UTOPIA PDX Centers Disabled Joy in the QTPI Community
In 2023, United Territories of Pacific Islanders Alliance - Portland chapter (UTOPIA PDX) is centering disabled joy in their programming. They aim to educate the Pacific Islander community about accessibility and disability justice, and they want to build community and have fun by singing and dancing together too.
Systemic discrimination and colonization have caused health disparities in Pacific Islander communities. For example, in the U.S., Pacific Islanders have experienced higher rates of COVID-19 and more deaths per capita from COVID-19 than most other ethnic groups. They also experience high rates of type 2 diabetes and other disabilities as a result of environmental racism.
While UTOPIA PDX seeks to educate the Queer/Trans Pacific Islander (QTPI) community about the systems that harm them, they also want to lead with their strengths. Disabled queer and transgender Pacific Islanders are invisibilized in many ways and face more than their fair share of obstacles. They’re also brilliant and valuable and leaderful. By putting disabled QTPI needs first, everyone in the Pacific Islander community will benefit.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, QTPIs led the efforts to get out vaccines, protective equipment, rent money and other resources, often in places they don’t feel welcomed, like church parking lots. Now that the public urgency surrounding COVID-19 has ended, and pandemic-related funding has run out, UTOPIA PDX has begun to re-strategize and shift their focus.
More than half of UTOPIA PDX’s staff members, including Executive Director Kāme'o Kahawai, identify as disabled. However, disability isn’t something they’ve formally addressed as an organization before. With an Advancing Disability Justice grant from Northwest Health Foundation, they’ve been able to spend more time considering how disability justice fits into their work.
This Friday, September 29 from 4:30-8:30pm, UTOPIA PDX is hosting a Disability Joy QTPI Pātī (“party” in Samoan) at Matt Dishman Community Center. Two community members will facilitate the event, which will include food, music making, art making, a movement activity with scarves, seated hula, and karaoke, all for people with varying abilities. Also this fall, UTOPIA PDX is partnering with Black & Beyond the Binary Collective on an internal disability justice training.
Moving forward, UTOPIA PDX would like to more intentionally integrate disability justice in all of their programming and decision-making. They have already redesigned their website to meet accessibility standards, and they’re launching a new program called Oceania Healings, funded by the Justice Reinvestment Equity Program, which will offer ample opportunity to continue advancing disability justice in their work.