Help, lead agency for the pathway to Citizenship Initiative and a fax knowledge person and community leader, annie chung. [cheers and applause] thank you, richard, but our phenomenal partners are all right here on the podium next to the podium. So, thank you very much, everyone for attending this, very very important day. Were celebrating National Citizen shich month and we have a lot of our citizenship month and we have leaders to help us do the kickoff and make announcement of the important resources we have, on behalf of the San Francisco initiative, i want to thank our elected officials from our city administrator and woun derful supervisors and each of them will make remarks to us and we also have a little recognize next right after this. Its hard richard so lets get the show on the road. All right. So, good morning, everyone. So again, to start off the National Citizenship month, were going to invite Mayors Office chumaca to make briefs. Good morning, its wonderful to be with you. My name is chumaca and im here on behalf of mayor breed who wasnt able to attend so she sent me. We recognize around 50,000 green card holders in San Francisco are eligible to naturalize and the message from the mayor is simple, now is the time to become a citizen and the mayor, our board of supervisors and all of our Community Partners are here to support them in that journey to becoming a citizen. Stint ship convey so many benefits and you can get a job and earn higher wages and allows you to vote and help shape the future of our city and our nation and it also ensures your right to remain in the United States and it can never be taken away from you and our green card holders form a social are and cultural fabric in the city and the major the mayor encourages you to become a further embedded part of that fabric. On behalf of the mayor, i would like to thank osia, our immigrants right commission and the pathway to Citizenship Initiative and Community Partners for the work they do to support our green card holders and folks pursuing naturalization in the city. I like to issue a congratulations to the folks who have become naturalized citizenship. Congrats again, thats bon derful. Thanks to the folks who are actively pursuing and on the path to becoming citizens, without further or do, im excited to declare september citizenship month in the city and county of San Francisco. Thank you all. [cheers and applause] thank you again. What a wonderful honor, thank you, chuamac. I heard with this certificate we can park anywhere for a day, right. Now, since the mayor announced this as a month of citizenship, so does it mean that all of us new citizens and citizens, no parking tickets. All right. [laughter] if we get one, well bring them to supervisor peskin. Thats right. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Next will be our really, really honorable president of our board of supervisors, supervisor of the district ten, supervisor and president of the board, shamann walton. [cheers and applause] thank you, annie. Good afternoon or good morning. It looks like the afternoon. First of all, i want to say its always a privilege to share the same podium with annie chung who works so hard for our seniors in this city but also for our immigrant community and it is exciting to be here to celebrate all of the new citizens that we have here in San Francisco and of course, across the country. Since 2013, sf pathways provided an opportunity to citizenship for over ten thousand residents here in San Francisco across our communities and thats a milestone that we should celebrate. [cheers and applause] we know, you heard a little bit about the importance of becoming a citizen and what it does for wages, what it does to make sure that you have more family security, but i do want to put emphasis on the fact that it also gives you the right to vote here in San Francisco and that is a major importance as we are coming up on election for november 8th, we have so many new voters, so many new people who can exercise their right and you all know that one of the most important rights we could have here in San Francisco is that right to vote. So im excited to celebrate not only the citizenship new residents ask of course, new citizens and of course new citizens but the fact we have provided the opportunity for more people to have a vote, more people to have a say in their future, more people to have a say in their representatives and more people to have a say in how they are governed and i think thats important as we live here in San Francisco, so thank you so much for coming out and showing your support for all of our new citizens, making sure that we do everything we can to ensure everyone has the right to be protected here in San Francisco. Thank you. [cheers and applause] thank you so much, president walton. Our inspection speaker, shes my our next speaker and shes my supervisor because im a resident of sunset. She was a supervisor of district four and she went on to be our accessory recorder and shes our city administrator, chu. Hello, im happy to kickoff citizenship month. Its personal for me because my parent were immigrants year ago me dad worked in the kitchen and my mom sold clothes in garment factors and despite that hard work they made time to go after work, to go to city college, to learn english so they become, they could become naturalized citizens. They knew how important it was to be able to establish security for our family here but more importantly, they also knew they needed to have a full set of rights when they were here as well. So, i really think being able to have such wonderful partnerships with people like annie chung im in with the immigrant Rights Commission and with rip ripple who is our rich ripple who is our acting director at oci and its important, why . At that time when my parents had the least amount of resources, had the least amount of time, they had to pay legal fees, they had to figure out the ways to make it work and navigate a system that was hard, complex and not easy for someone who couldnt understand english. So