Abortion Criminalization and ICE Are Barriers to Reproductive Justice for AAPI Immigrants
The Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community is made up of various ethnicities, languages, and translation needs, requiring different and individualized advocacy and policy discussions-- particularly when that policy relates to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. Christina Baal-Owens, Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) sits down to talk with us about recent research performed by NAPAWF showing the most pervasive barriers to abortion access for the AAPI community and AAPI immigrants in the U.S.
Stigma, cultural differences, language and translation, and healthcare deserts prevent AAPI immigrants from accessing necessary services, such as abortion. Additional clinics and health centers, improved language accessibility, and expanded access to health insurance (regardless of immigration status) are all options for lowering barriers to this care. It is important to remember that ICE activity impacts AAPI communities, too. ICE’s presence negatively affects the realization of reproductive justice; many might be fearful to access services outside their homes, many might worry about their naturalization process, or others may be stymied by criminalization and stigma.
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Transcript
Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast on all things related to sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice. [music intro]
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Hi rePROs. How's everybody doing? I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So y'all, I dropped the ball last week. I forgot to mention something kind of exciting. Last week was our 300th episode of the podcast. That's right. As of today, we have done 301 episodes. Y'all, I can't believe it. I cannot believe we have done that many episodes of the podcast. That means I've had 301 amazing conversations with just some absolutely fantastic guests. Whether that is some of the amazing people that I get to work with in coalition and partnership and get to show off to you how smart and fabulous they are, that makes me so happy. Or if it's some of the fantastic people that I might have never met otherwise if I hadn't hosted this podcast. I love just this wide range of people that I've gotten to talk to, this big group of topics that we have talked about, like so much. It has been so wonderful. And I'm sure you can hear it as I'm talking about this. Like, I really love doing this. I truly love doing this podcast and getting to talk to so many people, often about terrible things that are happening, but always great conversations with such smart, wonderful guests. I just feel so lucky and blessed that I get to do this. And on top of that, I feel just so grateful and so lucky that I get to work with my amazing team. The rePROs Fight Back team is just outstanding. Rachel has been with me since day one, and she has just been so amazing as we work to develop what this podcast would be through working together for eight plus years on the podcast. She does so much amazing work behind the scenes that y'all don't get to see very publicly with her name on it, but she does so much important work and has been such an amazing thought partner and producer over the years that I just feel so lucky to have gotten to get to work with her every day. And then we added Elena to our team, I don't know, two, almost three years ago? I think I've lost track. Time. What does it mean anymore? But they are amazing, and I just feel so grateful to work with them. They, you can see, they do the socials, they've done all of our great graphics. I just feel so wonderful, well, so lucky to be working with both of them. They have just been such an amazing team. And I am just so grateful to them and everybody at Population Institute who has supported us through the years and for all of the amazing friends and colleagues I had when I was really unsure about doing this podcast, including my old boss, Bob. Like, they all saw the potential before I did and really pushed me into doing this. Bob never wavered in his steadfast belief that this was what was right for me and that I would be a great host, even though I was not sure that that was the right choice for me or that I wanted to do it. And so, I'm so glad that I listened to him when he pushed, even if I didn't want to at the time, because this is my favorite part of my job. I love getting to do this. And I just feel so lucky that I get to do it week in and week out. And I am so grateful for all of those friends who were that pushed when I needed it, who've been the support throughout, and the amazing group of organizations and colleagues and friends, and so many people who have put their trust in me to have them on the podcast to talk about a wide range of issues, often terrible things that are happening, but always great conversation with just fantastic guests. I just feel so lucky for just the amazing group of guests we have had. And I'm thankful for you. This podcast wouldn't exist without you. There, if there wasn't an audience for it, we wouldn't do it. So, thank you for everybody who has been with us from day one, or if today is your first episode, thank you so much for joining us. I love getting to talk to you week in and week out and help you understand what is happening and find ways that you can get involved.
