By Nasim Khansari, Citizenship Network Manager
In celebration of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Los Angeles commemorated significant figures in the Asian American community throughout the month of May. Among the most notable are Asian Americans seeking citizenship. Becoming a U.S. citizen is the last step toward full integration into American society and Advancing Justice - LA has been striving to make citizenship services accessible to Asian American immigrant communities for over 25 years.
This year, we commemorated APA Heritage Month by hosting our second annual Pan-Asian citizenship workshop on May 31 in partnership with the Los Angeles Public Library and our partner community-based organizations, Filipino American Service Group, Korean Resource Center, and South Asian Network. This event was especially exciting for participants because we also had the support of the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, who attended the workshop to greet participants.
Of the nearly two million immigrants residing in Los Angeles who are eligible to naturalize, approximately 750,000 are Asian American. Mayor Garcetti’s support of APA Heritage Month and our citizenship workshop attest to the increasing influence of Asian Americans on the political system. Mayor Garcetti spoke to a crowd of more than 100 immigrants about the importance of naturalization. He also shared his family immigration story, of his grandfather who immigrated to the United States from Mexico.
He started his speech by greeting the crowd in nearly 15 different languages and ended the speech by congratulating all participants on taking one of the most important steps in their lives toward truly becoming an integrated member of U.S. society. His support of the immigrant community of Los Angeles is welcomed by Advancing Justice - LA and we look forward to working with the mayor and his new Office of Immigrant Affairs on advocating for greater accessibility to naturalization in the coming years.
All in all, the day ended with over 120 attendees taking part in the workshop. The participants hailed from nearly 20 different countries ranging from the Philippines to Sri Lanka to Japan to Indonesia, Peru, and even Palestine. Language assistance was provided in 10 different languages, and nearly 20 children, who will automatically become citizens because of the steps their parents took through our workshop, were on hand.