being able to have a program like this in San Francisco this Pathway Program where youre able to get free legal advice, youre able to actually understand the process and work with people who have helped many, many and thousands of people before reached citizenship is a huge comfort and a wonderful bottom line impact for people who dont have as much resources as we would want and so again, im happy to be here and i want to thank all of the folks who are here today, all the Board Members who joined us and annie for our incredible service, thank you so much. [cheers and applause] thank you, carmen. We would like to invite supervisor chung. Of district one to make comments. Thank you, connie. Thank you. [foreign language] thank you. I want to congratulate everyone here for becoming citizens and i know its hard work because i have been through that process but its not just about hard work but its about studying english because if thats not your first language, you have to really study it but remember the history and remember so much more. I would say for some of you, you have been through a lot more than some of our kids, i think, through the Public Education and to actually earn your citizenship and like some of those who are born here and sometimes i think my own kid take it for granted the freedom and the rights that you have as american citizens. So again, congratulations. [applause] it is the reason i think we should celebrate it but im going to keep it short because its hot out here and we see the seniors here but lets say to celebrate this month as a citizen month, but lets also think about, you know, just every month and everyday like all that san franciscans and the residents here working really hard towards making the city better, that they may not be citizens in the United States. Still, their contribution should be recognized and respected and they still work hard towards citizenship because they love our city, they love our state and love this country, so lets also make sure during their path to citizenship that we still provide them essentials in San Francisco and create that safe space for them and i think this is what today is about. You see the people behind me, theres funding resource asks contributions and con and thanks to the city administrator and providing funding and providing a safe pathway for citizenship, so for that, thank you so much. [applause] thank you, connie. Next, were going to invite supervisor gorman mar representing district four. Thank you so much, annie and im also really excited to be here today with everyone to really celebrate national naturalization month here in San Francisco and more importantly to celebrate the pathways to Citizenship Initiative that is now ten years old in our city and played an Important Role in supporting and lifting up and empowering our immigrant communities here in the city. When i first moved to San Francisco decades ago, fresh out of college and a Community Organizer in china town, we were working on Grassroots Efforts to support naturalization and Voter Registration in our community that was happening in the immigrant communities throughout our city but through the vision of mayor ed lee and also Community Leaders like annie chung and other city leaders, we created the model for naturalization and immigrant Community Empowerment in the country here through the pathway through Citizenship Initiative and the immigrants Rights Commission i would say as well. We should be proud of the work we have done here to support immigrants, to naturalize, to register to vote and become active politically and civically in our city and lets keep it up. Theres so much work to do to support our immigrants because our immigrant communities make San Francisco what we are, right. Theres the diversity, the beautiful diverse of our city. They are our Small Business owners and Service Workers and tech workers and our cultural, and add so much cultural to our city. Lets keep uplifting our immigrant community and congratulations everyone. And of course to our new citizens and introduce, my colleague district three, supervisor aaron peskin. [applause] thank you, annie, thank you to my colleagues. Almost everything has been said but not everyone has said it, so i will say this, my mother did it 58 years ago and be like my mother who has never missed an election since she become a citizen. Thank you and congratulations. [cheers and applause] thank you, aaron. And supervisor representing district 7, supervisor myrna melgar. Thank you, annie. Congratulations, everyone. [foreign language] im myrna melgar and i was born and raised in Central America in el salvador and in 1996 i became a u. S. Citizen and in 2020 i was elected to the board of supervisor for San Francisco, a city that gave my family, my sisters, my parents so much opportunity to thrive, to be educated, to build our families and now to represent district 7 on the board of supervisors which will be you some day or your children. I want to say how happy i am to be a part of this event and how grateful i am for the work of osia and to carmen chiu in theyre and annie chung and all the people who have worked so hard to integrate immigrants and to make sure that, you know, the fabric of our democracy is strengthened by your experiences because you have lived, we have all lived through this world in a different path. We know what its like to come to this country, to learn a language, to work hard, to put our kids through school and to be a part of the country, to be grateful for what we have been given and to contribute. I have voted in every single election since becoming a citizen and i know you will too. And thank you, everybody, for the support. I know we in San Francisco will keep growing, the system we have to support immigrants to create that pathway and to make sure that they are integrated and they vote, thank you so much. [applause] thank you so much, myrna and all supervisors today made special arrangement to attend this celebration with us. Thank to them. They have to get back to their Committee Meetings so