Taking Care of Our Seniors: A List of Organizations Serving AAPI Elderly

Image credit: China Daily.

Thank you, Hyphen readers, for your amazing support for our
AAPI elderly! After the article Taking
Care of Our Seniors was published last week, many of you asked for a
list of organizations that serve AAPI elderly across the U.S. to find out where you can
volunteer, donate, and offer other means of support. We put out a crowdsourcing
call on Facebook for suggestions for organizations in your area, and you all delivered.
Thank you so much!

Below is a list of organizations pulled together from your suggestions.
It’s incomplete -- and, with my own additions, Chicago-heavy -- so we
invite you to add more suggestions in the comments and on Facebook, and I’ll continue to update the list here. A Place for Mom, a free national resource that
assists caregivers in finding seniors places to live, also just published an
article in their newsletter about the rise of assisted living communities for
Asian American seniors. You can read it here.

And remember, while it’s important to do what we can to
serve our elderly, it’s just as important to involve them in the community
and encourage them to volunteer in turn. Hannah Kang, volunteer coordinator at KANWIN,
a Chicago organization that serves immigrant survivors of domestic violence, is
planning an outreach campaign to educate local seniors about domestic violence -- including elderly abuse. “It’s important to involve them in these issues so
that they feel empowered and connected to society,” she says. Jisun Sohn, MSW, Deputy Executive Director of Hanul Family
Alliance, also emphasizes the importance of educating seniors about community
issues and involving them as volunteers:

Taking them to nearby senior
centers so that they can interact with other elderly people is important
because it is so easy to develop depression when they feel they are alone and
no longer productive members of the society. Many elderly people in the AAPI
community are more used to “getting” but not that used to the idea of “giving,”
because many of them struggled [with] poverty and hardship in their own
countries when emigrating to the U.S. With all my respect for their hard work
and dedication to support their children, I am a strong believer in
volunteerism, which is one of the most effective ways to keep our elderly
healthier and active. I see many living examples at our agency.

Let’s keep supporting our elderly
in every way we can! Together we can make a huge difference in their lives and in our communities.

National and regional
resources

AAPCHO, a national association of AAPI-serving community
health organizations --a list of current members is available here.
Advancing Justice LA (offers a list of AAPI
community organizations by state)
Asian American Federation -- see the directory of AAF
member agencies
Asian Pacific Fund's directory of national AAPI
organizations
Asian Women in Business has a great list
of AAPI organizations by state, including many social services agencies
JA Yellow Pages has a list of organizations
serving seniors throughout California, with a focus on the Japanese American community
National Asian Pacific Center on Aging