Q&A with APANO Community Organizer Kaiya

We had the pleasure of interviewing Kaiya Laguardia-Yonamine about her growth as an organizer since she first got involved with APANO ten years ago. 

Kaiya is a second-generation Uchinānchu and Afro-Cuban student born on the lands of the Multnomah, Cowlitz and Kalapuya peoples (North Portland). She started with APANO as one of the first members of ALLY,  which led the campaign for Ethnic Studies implementation in Portland schools.

As an organizer with ties to Oceania, Kaiya grew up hearing stories of her ancestral homelands and developed a deep love for storytelling. She later brought this passion to the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa where she studied journalism. Kaiya strives to use multimedia production to spread stories of resilience and create empowering spaces for community engagement.

Q. Tell us about your civic engagement journey. How did you connect to APANO originally?

A. I’m 23 now. I started organizing with APANO at 13, so ten years ago. At the time we had these “social justice boot camps” that eventually turned into ALLY (APANO Leaders and Liberated Youth). It was mainly high schoolers, so I was the youngest, but it was really impactful. I remember one session was all about the -isms we live in, another about Non-Violent Direct Action tactics. It was a great entry point to understanding systems of oppression.

The program was extended from the summer into the fall, and this became our Ethnic Studies campaign. In school, my peers and I felt we were not reflected in our curriculum. Our communities were never talked about in the classroom, and even when they were, it was almost always from the narrative of war trauma, poverty, and survivors. We didn’t want to keep talking about old dead white people who don’t have anything to do with us.

Q. How have you grown as a leader since the ALLY program?

A. ALLY was my first time being involved in an actual campaign and working directly with strategic organizing. After winning the Ethnic Studies campaign in PPS, I stayed engaged in the activism world and represented my high school on the Portland Public Schools Ethnic Studies Advisory Council. 

Although ALLY is no longer around, it taught me about grassroots and youth activism, which I continued through high school and college. I went to the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, and was part of a lot of student organizing spaces in O‘ahu.

Now in my staff role at APANO, I’m learning about a new kind of organizing with political advocacy, and supporting candidates running for elected office.

Q. What’s your perspective of APANO today as a staffer vs. as a volunteer ten years ago?

A. APANO has developed into the implementation stage of their work: affordable housing, Jade District sustainability, culturally specific childcare programming, art spaces for Asian and Asian American communities. It has changed a lot over the years, but I’ve noticed the increase in these programs and services, in addition to the political advocacy aspect.

Q. What does Civic Health mean to you?

A. Civic Health means the well-being of your space and community. It has to do with HOW we interact with the community and WHO is there. It involves making sure everyone in our community has their rights protected to thrive, including those who slip through the cracks or are forgotten. For me, community is both cultural and geographic, with my island communities and North Portland neighborhood in mind.

A big thing I’ve learned here: local elections and politics are vital to community resilience. It is critical to bring in BIPOC and first-time candidates to represent their communities. Having local people in their local spaces creates a big ripple effect. We’re seeing lots of national impacts and federal cuts, so you need people fighting for the right things. A lot of our higher-ups started at a school board or council or a committee, so local elections are super important!

Q. What local candidates are you especially excited about heading into the May election?  

There are a few, but I am pretty excited for Rashelle Chase-Miller and Jorge Sanchez Bautista. They’re both running for the PPS School Board. Jorge is also a current student, so he’s actually going to school and running a race at the same time. These voices are needed in the school system.

Overall, I get really excited for folks that are part of our historically marginalized communities and running for the first time.

Q. What is the most common barrier to civic engagement you hear about from the communities you serve? And what do you see as the greatest opportunity for your community?

A. While at APANO, one of the bigger barriers for Asian and Asian American communities I’ve heard is language accessibility. So many of those we interact with might not speak English, or are first-generation immigrants, or don’t have translation services available. A lot of services here use English to communicate, and that doesn’t help when so many ethnic groups and families are not given the space to understand what is happening around them.

A lack of data disaggregation is another barrier. For Asian communities alone, this includes a huge variety in people, languages, historical contexts, and ethnic communities. It is kind of wild to group everyone together and say we have the same needs, background, and history. A proper understanding of the diversity of communities is necessary.

We also need to meet people where they are at. Local politics can be intimidating, and if you don’t feel knowledgeable enough, or don’t think you’ll understand it, or don’t feel it’s your “place,” it’s so much harder to participate in your surroundings. As a youth organizer, I felt that same intimidation, as if organizing is this huge unknown task - instead of a mindset and practice.

I want people to know that your story and lived experience is enough. You are enough.

Kaiya interviewing educator and University of Hawai’i alum Miyoko Hata.

Q. You are a full time student AND full time staffer? What are you studying, and what skills do you hope to build in your classes that connect to your overall goals?

I’m a full-time graduate student at UO studying Multimedia Journalism. Our program is more centered on documentary work, but involves other storytelling methods as well.

The reason I’m going into the storytelling world is to tell my community’s story effectively. As an Indigenous Uchinānchu and Afro-Cuban woman, my family and community is either not talked about OR talked about in an inaccurate way. I want to document my community’s stories in the way they it want to be told. A lot of my work is focused on the resilience of our people.

I love being on the mic and doing grassroots work, but I’m also loving the techniques being behind the camera, and helping to tell the story of that activism.

The real reason why I wanted to study journalism: In high school, I would go to my family's islands every summer in the Ryūkyū Islands. In our islands, there is a big US military crisis. The US military is trying to create their newest base on top of our coral reef systems. War survivors and local leaders are doing sit-ins and die-ins to block the bulldozers from coming onto our shores. And the only news stations and people actually covering the events are the local island news stations and the occasional US outlet that didn’t understand why our elders were fighting.

I went back another summer and created a short documentary on our intergenerational activists, and what we can do here in the US. Our tax dollars and reps are allowing this to happen. Seeing that lack of proper journalism is honestly what’s been motivating me. I want to be a part of that—documenting the real story of our people in a just way.

Q. What is a big dream you have for yourself and your community?

My dream is to become a storyteller for and with my community. But really, my ultimate dream is to liberate our people and our islands. Collective liberation has to be just that—we have to help each other in all aspects, across our movements.  

In the meantime, it’s also important to get the right people in the decision-making spaces. We need to rethink our system and the oppressive structures we operate in, and also have people who will protect our rights in these seats and local leadership.

As crazy and scary it is right now, I am also getting hope from seeing the amount of people rolling up their sleeves and getting ready to fight back. I hope community leaders are able to critically analyze our connected struggles, collaborate with partners, and find ways to organize for real change.