HANA Center

The HANA Center’s mission is to empower Korean American and multi-ethnic immigrant communities through social services, education, culture, and community organizing to advance human rights. With offices in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago and Prospect Heights, Illinois, it serves immigrants, women, youth, people of color, low-income families, older adults, LGBTQ+ individuals, and adoptees. With this award for institutional support, the HANA Center strengthens its internal operations by developing strategic and financial sustainability plans.

The HANA Center serves the Korean American community in the Chicago metropolitan area with social services; it also facilities community organizing, leadership advancement, and policy advocacy in broader immigrant communities. With this award for general operating support, the HANA Center responds to shifts in federal immigration policy that affect local Korean American communities as well as other immigrant populations in the metropolitan area. The HANA Center offers education sessions to residents on changes to federal immigration policy; provides a telephone hotline offering information on those policy changes in the Korean language; and convenes youth in organizing sessions. These activities will ensure Korean Americans and others in Chicago understand how to protect their communities, while increasing the civic engagement of Korean American immigrants.

The HANA Center is a new organization created by the merger of the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, an immigrants’ rights organization founded in 1995, and Korean American Community Services, a social service provider established in 1972. With this award, the HANA Center offers education sessions for Chicago’s Asian American communities on changes to federal immigration policy; provides a telephone hotline offering information on those policy changes in the Korean language; facilitates the convening of Asian American youth in organizing sessions; and enables the HANA Center to install security upgrades to its physical premises. These activities will provide Asian Americans in Chicago with valuable information on changes to immigration policy and mechanisms to protect their communities.