"My job is to get myself out of a job."
During the Vietnam War, the Hmong people from Laos helped the American CIA gain intelligence information. What follows is controversial and debatable, but the Hmong were offered some protection for their help. They started arriving in the United States in the 1980s through the 1990s and a recent effort to reunite families takes us to Mr. Kudaka.
In 2003, fifteen thousand refugees were relocated from Thailand, where they were living in camps, to the United States. Over 60 percent of the Hmong population came to Wisconsin and Minnesota, where they would be reunited with families that had already settled. The resettlement was supposed to last from July to September of 2004, but ended up taking almost two years.
Mito Kudaka played a key role in resettling and integrating the Hmong population that came to the Fox Cities, an integration of small cities in Wisconsin.
Mito Kudaka isn't just a Diversity Champion at Goodwill Industries. He is a Diversity Champion of the community. For Kudaka, day-to-day diversity awareness is synonymous with capacity building in a community.
Work in the community
"...a person with skills and knowledge can do wonders"
Kudaka, who is Peruvian-Japanese, actually worked with the Latino community for years before getting involved with the Hmong resettlement. He founded Latino Link, a non-profit that provides educational opportunities and scholarships for mostly Hispanic migrant workers. He also served in a diversity champion role for the Appleton Police Department, and worked extensively with the Latin community. He was the co-director of an ESL program for Latinos and more recently for the Hmong.
Kudaka says, "It's a must for anyone involved in diversity to work in the community. By giving just one hour a week or a month, a person with skills and knowledge can do wonders. We need to be good stewards for our community and give back!"
Starting out small
The Hmong as a group of people have a strong sense of pride and are very independent. Kudaka first began working with the Hmong while he was with the Appleton Police Department as the Intercultural Relations Coordinator. He was essentially the primary person working with diversity for the Fox Cities, which meant that he would be largely responsible for the new diversity coming to the area. Before he could start to integrate the Hmong into the Fox Cities community, he had to establish some sort of personal relationship with them.
The Hmong are a hierarchal community and because Kudaka is not very old, he is considered a child. Therefore, they refused his overtures at first simply because he was too young in their eyes. It took awhile, but because the Hmong community needed help integrating, Kudaka was able to gain their trust.
He set up a website to facilitate communication among a collaboration of organizations and community members in helping the Hmong. Kudaka spent his time traveling around the community and lecturing on what it means to host the Hmong refugees. He educated the people of Fox Cities and offered ideas on how people could help. He was involved in some initial conversations around what is called the Do It! Campaign, a fundraising campaign put on at certain times of the year by the local Gannett Newspaper. The Do It! Campaign garnered $46,000 in three weeks and was administered to the refugees. Kudaka and others helped organize an entire donation project and in three days they were turning people away from a 10,000 square foot warehouse because there were too many donations. His reaction? "I am enamored with this community."
Wanting to be useless
Kudaka works incredibly hard, only to try and get himself out of a job. He states, "I am much more of a social worker, getting organizations and communities to embrace the challenges diversity brings. In social service, we are trying to breach a gap. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the people we serve don't need us anymore?"
An example, Kudaka offers, is with the deaf community. He doesn't want to make it his job to require health care organizations to cater to their needs. He wants to empower the deaf community to be able to express their challenges to health care organizations. Once he's done what he can to empower, he can move on to a new challenge.
Kudaka is currently involved in promoting home ownership among minorities. Studies have shown that in rental properties, crime is higher, ownership of the community and neighborhood is low, morale is low and the community has a difficult time accruing wealth. Kudaka thought it would be wonderful to work with banks, mortgage companies and community organizations to help promote ownership and pride.
How does he do it all?
"On a day-to-day basis the most important quality of a diversity champion is to have extreme approachability."
Kudaka champions for anyone and everyone he meets. How does he make the time for so many communities of people? He says, "I have an open door policy. On a day-to-day basis the most important quality of a diversity champion is to have extreme approachability. I can say whatever I want about helping, but if I'm not there for people who need me, I'm not doing my job. I've had to cancel meetings with leaders to help someone in a life-changing situation."
Kudaka also stresses the importance of representing his company. He is not just a "diversity awareness guy," he is a recruiter and a spokesman. If someone has a negative experience with anyone at Goodwill Industries North Central Wisconsin, it will reflect poorly on the whole organization, not just that person or their department. Kudaka takes it upon himself to represent Goodwill Industries North Central Wisconsin because he loves the work being done and the communities they are at, and eventually they would like to become a world-class organization.
Why do what he does?
Mito Kudaka is an idealist. He believes that given the opportunity, most people will do the right thing and help others. For him this work "was the right thing to do." He says, "I was needing to work on something that positively and immediately made an impact in not only the community at large but individuals in most need. Changing from a good paying job in corporate America to a public service job is an adjustment, but was indeed the best decision I ever made in my life. For me doing what I did, and now doing what I'm doing, is following a dream of being able to help others."
Contact Mito Kudaka at: mkudaka_gw@gwicc.org
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