Maybe I'll pause there and just say, If you would like to think of in celebration of our 300th episode of ways that you could support us, tell a friend, share about us on social media that you have found this podcast that you love and you have learned X, Y, and Z and send people our way, or if you could rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform that helps people find us. And if you want to wear your support, check out our Bonfire store. We'll have a link in the show notes. We have great t-shirts and bags and water bottles and coffee mugs. I was just thinking, I needed to go get myself a water bottle. I really love one of our newer designs that we had Liberal Jane do, which is a microphone that is made of flowers that says “rePROs Fight Back: a podcast of all things repro” on it. But we also have lots of really fun designs: “fund abortion, fight evil, “abortion is a human right, not a dirty word." So much amazing stuff. Check it out. The link is in the show notes.
And with that, let's turn to this week's episode. I had a really great conversation with Christina Baal-Owens, who is the executive director at NAPAWF or the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum. We started talking about what is happening with ICE and how the attacks on immigrant communities from ICE is a reproductive justice issue. And then we turned the focus to talking about how criminalization impacts the AAPI community. Anyway, it's just a great conversation, and I hope you will enjoy it. So, with that, let's go to my interview with Christina.
Jennie: Hi, Christina. Thank you so much for being here today.
Christina: Thank you so much for having me, Jennie.
Jennie: I am really excited for this conversation. But before we dig in, let's do, would you like to introduce yourself real quick?
Christina: Sure. My name is Christina Baal-Owens. I'm the executive director of NAPAWF, which is the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum. I stepped into this job permanently just about a month ago but came in as interim executive director in August. So, I have been on staff with the organization for just over six months. And before that, was a board member, and before that was funding the work at NAPAWF through a past organization. So, I've been really familiar with the work, understand the importance that the organization has held in our community, and I'm really excited to be in this position.
Jennie: First of all, welcome to the, I mean, a new permanent job. That is so exciting. I can't believe it has only been a month.
Christina: Yeah, it does. I've been joking, it feels like- I've been doing this job since August, but it feels like the difference of being engaged and married. So, there's a little bit of a difference. It feels different, but great.
Jennie: Yeah, for sure. And I'm really excited to talk to you today about immigrant communities and reproductive justice. And it feels like I'm from the Midwest. So, I grew up in southern Wisconsin, so very close to Chicago. Minneapolis was not, I mean, it was further away but was still somewhat in places we visited. And I think in this moment, it is so important that we talk about what is happening with ICE. And I think a lot of my audience may not make the intrinsic connection as to why talking about what is happening with ICE is a reproductive justice issue. So maybe we should start there before we get into our broader convo.
Christina: Yeah, that's a great question for this time. A lot of the immigration discussion has really focused around our Latine brothers and sisters, which are in a community that is very affected, but it's really important for us at NAPAWF to uplift how AAPI communities are also affected by immigration enforcement and our very broken immigration system. Part of my history is that I started my career as an immigration advocate. So, for over 20 years, I've been trying to address through the movement and with all of my amazing colleagues and co-conspirators, the fact that this system has never been built to actually create access or make it attainable for people to have status, unless there are certain things in place, financially being one of them. And so, I think one, the thing that I always want people to know is what we are seeing is a crackdown not on people who just don't feel like filling out paperwork or following the law. These are people who have come to this country, made a decision to leave their homeland for whatever reason. It is not something that is often about better weather or about, it is something that is often life or death. And the policies are not made so that they can legalize their status. So, I start there by saying, there's a lot of people who talk about broken laws, people breaking the law, but the laws are broken in themselves and don't allow for this opportunity. What we're seeing in Minnesota right now is really something that is affecting the AAPI community and something that we're hearing about a lot on the ground. There are 300,000 AAPI people in the state of Minnesota. The vast majority of those folks are in the Hmong community. And what we're hearing from our partners on the ground who are doing some of the work to create mutual aid systems and to create support systems for people who are affected by immigration enforcement is that ICE agents are now knocking on doors and asking people: where do Asians live? So, there is a very targeted search for people of this community. And people are living in fear more than they had before. Immigration status doesn't necessarily protect you at this point. I mean the mayor of St. Paul is Hmong American and even she is carrying her passport to show that she has legal status and she's the leading- she's the head elected official of the city and feels forced to do that. So, there doesn't feel like there's a lot of protection regardless of your immigration status. How this affects reproductive justice