Asian Services in Action (ASIA) is a health and human services agency serving the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community in Northeast Ohio. Established in 1995 by four Chinese women who recognized the need for resources and support within their community, ASIA has grown into a central hub for enhancing the quality of life for AAPI individuals and families. Through comprehensive wraparound services, ASIA provides vital support that empowers the community to thrive.
The Foundation supports ASIA by funding its legal services program, which provides legal assistance to low-income AAPIs across several areas of law, including family law, victim advocacy, and immigration services.
“ASIA was developed to identify gaps within the community we serve and create services to fill those gaps,” said Samantha Salamon, chief counsel of ASIA. “Whether those gaps exist in employment, housing, public benefits, or healthcare – that has always been our motto and what we have been working toward over the past several decades.”
The nonprofit currently has eight departments spanning child, youth, and family services to interpretation and translation services to the International Community Health Center, an in-house community health center established to provide access to basic medical care. ASIA’s departments were all developed in response to the growing needs of the AAPI community.
ASIA’s legal services department encompasses four different practice groups: immigration legal services, probate legal services, family legal services, and victim legal services. ASIA is also a grantee of the Foundation’s Ukrainian Legal Services Program, established in late 2023 to help Ukrainian arrivals access critical legal services.
ASIA’s holistic approach to legal services for victims – which includes victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking – provides trauma-informed and culturally appropriate legal and advocacy services for survivors. As members of the AAPI community often have many complex and interconnected legal issues, ASIA developed its victim legal services to be a one-stop shop for clients who require legal assistance across multiple issue areas.
“It’s very common for our attorneys working in [victim legal services] to have one client who has several cases going on at once,” Salamon said. “For this section, it is a requirement that our attorneys understand the intricacies in all these areas of law and, more importantly, how immigration intertwines.”
According to Salamon, ASIA’s approach to providing services is to meet clients where they are and trust that the community knows what’s best for itself. This allows ASIA to empower its clients so that they can not only walk into ASIA and trust that they will receive the services they need but also maintain their sense of self-sufficiency and humanity.
“We are developing a model of changing the way lawyers do their job by not only thinking about the person through the lens of their particular legal issue but also as a human being who will feel understood and supported in all aspects of their journey.”
The Foundation funds specialty legal service providers like ASIA to address the unique civil legal needs of specific populations. Learn more about specialty providers.