Micronesians united

It’s called the Compact of Free Association (COFA), meaning that citizens of those Micronesian countries can migrate to the U.S. without the usual visas or other documents. Getting to Hawaii is easy.

Living in Hawaii, or anywhere in the U.S., is hard. What the COFA migrants need, and soon will be getting, is help in making the transition a little easier. That help may come in various forms — including the possibility of a charter school (see story, Page E4).

But the immediate boost has come in the form of federal grants aimed at helping to create a “one-stop” center to help Micronesians navigate a Western culture and social system that is foreign to them. The bulk of the money so far was announced Friday by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which awarded $250,000 toward the establishment of such a center in Hawaii.

The official recipient of the funds is an existing nonprofit, Partners in Development Foundation, a group with a Native Hawaiian support mission but which has been tapped to mentor a new Micronesian advocacy group: We Are Oceania. That group, say its founders, will work collectively with myriad other grassroots organizations that have coalesced around migrant concerns.

“We are all one people with one mission, and that is to be able to navigate and be successful in our new environment,” said Josie Howard, director of We Are Oceania and a migrant from Chuuk, part of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).

Nations covered by COFA comprise the FSM, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau. Under that accord, COFA citizens are denied some of the assists that new immigrants can get.

Once they arrive, the barriers can seem insurmountable. Many come to America for health care, but those arriving after 1996, when a federal reform reclassified residents of COFA nations in the U.S. as “nonqualified aliens,” no longer were eligible for federally funded care under Medicaid. The basic health coverage they get is insufficient to what many of them need.

Neither do the new migrants qualify for most welfare benefits or Social Security, although taxes taken from their paychecks go into those funds.

They can get public housing, but the units are in short supply, as are the jobs that help pay the bills. Many are among the homeless families camping on the streets of Honolulu.

Language barriers can lead them astray in understanding the terms of their lease and any number of obligations. They can land in trouble, and in court, where there are more language barriers and little guidance.

Micronesian communities themselves are culturally diverse: The FSM alone comprises four separate states and even more languages, and all are factors that have kept them fragmented.

But recently they have come together under various organizations, such as COFA-CAN, Micronesians United and others, especially around issues of health care and housing. The hope is that the new organization will have more support to assist Micronesians in thriving here, Howard said, and without sacrificing their own cultural touchstones.

After her own arrival more than two decades ago, Howard started out at University of Hawaii-Hilo with a goal of medical school. Later, she said, she realized there was work to do in the social-service and cultural realm.

“When I started learning about our history of diseases, I realized our biggest problem is with changing our mentality now,” she said. “With chronic diseases, it’s all about changing lifestyle and going back to valuing our way. Our food, our diet.”

The departure from the traditional Pacific diet began after World War II, she said, with the influx of federal surplus food supplies — largely canned goods. Micronesians often would fish and then sell that healthier protein source to purchase Spam and other high-fat foods, she said.

All of the health problems and other issues Micronesians confront have an impact on the states where they migrate, and Hawaii gets the lion’s share of those impacts.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced the latest award of federal impact aid to Hawaii, about $12.7 million for the current fiscal year. This is Hawaii’s share of the roughly $30 million authorized for impact aid nationally, according to an Aug. 7 letter from Esther Kia‘aina, assistant secretary for insular affairs.

In addition, Kia‘aina wrote, Hawaii is eligible for a supplemental grant of $1.2 million for educational services. And she signaled that the door is open for more assistance.

“I look forward to working with you and Hawaii’s congressional delegation on long-term strategies to address the issue of Compact impact aid, many of which would require statutory changes,” she added.

Community leaders already are taking hope in recent developments, primarily the $250,000 Interior grant. Census data in 2013 estimated that 14,700 migrants are from the Compact nations. An estimated 17,170 live on Guam, which is receiving a similar grant. In total, Guam and Hawaii governments have spent roughly $100 million to $150 million on public assistance in recent years, according to Friday’s news release.

The center “will serve as a central physical and electronic resource center linking the various Micronesian communities living in Hawaii with public services and other resources in a way that is culturally sensitive and appropriate,” according to the release. “The initial focus of the center will be in the areas of health, education, housing and homelessness, as well as labor.”

We Are Oceania is beginning work on establishing the one-stop center in a small office on the property of St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church, where many Micronesians are parishioners. Its pastor, the Rev. David Gierlach, has been in the thick of advocacy work on behalf of the migrants, including the initial plans for the one-stop center.

That work began a year ago, he said, and the first federal grant of $75,000 enabled the hiring of Howard and Keola Diaz, who are Palauan, as its first staffers, working on a part-time basis.

“The idea was to provide a single resource area to get information,” Gierlach said. “The challenges are fantastic. It’s not only a language issue. It’s translating the cultural norms that is the real challenge.

“They come from a sub-culture, and the culture is extremely family-oriented, a subsistence culture,” he added. “They come to the U.S., which is a cash-based society.

“To me it’s a lot like getting off a spaceship from Mars.”

Partners in Development Foundation offers programs aimed at helping Hawaiians who are economically or socially challenged to overcome them by tapping their own cultural resources. PIDF is in a three-year contract to mentor We Are Oceania to gain its own official nonprofit status and run its own programs and services.

“I’m so proud that the Hawaiian culture and our struggles have helped Josie and her colleagues to understand that they have the same struggles,” said Jan Hanohano Dill, president and chairman of the board of the foundation.

“Not that we have the answers, but we can at least struggle together on the issues, because they are similar issues. It’s an issue of self-esteem, it’s an issue of sustainability, it’s an issue of cultural survival.

“And all these things — we are Oceania. Hawaiians are Oceania, too, so we share a lot of things.”

Diaz said the alignment of Pacific cultures makes PIDF the ideal mentor agency for We Are Oceania.

”We don’t want to lose our identity, so this is a perfect relationship,” he said. “The core vision (of PIDF) is to use ancient Hawaiian traditions and knowledge and culture to empower Hawaiians to use that knowledge and skills to face current challenges. That’s what we want to do.

“We don’t want to give up our cultural identity in pursuit of education, employment and financial stability,” he said. “We can make it work for us.”