is many fold. One, I think a lot of immigrants were already fearful of accessing services. Part of the naturalization process is proving that one, you are not a public charge, so that you are not a "financial drain," quote unquote, on the system. So when I was doing, when I was helping people naturalize, there was often a lot of fear of if I access Medicaid, if I, well, I mean Medicaid was not an option, but if I use food stamps, if my child who is a US citizen accesses public benefits, does that affect my ability to naturalize? So that is information that is often unclear. As, I mean, someone who did this legally, I was accredited by the Bureau of Immigration Affairs, I mean a Bureau of Immigration Appeals, and have a master's degree and speak fluent English, and that was hard for me to understand. So, obviously it's hard for people in this community to understand. Accessing services in general is something that people are fearful of. Now that there's criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, this is another piece of it where on your naturalization application you are asked to list out all of your any contact you've had with law enforcement arrests. One of the things that we would tell people is quote unquote, “keep your nose clean,” like just stay out of trouble because it will affect your process. And right now does not feel like a safe time to one, be stepping out of your home, and two, going into an abortion clinic, whether or not you need or want an abortion, where you could come into contact with law enforcement, you could come into contact with ICE, where there may be protesters, and that could cause some sort of issue or circumstance that could have an effect on you. So, what is happening with ICE is indeed a reproductive justice issue, both in accessing services and care, but also how we choose to raise our families and raising our families in a safe environment and in the environment that we want to raise them in is a core tenet of reproductive justice. And I don't want to raise my children in this. I don't want to raise my children being afraid that my parents who are US citizens are gonna get deported. I don't want to raise them in a world where they have to be fearful because of what they look like and maybe not being thought of [as] being American, or where ICE agents who are themselves of immigrant background are targeting community members for having accents. Like this is not, this is not the world I think any of us want to raise our children in. And that's how all of this really folds into reproductive justice.
Jennie: So, we talked when we were talking about ICE, how a lot of the focus is on other communities. And a lot of people forget about the AAPI community when they are thinking about ICE. But I think they often are not as loud a part of the conversation when we are talking about health outcomes and when we're talking about reproductive justice. Do you maybe want to touch a little bit on some of what gets hidden when we don't focus on that, on the AAPI community?
Christina: Sure. One of the biggest challenges is that the data and the information that we have on the AAPI community is not disaggregated. And what I mean by that is that it is a large swath of people, it is a large umbrella, even within East Asian, South Asian, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian. There's so many different communities that are under this one umbrella. And if you look at even beyond economic issues, if you look at maternal, pregnancy outcomes or maternal health outcomes, there is such a wide range even within that group. So, I think there's a myth also that AAPI women have access to health care. They are wealthy, they speak English, they are educated. But if you break that down further, I mean, something that I actually recently learned is that federal reporting shows that Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander maternal mortality rates are higher than those of any other racial group. And we hear a lot about how Black women or Latina women are treated within the healthcare system. And obviously those things are not okay, but we also often don't hear about Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. I mean, as someone who does this work, and I that is news to me, that is something that I want to be lifting up, and we need to be getting more resources to these communities. We need to be finding out why that's the case. We need to be doing research on how we can be improving these outcomes. And it's just something that I think a lot of the challenges that I am finding in this work and that a lot of AAPI advocates are finding, is that we're missing from the policy discussions and we're also missing from the research.
Jennie: What is the saying? Like, what gets measured is where the attention goes. It's not quite right. But if you're not making, if you're not seeing that disaggregated data, like, I had no idea, right? When we talk about the maternal mortality crisis in this country, what often comes up is Black women, Latina women, and the and Native American community. But you don't often hear about indigenous Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. So, if you don't have that data, like we don't hear about it.
Christina: Right. Exactly.
Jennie: I'm really glad you particularly brought up the AAPI angle. I think a lot of people don't necessarily think of that community when they are thinking of what is happening right now. And I think that became clear when there was the picture that went viral of the Hmong man in Minneapolis. And I feel so bad I can't remember his name because there have been so many names of so many people. And I think that was maybe some of the one of the first times that people really had to think about all this broad range of communities that were being targeted, not just like one specific one. And so, I'm really glad that you started there.
