New American Welcome Center Initiative

Immigrant and Refugee Support

South Bay

Expand existing project, program, or initiative

Immigration status is a demographic category with significant barriers that prevents them from accessing vital services. According to the LB Community Action Plan research, in 2019 18.4% of native-born residents are living in poverty, compared to 20.9% of foreign-born residents. Only 12.9% of naturalized citizens are living below the poverty line, while more than double that rate of non-citizens, at 28.9%. The undocumented resident population in the US is estimated at 11,300,000, with 28% of them living under the poverty line. While estimates can be difficult to track for the undocumented population, the Pew Research Center has estimated that the LA - LB - Anaheim Metro Area house roughly 925,000 undocumented immigrants, accounting for 6.9% of the area's population. California has roughly 2.5 million unauthorized immigrants; almost a quarter of all undocumented immigrants in the nation, they only account for 6% of the state's population.

The NAWC Initiative provides newcomer immigrants and refugees with services and social supports to enable and empower them to become more integrated and civically engaged in the greater society. Services offered are information and support with immigration and citizenship services, community trauma-informed mental health education and support, trainings on civic engagement, accessing resources and support services. Providing inclusive, safe, belonging, and equitable space and opportunity for youth to build a cohesive and positive community dynamic, dialogue, trust, unity, empathy, and compassion between immigrant and U.S born youth of all backgrounds. Sharing of their own or family immigration stories and creating empathy among youth through the realization of their human commonalities, breaking down stereotype, and fostering positive perceptions through personal story and immigration facts that brought the communities to where they are today, recognizing that we are all immigrants. There are also community bridge-building and unity activities that support them bond to each other in their newfound community and demonstrate their skills and leadership to work together with U.S born community members from all dimensions of diversity to address shared critical issues and advance social equity, cohesion, and transformational just-peace.

We gauge success by the impact of engagement we have with all immigrant and refugee families in the South Bay area; with goals to scale to have other locations. We have engaged with over 6,000 individuals in the past 4 years. We have developed a culture of impact to provide immigrant and refugee services and a network of organizations who have the capacity, experience, and expertise to support the diverse needs of the communities we serve. We have provided coaching to YMCAs in Los Angeles and the surround cities with best-practice strategies to engage the immigrant and refugee communities. Our success is defined by the ability to provide DACA application renewal, citizenship application assistance, prepare fee waiver requests, provide ESL classes, Khmer interpretation during naturalization interviews, digital equity, food access and mental health classes & resources all for FREE to our immigrant and refugee communities.

Our CDYMCA branch has been at the forefront of serving and engaging immigrant and refugee communities since 2016 through diverse culturally appropriate efforts. We are 1 of 18 New American Welcome Center across the country that provides free programs and services. Our staff truly reflects the diverse populations we serve, who come from immigrant and refugee communities. All staff members are bilingual & culturally competent. 80% of our program participants are immigrants and represent the lowest income families of color. Since the beginning of COVID the CDYMCA branch remained fully open, and operational, allowing staff to provide essential services in-person. The CDYMCA provided a safe, caring and trauma-informed space for community members to access resources and services such as food, personal protection supplies, mental health, immigration, social services, digital access & inclusion, and rental relief to 1000's immigrant and refugee families.