Lucas McKinnon /
Pacific Gateway Center /
Honolulu, HI /
After an extensive appeal process, I found myself unable to travel to Paraguay to carry out the work I had planned over the last nine months. Although I was saddened and disappointed, I was more upset by the fact that I would not be able to give back to the team in Asuncion that had so graciously guided my independent study and research and the development of my understanding of indigenous rights and the agribiopolitical and social history of Paraguay.
Nevertheless, I was able to use this opportunity to reorient my work around a local organization, Pacific Gateway Center (PGC), which seeks to empower low-income residents, immigrants, and trafficked refugees to achieve self-sufficiency through skill-building and access to opportunities.
PGC was originally founded in response to the (forced) mass migration of Southeast Asians to Hawai’i following the Vietnam War. While PGC’s scope is wide, with programs focusing on issues including housing, poverty, linguistic exclusion, and healthcare, my work and research will center on a farm-leasing program that secures land for immigrant and refugee farmers in central Oahu.
PGC currently leases 206 acres of farmland to refugee and immigrant families in Kunia. The program began in 2012 and now supports dozens of trafficked refugees farmers who grow fresh produce for large-scale food distributors, restaurants, and local farmers markets.
As an intern, my roles and responsibilities are multifarious. Given my background in public health and agroecological production on small-scale farms, I have been tasked with researching available agricultural lands to lease to expand programming, detailing all aspects of crop selection, soil management, planting, pest control, and appropriate practices to ensure entry into local markets, and expanding marketing and distribution so that these dispersed family farms are able to sell as collectives. My role will also entail monitoring, reporting, GIS, grantwriting, and grant compliance. Although I have done much of this work in the past, it will be a challenging and deeply rewarding experience, as I am entrusted to organize this operation and synthesize numerous human rights challenges–land, food, housing, gainful employment, legal protection, the right to place–in a local context.
Despite having worked in agriculture and non-profit management in central Oahu in the past, I must continue to de-center my position as a white outsider and prioritize the voices and desires of the immigrant and refugee populations I seek to support, all in constant recognition of how our actions reflect back on and impact that which is the stolen land of the Hawaiian kingdom.