Christina: So, the AAPI community is a really large community. We use that umbrella term to describe many different ethnicities within one umbrella. So, if you look at some of the data around AAPI women, you'll see that the stat that is often cited is that AAPI women make 83 cents to the dollar of white non-Hispanic men. But if you look at different ethnicities, and if you disaggregate that data, some communities go as low as 40 cents to the dollar. So, it is a really wide swath of people, of languages, of issues that we all face. Each country has its own wait time, or some countries have their own specific wait times, Asian countries included, of how long it takes to be able to get a visa to legally enter the country. So, there's just so many issues that are experienced differently within our community based on ethnicity. So, it's one of the challenges of organizing and advocating for the community. And it's also one way that a lot of our community's voices are really not included in policy discussions.
Jennie: Yeah, I mean, that is such a huge area to cover, and each of those countries definitely have their own issues, so I can see how that would then impact how immigrants are coming to the US and just the vast array of languages and experiences, and trying to keep all of that experience under one umbrella is really complicated.
Christina: Yeah, and the piece about all the languages that are spoken. I mean, the Philippines in itself has seven, and this is where my family's from. There are seven major languages in the Philippines, right? So, if you're also working, I mean, there's a main language that if you're working with the Filipino community you use, but if we're looking at AAPI as a whole, translation and language access is a real issue. And it is something that, we at NAPAWF, a lot of our programs and our research are trans-created in different Asian languages, but it is difficult to figure out which languages make sense. Finding the funding to do that work is also challenging because often funders don't understand the importance of translation. And it also is something that we're really committed to, but it is a real challenge in working in this community.
Jennie: Okay. I'm really glad that we started at the beginning talking about what was happening, but I think one of the bigger conversations we wanted to talk about today was talking about the impacts of criminalization of abortion on immigrant communities. So, maybe let's turn to that now.
Christina: Yeah, so NAPAWF has done some research and we have looked into our communities to see: what are some of the barriers to access abortions and also how is it viewed, the criminalization of abortion, how is that viewed within our community? And we have seen that there are barriers to accessing abortion. Some of them are cultural. It is not often something that is spoken about in many AAPI communities or households. A lot of familial and cultural stigmas around abortion is something that stops many of our community members from accessing abortion, even if it is something they need or want. There's also, again, the language access piece comes up consistently because it is so hard to get accurate information to our communities around maternal health care, around abortion care, around reproductive health care, and beyond the language barriers, there's also distance. So, even before Roe was overturned, there were real healthcare deserts that were faced by our communities. And a lot of the folks that we work with had to travel to be able to access reproductive health care, including abortions, and that increases cost. It may bring you to a community where people don't speak your language. It may bring you to a community where people maybe don't know how to deal with folks who have different immigration statuses. It may bring you to a place where there are different rules about how law enforcement interacts with immigrants, right? It is that distance means travel, it means getting there, it means the resources, but it also means bringing [you] to a place where, if you're not familiar with the rules of engagement, it’s another barrier to accessing care.
Jennie: Yeah, I mean, if you think of it just like in the real seems like it should be so basic, but like if you have to travel to a community that doesn't have a large Vietnamese community, let's say, then maybe they don't have translated materials or a doctor or somebody in that clinic who can help translate. Like, it really impacts your ability to access the care, but also to just navigate the healthcare system that is not easy to navigate for people who speak English and are native.
Christina: Yeah. I've worked in immigrant communities, I've consistently said I'm a native English speaker, I have a master's degree in social work, which is about navigating systems, and I find this difficult. And if I find this difficult, then how are we expecting people to be able to get information to know what is safe, what is not safe? I mean, anecdotally, I can say my parents who immigrated from the Philippines, they would only see Filipino doctors for a long time, right? You see people from your community who understand you, who understand where you're coming from, who understand your culture, who you can go back and forth. I mean, my parents were bilingual, but they would go back and forth, right? And that's how they felt comfortable. There are a lot of cultural barriers to accessing care that are beyond legalization.
Jennie: I mean, just think of the basics. Like, you don't need to know X specific medical words. So, like, why would you have fluency in that in your second language, right? To know that this complicated medical term means this in Filipino or any of these other languages that these immigrants speak, right? So, it's such specific [medical] language that you don't need every day.