if you dont mind, syleena, hold your item and i would like to invite our partners of the sf pathway to citizenship to present something to celebrate, not just National Citizenship month but the indiscernible festival which is this saturday. [applause] so with compliment from our family association, the landlord and they have generously contributed some beautiful moon cakes for each one of our esteemed guest today, so i ask our partners at the same time introduce them to you, so representing the api legal outreach, wong. So would you present the moon cake and then representing the International Institute of the bay area. Im sorry, i couldnt hear. Representing our jewish family and june services, we have brett snyder or supervisor chang and representing the immigration advocacies, we have amy or claire. Are they okay. [applause] sorry. Please present our moon cakes to supervisor peskin. Its a mini moon cake so dont worry about the calories, okay. [laughter] so, representing all right. So, representing the larasa Community Resource center, we have gabriel or shawn or wendy. I dont know if they are here. If not, then we have carlos representing the labor council, we rise immigration center, so supervisor gordon mar. [applause] thank you. And if representing the elderly would give one to shamaka from the Mayors Office. And then i think shamann went back to the chamber so well bring his box. Lets give a big hand to the Supervisors Office and Mayors Office. [cheers and applause] and then well go back to our agenda. Its very hot today. [taking pictures] thank you [indistinct chatter] all right. Sorry for the interruption but we now, i would like to invite the chair of our immigrant Rights Commission, ms. Celine canelli to say a few words and i have to tell celine, shes very, very supportive of the sf pathway really from the day one since we conceived the idea and supported it with fund and the oc office and all of the community ambassadors, for every one of our workshop, so thank you celine. Lets give a warm welcome to celine. [cheers and applause] good morning, everyone. I think were are we still in the morning . Just about. Im delighted to be here this morning. Im a naturalized immigrant and i remember going on the path but the excitement as you go on that path, the day i was eligible to apply, the day i got the notification, my application had been accepted and the interview, its a process. Its a long road and but its so worth it when you get to the end of it, so i very much encourage the 50,000 lpr who are eligible to apply to please get on the path. So, on behalf of the immigrant Rights Commission, we are proud to be here today to celebrate the more than ten thousand san franciscans who have naturalized through sf pathways. Sf pathways really, really emphasizes the importance that the city puts on our immigrant community and look at the display of support we had from the Mayors Office, from our city assessor and all our supervisors this morning. So, the new citizens who are here with us today, and those who have been through sf pathways were able to get help with their applications for free. They attended free workshops and got help from pro bono attorneys and these attorneys give their time, month after month, year after year to make sure that our immigrants get to naturalized and many applied for fee waivers if they couldnt afford the fee and sf pathways saved applicants 1. 5 million in application fees. For those who dont qualify for a fee waiver, San Francisco in its usual creative way launched a program to help cover the cost. Ocf and the Nonprofit Mission fund provide a 50 percent match to help people apply for citizenship, so half of the cost is covered by a grant. The collaborative have done something unique in San Francisco. It has made citizenship accessible to all eligible green card holders regardless of income and the immigrants Rights Commission and i see my vicechair mario has been able to join us today. We have supported the work of sf pathways from the beginning and were proud to be here today to celebrate its continued success. So, a huge thank you to sf pathways and all partners, to ocf, director rupa and mission indiscernible fund and the partners and volunteers. If you havent had an opportunity to volunteer, please do so. Youll see it on social media and sign up and its a rewarding feeling so congratulations to you all and congratulations to sf pathways. [cheers and applause] thank you, celine so much. If the weather is more cooperative, we would have asked celine to send us her beautiful song, right but today were going to let her voice rest. Nancy, on behalf of the sf pathway present our many moon cakes to celebrate the mid autumn festival to our wonder of, wonderful celine, thank you, celine and the immigrants commission. For the next program, we prepared threw new citizens that used our Pathway Services to become u. S. Citizens, so we like them to share a very short, you know, their experience and why they want to become a citizen now. So, first speaker would be ms. Tang. She will speak in chinese very short and then jen, our director of our program will do the translation for her. Ms. Tang. [foreign language] [applause] hello, everyone. [foreign language] interpreter ill do the translation. So, hello everyone. My name is pang tang and im 72 years old. I came to the United States in 2012 from china. Are i become a u. S. Citizen in 2022. [applause] im delighted to be here to share with you my pride and joy in becoming an american citizen. [foreign language] interpreter for the first few years in the United States, i couldnt imagine myself passing the test to become a u. S. Citizen because i didnt know english. Later through the naturalization class of ms. Tang which was run by selfhelp for the elderly, im english blind person who didnt know abc and i mastered the basic knowledge for the naturalization test. Last year, i got a service of filling out the naturalization form and the fee waiver form for free at the San Francisco pathway to Citizenship Initiative workshop in San Francisco and