MinKwon Center in Queens gives voice to Asian Americans
Clem Richardson

Friday, February 18th 2011, 4:00 AM

MinKwon Center for Community Action Executive Director Steven Choi in the group’s Queens office. Group provided more than $3 million in benefits to community last year.

One sign that programs at the MinKwon Center for Community Action work is that more people are asking for them.

Founded 27 years ago as one of three Young Korean-American Service and Education Centers in the country, the Flushing, Queens-based center now finds people outside its target group coming in for help.

"In 2009, we started opening our doors to Chinese immigrants," said the center's executive director, Steven Choi. "In the past year, we've had white people coming in, which is a testament to the high-quality services we provide.

"We provided over $3million in benefits to our community members in 2010. That's something we're really proud of."

MinKwon (Korean for civil rights) continues to work under its original mandate - to improve living conditions and educational opportunities for the Korean-American community. That has resulted in an array of offerings ranging from foreclosure prevention and homeless services to tax and financial services.

Central to all of its services is instruction in community organizing and advocacy, social services, civic participation, youth empowerment and cultural education.

"Organizing and advocacy are really at the heart of what we do," Choi said. "A lot of our other things relate back to it."

That advocacy, and the expanded civic participation that comes with it, was on display Wednesday when MinKwon members joined representatives from a coalition of Asian-American groups on the steps of City Hall to protest looming cuts in social services.

The city's Asian-American community is "fighting to make sure what money is available is distributed in an equable way," Choi said.

"What we realized was that the Asian-American community was not getting its fair share of resources. A study a few years ago found that even though Asian-Americans make up 12% of the city population, less than a quarter of 1%, or 0.24%, of city dollars are directed toward Asian-American communities."

Reasons for the shortfall include the "model minority myth" - the erroneous belief that all Asian-Americans are monied and educated and do not need social services.

But Choi said the city's own statistics show that more than a quarter of the estimated 1 million Asian-Americans living here are below the poverty line.

"And when you count in the near poor with the folks in poverty, it's near 40%," Choi said.

"A lot of our community are not the model. They are struggling immigrants like everyone else who face serious cultural, language and economic barriers."

MinKwon's 15-member staff - up from six staffers two years ago - includes lawyers, social service advocates and community organizers who work together to make sure clients get help resolving any problem they have, not just the one that brought them to the center.

"We focus on providing a wide range of basic benefits, anything from food stamps to opening bank accounts to full legal representation," Choi said. "Our social and legal service staff work closely with community organizers to make sure folks are not coming in just to get one benefit.

"We do a wide screening for them and say, 'Okay, these are all the benefits you can get. Not only can you get food stamps, but it looks like you have a housing issue with your landlord. We can help with that.'"

MinKwon, a recipient of a 2010 Union Square Award, has sponsored voter registration drives - Choi said they have registered more than 50,000 people - and candidate forums in the Flushing area.

A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School, Choi also has worked for the Asian-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

He said MinKwon helps clients see how they are affected by larger civic and national issues, such as immigration, and helps them take part in the debate.

"Immigration reform is a big thing for us," he said. "A lot of our community members are undocumented, so historically, we have fought for their rights - even the rights of illegal permanent residents to get basic benefits.

"So many folks think immigration is a Latino-only issue. It is not. More than 70% of the Asian-American community here is foreign-born. So immigration is an Asian issue, it's an African issue, a Central American issue, a European issue."

That's why MinKwon took the lead by sending nine buses - nearly 500 people - to last year's Rally for Immigration Reform in Washington.

"It was one of the largest Asian-American mobilizations in the city's history," Choi said. "That was an example of how we really try to engage our community members."

You can learn more about MinKwon at the website, www.minkwon.org.

crichardson@nydailynews.com

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