Christina: Right. And one of the things that we continue to fight for, I worked a lot of my career in New York, and there were some pretty strong language access laws where people were required to call a language line so that there was a medical interpreter to be able to help providers in serving patients. And so, and to your point, specifically medical, right? There's a lot of these terms we don't know in our own native languages or know how to explain them. So there, those are the kind of- when it works, it works, right? When you have a state that is, or a government, a locality that is fighting for the rights of immigrants and who puts these needs first, you can see where it can work, but that is not the case in many states. It is not the reality that many of our community members encounter. And it is something that NAPAWF is really passionate about pushing for.
Jennie: When we talked about criminalization and and then having to worry about going to the clinic and maybe running into protesters or police or now ICE, like again, just all these barriers that are getting thrown up in in ways that are stopping people from accessing care on top of already having to navigate the bans that are in place that that are all of these layers that just make it that much harder for everybody to get just basic health care.
Christina: Right. This should be a human right. It is economically beneficial to our country to have people who are accessing health care. It is just the human thing to do as well. But it is the immigration piece. I really can't stress enough how much, as a former immigration provider or as someone that was helping people to naturalize, the biggest thing we told people was to stay off the radar and just to not have contact with the criminal justice system because it is the first way that you get on the radar of ICE. And right now, I mean, that is out of control, right? That is even beyond. I was doing this in what they called the golden era, where I guess there was some sort of rationale or reason for how these laws were applied. But I can tell you that I would be worried about a friend, community member, client going to a place where there could be ICE, law enforcement, any sort of incident right now, because it's really- there doesn't feel like there's a lot of rationale behind who's getting attacked, who's being targeted. And as much as we want people to be able to access care, it is an extra layer that makes it scary at this point.
Jennie: So, what can we do? Like, what needs to be done to improve this? You talked a little bit about some of the language pieces, but what can we do to ensure that immigrants are able to fully access healthcare that they need?
Christina: So beyond language access, there needs to just be more clinics and centers. People should not have to travel. I mean, this was something that was an issue before before Roe was overturned, before the Dobbs decision. There are too many areas that are deserts where people have to either go out of their county or out of their state. Abortion, state abortion bans obviously make this worse now. This compounds this issue. So, I mean, there needs to just generally be more access to health care. One of the things that we are fighting for at NAPAWF is legislation that also allows for access to Medicaid, Medicare, and the exchange for people regardless of immigration status. We know that people should have the right to access care regardless of what their immigration status is in this country. And that would, again, remove a barrier, remove some of the fear of criminalization. There's a lot of issues that that would solve for our communities.
Jennie: That would make a huge difference. I was also thinking of, and I think this is related to that, but the public charge stuff also really negatively impacts people's ability to access healthcare. Do we just want to talk a little bit about that? You talked a little bit at the top, but I think it's something that if you were not steeped in this, you may not understand what the public charge is and how it impacts people's ability to access social services.
Christina: So, I will say there have been some recent changes on this that because things are rapidly changing, I'm not gonna go too much in the weeds into it, honestly, but-
Jennie: Great.
Christina: I know it's also a little over the top for maybe anyone, but the gist of this is that to be able to gain legal status here in this country, you have to prove that you are not a quote "drain" on the system. So, you have to show that you are financially independent, that you have people that if you were to not be financially dependent anymore who could be able to support you. I actually remember someone that I worked with who was petitioning their spouse and all the financial information he had to give. He's like, this is like applying for a mortgage. Like, yeah, it is that level of-
Jennie: And I was-
Christina: Oh, go ahead, sorry.
Jennie: Well, I was also just thinking then how this intersects with disability rights.