successfully passed the test in march this year to become a u. S. Citizen. [applause] [foreign language] interpreter i would like to express my heartfelt thanks to selfhelp for the elderly and s fpc i for free citizenship workshop. Thank you to the City Government for funding to provide a onestop free service for all our immigrants to become a u. S. Citizen. [applause] [speaking foreign language] interpreter we cannot achieve our American Dream without your full help. I would lift up to your expectation and be a good citizen. Im registered to vote. [audience cheering] after naturalizations, ill continue to study and encourage other students in our selfhelp citizenship class. If needed in the future, i will try to volunteer at the San Francisco free citizenship workshop. Thank you everyone [cheers and applause] our citizenship class now has over 400 students. Finally on behalf of all my classmates, we like to express my gratitude to you all. Thank you everyone. So richard and celine, i would like to bring our really wonderful instructor lynn tang, can you come up and can brett and justin help us present two souvenirs ever moon cakes, one to lynn and ms. Tarng. Lets is a wonderful leadership instructor and thats we have over 400 students and shes creative in advising and encouraging people like ms. Tang, our speaker, even though they didnt speak one of english, not even the alphabets when they first started and then through lynns hard work, she become u. S. Citizen, so congratulations to both of you. So, thank you lynn and thank you, ms. Tang. Thank you. All right, our next speaker is Marcella Alvarez will share her experience with us as a new citizen. [applause] thank you, my neal is marcella and im here today with extremely gratitude and i wanted to express to the San Francisco pathways to citizenship. As i consider myself a product of the work that they do. I always dream on becoming a citizen, growing up in San Francisco as a latina, as an immigrant, and being so a flayed of express my political opinion was always a challenge and i knew once i become a citizen, i was going to be able to choose who i want to represent me, who you know, who take a lead on speak for my family or for those who dont have the right to do it, so go years ago i so two years ago i became a citizen and it was nice to check my register voting and take part of, you know, this city and everything that this city give us. Im a mother of three kids and the future of this city is, like, whats most important for me and i think that if we if we exercise our right to vote and we do our part, this is going to be, you know, better in the coming years, so i encourage you all who are residents to please take, take the time to become ape citizen and to never be afraid again to speak for yourself and to travel, to travel without fear and visit your loved ones abroad. My name is marcella. [speaking foreign language] [cheers and applause] we all love marcella. Marcella used to work for one of our partners and then osia hired marcella to now work for the city and at the workshop, i will be talking to marcella because shes always there and her three children are just the most beautiful children. When she showed me the baby pictures and marcella, thank you, can you come back out so carlos can help us present your moon cake to you and your family. Thank you, marcella. Next, were going to ask join that to speak for the togala. Im originally came from the philippines and im so, so happy, it is it is my first time to talk to all of you and wow. I got my citizenship. [cheers and applause] it was a long journey. I could say. I come here as an immigrant 2009 but i dream some day i will be a citizen and here it is. [cheers and applause] thank you very much for attorney carlos boras for helping me to achieve my dream. And to all of you, keep dreaming. Its not impossible to dream big. Like my, im an ordinary filipino in our country but i dream i will be here in the United States and i will serve all the people that needs my help, so on behalf of filipino community, chinese community, and all the races that is present here, id like to thank all of you for this special event and hope i could see you next year for another citizenship event. Thank you so much. Have a nice day. And thank you so much. [cheers and applause] thank you, join that. The chinese saying, when they become u. S. Citizen, it becomes [foreign language, you become a beauty so today youre really beautiful. So thank you so much for your remarks. Thank you. [applause] thank you. So, next, were going to recognize some of the really important partners of sf pathway. We couldnt do our job without them. So, first, i would like to ask richard to come back up and representing the thunder that San Francisco pathway indiscernible in 2013. Never giving up on us for extending our contract year after year, for finding us a new money when we need additional resources, so can all the Pathway Partners come up to make this presentation and recognition. And richard, if you dont mind, aid like to ask some of your staff, team members to come up to join you because we really couldnt have done all our work without them, so alyana, melissa, jaime. Yes, especially the folks who helped put together todays event, come on up. Come on up, team osia. Thank you. We know that one box of moon cakes will not be enough. And later, i have okay. Mario, could you come up please, mario. So were going to present you six boxes of moon cakes and more if you have left. [laughter] so everyone will get a moon cake. Mario, im going to introduce you, yeah. Staff, can you bring up six boxes. Oh, my goodness. And the partners please represent can we all say thank you to osia. One, two, three. Thank you, osia. Thank you [laughter] thank you, melissa. Thank you. All right. Our second recognition goes to the immigrant Rights Commission. So, celine and mario representing the chair and the vicechair. So, mario, want to say a few words. Thank you, annie. I want to congratulate our new citizens, im so excited that you will be able to fully participate in our