010. That same day, we stopped by Congressman Ed Pastor’s office to drop off a small birthday cake and express our community’s support of the ACA.
Both of these activities were atypical for us, as we are often focused on directly providing health education and clinical services to our populations of interest. However, this recent advocacy work is a taste of things to come. In the coming months, we will be exercising our right and obligation to speak up for the rights and interests of our communities. If we don’t, who will?
“In Germany they first came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me – and by that time, no one was left to speak up.”
I took a few spare moments this morning to watch a YouTube video of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interviewing a fellow named Rick Berman, president of Berman and Company, a Washington DC public affairs firm. I didn’t pick this video randomly. I’ve been meaning to watch it for some time now because I know someone who works for Berman and Company, and I occasionally have a chance to chat with her about her work.
By way of background, Berman and Company is paid to represent the interests of various industries and their related products: tobacco, high fructose corn syrup, and alcohol, to name a few. As such, they conduct marketing campaigns against such things as increases in the minimum wage, health care reform, and smoking bans. You get the idea. By all accounts, they’re very good at what they do.
In the interview, Rachel Maddow accuses Mr. Berman of using an additional and unethical tactic: forming non-profit organizations (e.g., Center for Consumer Freedom, Center for Union Facts, and the American Beverage Institute) as front groups from which to lobby the interests of well-heeled industry donors. Rachel’s point is that the anonymity involved in donating to non-profit agencies allows big business and other special interests to remain at arms length in their support of Berman and Company’s edgier, no-holds-barred public opinion campaigns. In addressing this accusation, Mr. Berman correctly points out that non-profit agencies representing “the left” have the same right to withhold donor identities. There was much more to the interview, but suffice it to say Mr. Berman emerged relatively unscathed.
While I might be aghast at the company Mr. Berman keeps (i.e., the tobacco, alcohol and food industries, among others), I’m wondering why those of us working to improve the public’s health don’t have a similar public affairs machine. Berman’s group produces TV, magazine and newspaper ads, writes op-ed pieces, creates websites, testifies at hearings across the nation, conducts client training, and otherwise takes an aggressive approach towards influencing public opinion in a variety of areas. Where is the public opinion campaign to ensure healthy food access in poor neighborhoods, to expand culturally accessible health care, or to ensure that kids get sufficient physical activity and healthy food while at school? I would argue that we cannot afford not to have such support, and until we do, the public is apt to listen to whoever has the megaphone.
As a footnote to the Maddow interview, I did my own bit of research and discovered that Mr. Berman has not only created several non-profit organizations, but he serves as the President of each agency, and also contracts a significant portion of agency revenue to his own for-profit firm for “management fees”. This practice would seem to allow industry donors both to remain anonymous and to take receive tax breaks for non-profit donations that eventually make their way to a for-profit company. It’s also interesting that there doesn’t appear to be a conflict of interest in Mr. Berman and his various non-profit boards of directors agreeing to contract large sums of money to Mr. Berman’s own agency. I’m not an attorney, but there’s something not right there.
One is five Americans suffers from a disability. For those of us working in the public health arena, we sometimes neglect to factor issues surrounding disability into our equation of overall wellness and health. Disabilities directly impact our ability to work with communities on other health issues, such as tobacco use, physical activity, and breast cancer screening. I’m glad that my friend, Jean Lin, and her colleagues with Asians and Pacific Islanders with Disabilities of California are actively providing leadership, education and advocacy related to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders with disabilities. They are sponsoring a conference in Long Beach, California on October 29 -30 that no doubt will be well worth attending.
For our part, we’ve just begun to address disability issues among local AAPIs. For instance, earlier this year, our staff member, Ms. Emma Ditsworth, conducted a training entitled “Living Well with Disabilities” at the Chinese Senior Center. This series of workshops utilizes an evidence-based curriculum that focuses on providing the information and skills to assist disabled individuals in optimizing their health and wellness. To our knowledge, Emma conducted the first ever Chinese-language version of this workshop. For more information about this workshop, feel free to contact Emma at (480) 452-5771 or at emma@apcaaz.org (She’s currently on vacation, so make a note to contact her after she’s back in early August).
The mission of the Asian Pacific Community in Action is to improve the health and well being of the Asian Pacific Islander community in Maricopa County through empowerment, health promotion and disease prevention.
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