Christina: Exactly, right. And there's certain healthcare [where] you have to have physical exams, right? There’s just different things that you have to be able to prove. But the public charge one, because- I mean, I'm sitting here as someone who used to do this work, and I'm not willing to tell you what the current policy is because I'm not totally sure. So, if I was coming from another country and this was not my native language and I was trying to apply, I'm just not taking any risks, right? I'm not gonna go to a- I don't know if a government-funded clinic is going to be a problem for me. I don't know if accessing food stamps or going to get emergency care at the emergency room, I don't know any of these things, if they're gonna mean that for the rest of my life, I'm not gonna be able to get status. So, I mean, one for us, a lot of this work is trying to get the right information out there in language and culturally appropriate through trusted messengers, because there's a lot of, we know there's a lot of misinformation. So, people are very particular about where they get their information from. And also just ensuring that people beyond getting out the right information, just ensuring that people are aware of the fact that healthcare is something that you can access, and that is not something, I mean it is hard right now to say, but people should know that they can access healthcare and that they should go to the doctor and they should be getting regular health care and not be living in fear that way.
Jennie: Yeah. I mean, the stories of people deciding not to go to the doctor or not to go to urgent care or in the emergency room, like they just, man, they just break my heart to think that people are having to sit there and balance their decisions on what is the right thing to do. And that should never be the case.
Christina: Yeah.
Jennie: Okay. So, I really love that you talk about the importance of making sure you're getting the right information out there. One of the things I always talk about when we talk about what our audience can do is making yourself a resource. And that doesn't mean you need to know all the things, but I know that I can send people to Nap off for more information. So, like knowing where to send people to ensure that they are getting the correct information. So, what are some of the things our audience can do to help right now?
Christina: Well, I will say that one of the major things that is happening in the reproductive justice movement is a severe lack of funding, to be quite honest. A lot of the people who have been investing in racial justice, reproductive justice are backing away from the field. A lot of this is because of the attacks of the administration on foundations, which is a lot of the funding sources of the organizations that do this work and care providers, right? We're talking about the deserts, the care deserts. And that always came from a lack of funding and the bans and all of- everything that has been happening in the last few years since Dobbs has compounded that. So, the one thing I urge people to do is find a reproductive justice organization that you trust and donate. Even small dollar donations make a big difference. Obviously, I would love for people to donate to NAPAWF, but we also work with really amazing partners that all I will say across the board, everyone is worried about being able to continue to do this work. So that's one thing people can do. To your point, knowing organizations, if you're not financially able to give, knowing where to refer people in your community. As a social worker, the first thing we learned in our master's program is if you don't know the answer to a question, don't answer it. Just tell them where to go or tell them you'll find the information and come back. So, people can always reach out to NAPAWF and get information. Our partners at Latina Institute, In Our Own Voice, work with the black and Latina communities. There's just organizations that do this work and can be helpful and or that we can refer to to be able to do that. And the other thing is to both vote in your local elections, especially. State abortion bans obviously happen at the state level. People always- the turnout, the voter turnout numbers are always higher in presidential years, but people don't realize the down ballot races are the ones that matter the most in your life, not just about reproductive health care, but most of the cost-of-living issues are determined by local and state government. So, voting down the ballot and understanding who you're electing and what they stand for, and then holding those elected officials accountable. So, there's always calls to action. There are always policies and legislation that we should be supporting, or we should be telling legislators to not support. People right now can call, I mean, people in Minnesota can call their legislators and say they're not happy about what's happening with ICE. That is something that you can call and say. And as someone who also worked in government, that is something; those calls make a difference. They understand that the people that they work for are the government and the people who elect them and keep them in a job are the voters. So, calling the offices does make a difference.
Jennie: Christina, thank you so much for being here today. It was so much fun talking to you, even through some technical difficulties. These things happen.
Christina: No worries. Thank you for having me. Listen, with everything we're going through, a few technical difficulties are fine.
Jennie: Right? No big deal. We got this.
Christina: We can handle that.
Jennie: Okay, y'all. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Christina. It was thought-provoking. I learned things. I always love when I learn things in our conversations. I do almost every episode, but this one really shocked me. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed our conversation, and I will see everybody next week. [music outro] If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like us to cover, always feel free to shoot me an email. You can reach me at jennie@reprosfightback.com, or you can find us on social media. We're at rePROs Fight Back on Facebook and Twitter, or @reprosfb on Instagram. If you love our podcast and want to make sure more people find it, take the time to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Or if you want to make sure to support the podcast, you can also donate on our website at reprospiteback.com. Thanks all.