democracy so thank you for your hard work and thank you to pathway to citizenship and annie chung, youre an amazing leader, thank you everyone. Thank you. Mario new me when i was in the philanthropy world and he kept sending money we needed. Thank you, mario. We thank the rios and the new campaign, i want to introduce lucia to say a few words. Thank you so much and thank you for the recognition but none of this would not be possible without the partners and those who collaborated in San Francisco. I lead a collaborative of two hundred partners across the country and San Francisco has been an example of collaboration and work can be done. Theres over 9 Million People in the United States that can naturalize and youre an example that can be replicated across the country and we have helped over half a billion people neutralize and save 600 million in the United States for people like you to become u. S. Citizens, congratulations and thank you for being an example to all of us. [applause] thank you, lucia. Please, thank eric for us because hes the one that got it all started. Next, we have indiscernible representing mission sf fund. Doris, are you here . Doris, please come up. As you heard from our supervisors, the application fee is very expensive. So, for those that could not afford it, we come, here comes our partner sf fund and doris will let you know how much they helped us. Thank you. I know, i am. [applause] hey, good morning, everyone. Congratulations new citizens. You did it. Mission fund is a Nonprofit Organization in the city of San Francisco and were assisting with a 50 grant thanks to lucia for funding citizenship applications, green card loans, daca tps and visa. This is an important milestone for every individual and we encourage people to become citizens because everyone has the right to vote, everybody has the right to be heard and this is what we need within our community, so thank you very much again for becoming citizens and lets keep passing on the voice about how important it is to be a citizen and the resources that the city of San Francisco serves. Thank you. [applause] doris, thank you. So, we have other partners who are not here today but we want to mention them and thank them. One very, very important city partner is hsa, Human Service agency because before every workshop they have sent out thousands of package like invocation letter and documents that the green card holders need to bring in order to get their citizenship papers fulfilled so we want to thank john murray and trent ross of the hsa and we save them a box of moon cakes whether we see him. Next is also the San Francisco Public Library right across from the plaza. And unfortunately, they are not here today, so we also want to thank katherine apla and also michael kayla. The other partner is sfo and sometimes we will go to sfo to do these citizenship workshops and we hope that carlos maybe, we assume that very soon. Okay. So, thats about complete our program and for closing remarks, i would like to ask richard to say a few words, richard. [applause] lets give a hand to annie chung for all this the great work she leads, thank you annie, a remarkable leader and its hot so to keep it brief, a reminder, there refree resources for Citizenship Services in San Francisco. Thats the take away today whether its Immigration Services at workshops or application fee, the these services exist for those in San Francisco. We have a workshop in celebration of citizen month. We have a workshop september 24th. Its the osha campus. Visit our website for information. Its an appoint base workshop so you need to make an appointment and my fantastic colleagues will pass out flyers and september 24th, a free citizenship workshop and come through. All resources available. A huge thanks to my colleagues at the immigrant a faurs for plan and putting on todays event and supporting our partners with the sf path to initiative citizenship. Have a wonderful day and happy citizens month, everyone. Thank you, richard and thank to all media and press friends, to come here and do this report under such extreme weather. We really appreciate you covering this news to us and thank you to all new citizens, going to be citizens and definitely please vote on november 6th. All right. So thank you to all our staff, from our partners and selfhelp and thank you to all volunteers and thanks to the city hall crew who helped put up this podium and pa system for us, so maybe we can take one last picture and call it a day. Its too hot. Thanks, everyone. Everything we do in the tenderloin, we urban outfit. Here, this gives us an opportunity to collaborate with other agencies and we become familiar with how other agencies operate and allow us to be more flexible and get better at what we depo in the line of work in this task. Sometimes you go down and its hard to get up. So we see ourselves as providing an opportunity for the unhoused to get up. And so i really believe that when they come here and theyve said it, this right here is absolutely needed. You cant ask for nothing better. The tenderloin is the stuff that aint on the list of remedies, liked the Spiritual Connection to recovery and why would i . Why would i recover . What have i got to live for . Things like that. And sharing the stories. Like i was homeless and just the team. And some people need that extra connection on why they can change their life or how they could. We have a lot of guests that will come in and say i would like you know, i need help with shelter, food, and primary care doctor. And so here, thats three rooms down the hall. So if you book them, they get all of their needs taken care of in one go. This is an opportunity for us here in the tenderloin to come together, try out these ideas to see if we can put get connect people to services in a good morning and welcome to rules committee of San Francisco board of supervisors for today, monday, september 19, 2022 im the chair aaron peskin joined to by supervisor mandelman and by member connie chan. Our clerkvi
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