On September 19, 2026, the Asian American Law Fund (AALFNY) and AABANY’s Pro Bono & Community Service (PBCS) Committee co-hosted a community outreach table at RaisingHealth’s 11th Annual Health Empowerment Celebration Event in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. The event brought together community organizations and offered free health exams, hot meals, groceries, and other resources for local residents. RaisingHealth, formerly known as the Academy of Medical & Public Health Services, is a nonprofit health service organization founded in 2010 that supports underserved communities through culturally competent health, education, and community-building programs.
Community Outreach and Legal Resources
At the health fair, AABANY volunteers, including Kwok Ng, Co-Chair of the AABANY’s PBCS Committee, and May Wong, past Co-Chair of the PBCS Committee, along with Nandar Win Kerr, AALFNY’s Pro Bono and Grant Consultant, set up a table to pass out important resources, including:
Know-Your-Rights brochures on immigration law in Chinese and Spanish,
Throughout the fair, volunteers shared legal resources, flyers and Pro Bono Clinic promotional materials with more than 200 attendees. Volunteers also distributed Public Charge Guidance Info Sheets about the current changes to the public charge rule that took effect on September 18, 2026. A shout-out to the Asian American Federation (AAF), Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) and Issues Committee (Co-Chairs Vishal Chander and Rachel Lee) for providing training, toolkits and resources that helped volunteers share accurate information with the community members in their native languages.
The Public Charge materials were provided by the New York Immigration Coalition and Asian American Federation. The materials are available in 13 Asian languages: Arabic, Bangla, Burmese, Khmer, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Hindi, Japanese, Karen, Korean, Nepali, Urdu, and Vietnamese.
Community members seeking assistance can contact the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs’ hotline at (800) 354-0365 or by calling 311 or the New York State Office of New Americans Hotline at (800) 566-7636. For more information, please visit Public Charge Guidance Info Sheets.
Upcoming Pro Bono Clinics
October 7th – Queens: Interested volunteers should registerhere. 6:30 – 8:30pm, AAFE One Flushing Community Center, 133-29 41st Ave, 2nd Floor, Flushing, NY 11355
October 21st – Manhattan: Interested volunteers should registerhere. 6:30-8:30pm, AAFE Community Center, 111 Norfolk Street, NY, NY 10002
November 14th – Brooklyn: Interested volunteers should registerhere. 12:30 – 3:30pm, CPC Brooklyn Community Services, 4101 8th Avenue, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11232
On June 24th, 2026, Glenn D. Magpantay, a Commissioner on the United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR), was honored at Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. ‘s Annual Pride Month Celebration at Queens Borough Hall. Glenn is the first openly LGBTQ and Asian American commissioner in the USCCR since its founding in 1957. Glenn is a longtime member and leader at AABANY and a current Board Director. Recently, we took this opportunity to meet with Glenn to interview him about his lifelong work as a civil rights attorney and an LGBTQ rights activist.
In a distinguished and storied career, Glenn has been recognized with a variety of awards, including NAPABA’s Daniel K. Inouye Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement Award and the AALAM Community Service Award. However, Glenn reflects that his award from BP Richards feels different because of the incredible support he has received from others in the local community. Being a Queens native—a borough bursting with diversity—Glenn has experienced firsthand how important diversity within communities is. For Glenn, the community recognition is what makes this honor deeply personal and truly special.
In his acceptance remarks, Glenn reflected on the difficulties of coming out as a gay man during the peak of the HIV epidemic. He extended deep gratitude to his family and supporters in both the LGBTQ and legal communities, noting that their unwavering support was vital during this challenging period of his life and the successes he achieved throughout his career. He also highlighted his impactful advocacy on the USCCR, including his efforts to ensure that the Commission acknowledges violence against transgender women of color. Glenn called upon those in attendance to persistently speak out and advocate for justice. As his remarks drew to a close, he extended his sincere thanks to the community for offering their continuous support throughout his journey.
“I would have never achieved all of this, were it not for so many of you who are here in the audience today. You all have supported me and have given me poise. You have lifted me up, even though I know I’m a little heavy,” he quipped. Click here to listen to Glenn’s speech.
Glenn is a Co-Founder of the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), an organization that aims to create a world where queer and trans Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) people can flourish. Through this work, underrepresented communities continue to tackle ever-changing political and societal issues. Glenn claims that the changes the new administration implemented—the dismantling of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), and cutbacks on transgender healthcare and services for the poor—have affected millions of minority populations across the U.S., including AANHPI and LGBTQ communities.
Glenn credits affirmative action for his success as an LGBTQ Asian American. Following the government rollback of the policies supporting underrepresented communities, many feel the current legal and political landscape is stacked against them. Faced with these issues, Glenn shares how individuals and organizations can navigate this shifting landscape:
Vote in every election
Protest injustice
Engage with your community
Cultivate allies from those not in your communities
Be more open-minded to diverse perspectives
To achieve meaningful progress, according to Glenn, it is essential to transform hearts and minds. For many AANHPI and LGBTQ individuals, this transformation begins at home and involves finding a healthy balance between traditional expectations of family duty and the fundamental right to live authentically. Glenn observes a distinct tension between traditional, collectivist, and conformist Asian values and the emphasis on individualism in America, leading to the conflict that arises between parents and their second-generation children.
Glenn maintains that such cultural tenacity served as a way of survival for previous generations. It remains equally essential for navigating today’s challenges. While this cultural friction often causes painful divides, bridging these two worlds requires a slow, empathetic dialogue. “Coming out in Asian cultures is a process, not an event,” Glenn stated. “Parents have struggled and sacrificed for us. We should honor and respect them with patience.”
As a parent himself, Glenn states that his choices are guided by a desire to provide the very best for his child—similar to his own parents and many other Asian parents in America. American interactions are often transactional, while Asian interactions are deliberate and transformative—something AANHPI and LGBTQ youth must be mindful of while balancing their identities. “Unfortunately, everything that is beautiful and fulfilling in this world is a struggle to get to,” Glenn declared.
Teaching has also played a significant part in Glenn’s life. His teaching journey began when his friend, the late Professor Gary Okihiro, professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University, suggested that he teach, recognizing the unique insights the Commissioner had to share with students. Glenn chose to begin teaching as a personal mission to give back to the community with the ultimate goal of showing that students from underserved communities can also become accomplished lawyers. Many of them—first–generation immigrants or poor—have never met a brown gay attorney before. They thought that all the successful lawyers were white, male, and Jewish.
He hopes that he can help his students find a potential greater than they have ever imagined for themselves. The mentor and mentee relationships that teaching has enabled him to form motivate him to continue. He imparts his personal knowledge while the students keep him updated on current social media lingo, allowing them to form meaningful and relevant connections. Although Glenn no longer teaches, he hopes to return to the classroom sometime in the future. He is beloved and admired by his students, as his “Rate My Professor” reviews show.
Ultimately, Glenn intends to continue leveraging his role in the USCCR and his position as an LGBTQ and Asian American civil rights pioneer to help underrepresented communities achieve their fullest potential.
Please join AABANY in congratulating Glenn on his most recent recognition from Queens BP Richards during the Annual Pride Month Celebration in June.
