Maui’s Filipino community finds help, comfort at resource fair

LAHAINA >> Maui’s Filipino community — drawn closer together by the death and devastation wrought by the Aug. 8 Lahaina wildfire — flocked to the Lahaina Civic Center on Saturday to learn about the disaster relief and recovery resources available to them but also to celebrate their culture and one another.

Organizers said 2,750 people attended the Hawak Kamay (Hand in Hand) Filipino Resource Fair, which coincided with regular hours for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Recovery Center that has been operating out of the civic center gymnasium.

So along with the American Red Cross and a host of federal, state and nongovernmental agencies that are normally available from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily to help wildfire victims, approximately 50 other groups were on hand. There was an area for keiki arts and crafts and rows of tables providing information from health care providers and insurers, social service agencies, churches and other charities, ILWU Local 142, the Hawai‘i Filipino Lawyers Association and many more resources.

Attendees were able to check on unemployment benefits, get replacement passports and vital records, and pick up clothing, diapers and other goods, as well as personal protective equipment. Outside, there was cause for celebration when an individual was sworn in as a U.S. citizen, having previously completed the application process.

“Astonishing” is how FEMA spokesperson Patrick Boland described the turnout. Having arrived from the mainland a few weeks earlier to support wildfire relief and recovery efforts, Boland said he was unaware of the size of the Filipino community in Lahaina — nearly 40% of the population, according to census data.

“It will boost so many other services here, not just FEMA. This is really where the Filipino community came together in a big way,” he said. “We’ve tried to do a lot of outreach with the Filipino community but it’s a little bit of a challenge because people have been hesitant to come in.”

Boland and others at the event said a big reason for that are the language differences and the need to use interpreters. FEMA brought in staff to accommodate 11 different languages, he said, and a toll-free phone line is available for those needing translators.

One message FEMA is hoping to get across to Lahaina’s immigrant community, according to Boland, is that “if you have any individual in a household who has a Social Security number, for example a child who was born here, that qualifies the entire household for FEMA assistance. That’s a key point to get people the help that they need.”

FEMA already has distributed $26 million in grants to more than 5,500 survivors of the Maui wildfires, while almost $80 million in Small Business Administration loans have been given to nearly 370 households.

Susie Berardy, president of the Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Hawai‘i, one of the resource fair organizers, said the event is an example of “what we call in the Philippines ‘bayanihan’ — to work together for the benefit of our community. Even if we are from Honolulu, as a whole group what happens in other islands affects us because, after all, we are all living in Hawaii, which we love so very much.”

Kit Furukawa of the Maui Filipino Chamber of Commerce, another of the organizers along with the Philippine Consulate, said that despite the festive atmosphere Saturday, many Filipino residents who suffered losses in the wildfire are still in “life-preserving” mode and in dire need of financial help to buy food and other necessities.

“What we’ve proven here is, please give us some attention. I want everyone’s eyes to see all the lines outside — folks waiting in the sun — and for the FEMA folks here seeing there’s a crowd here.”

Furukawa said she is pushing for Filipino resource organizations like hers to be included when funding is doled out by relief agencies and philanthropic causes such as the Hawai‘i Community Foundation’s Maui Strong Fund, which at last report had grown to more than $120 million.

“What we’ve learned is a lot of cultural nuances in the community for folks who are shy and quite hesitant to ask for help, understandably so, folks who don’t speak the language,” she said. “But what we’re trying to do here is not just spoken language — it’s not Tagalog, Visayan or some other Filipino language. We have a Filipino love language, I guess, so that’s what we’re trying to do. We understand how Filipinos feel and grieve and cope.”

That “love language” Saturday included free bentos, haircuts and hilot, a traditional Filipino healing massage, as well as 200 orchid plants that were snatched up within minutes after the fair’s opening.

“Folks love to garden. Some aunties like to water their plants, and that’s a way to cope,” Furukawa said. “Something terrible has happened, and we wanted to just provide a space to be with familiar Filipino faces that you won’t be shy to explain your situation to — Filipino lawyers, Filipino doctors. And just from this event alone it’s very apparent there’s a lot of people who need support.”

Filipino Chamber of Commerce of Hawai‘i members Davelyn Quijano and Rose Mendoza flew in from Honolulu on Saturday morning with avocado, bitter melon, okra, eggplant and moringa donated by farmers and Aloha Harvest.

“We just want to help our Filipino community and the rest of the families in Lahaina,” Quijano said. “I know they want to eat something fresh. That’s why we brought something fresh for them; it’s a love for Lahaina people.”

Her daughter, Ally Quijano, who cuts hair at House of Hustle in Ewa Beach, was busy nearby with a trimmer in hand.

“Families are in need. I’m just here to give back as I can,” she said.

Waiting his turn for a haircut was Wilson Dagupion, 52, whose home and cottage on Komohana Place, where he lived with six other family members, was destroyed in the fire along with three vehicles and $220,000 in Snap-on tools for his home-based trade as a mechanic.

“It was crazy, hectic and scary,” he said of the Aug. 8 wildfire, adding he’s been managing to get by day by day. “It’s just a waiting game,” said Dagupion, who plans to rebuild on his property with the proceeds from an insurance settlement.

In the next chair over, Bryan Aguiran was buzzing Chester Valencia, who came to the resource fair specifically to get a haircut at the urging of his 24-year-old daughter Jachia. Valencia was happily surprised to see Aguiran, his regular barber, there.

“I knew my dad needed a haircut, and he needed a massage as well because he’s super stressed out,” Jachia Valencia said. “And I just thought maybe there’s some resources that we could find and to take a look around. Maybe there’s some people that we know that we never know whether they made it, and maybe we can connect with some people that we haven’t seen in awhile as well.”

She said that the night of the fire, she and her boyfriend and a friend spent three hours spraying down the Valencias’ Keao Street home before fleeing with her six dogs around 9 p.m.

“We never even looked back at the fire,” she said.

Meanwhile, her father was working the front desk at the Lahaina Shores on Front Street and was the last person to leave the building after helping guests evacuate, she said. Even though Jachia heard through word of mouth that he had escaped safely, it would be three days before they were able to connect again.

“We thought either he didn’t make it because he was helping trying to save people, because that’s how he is, or he was back at the house trying to save the house because he’s so stubborn,” she said.

The family has received help from the American Red Cross, churches and other groups, but is still trying to get assistance from FEMA, according to Jachia.

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FEMA assistance

FEMA Disaster Recovery Centers are open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily at three locations:

>> University of Hawaii Maui College, 310 W. Kaahumanu Ave., Community Services Building 205, in Kahului

>> Lahaina Civic Center, 1840 Honoa­piilani Highway

>> Mayor Hannibal Tavares Community Center, 91 Pukalani St. in Pukalani