Publication Date: Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Changing with the times
Changing with the times
(February 09, 2005) YMCA adjusting to larger Asian community
by Jocelyn Dong
During any given week at the Palo Alto Family YMCA in south Palo Alto, a visitor can hear the laughter of kids, the thumping of exercise music -- and Mandarin Chinese.
In recent years, the 67-year-old YMCA has attracted more Asian members to its fitness center, prompting the nonprofit group to undertake a research project to discover how it can evolv with the changing population.
This Friday evening, the YMCA will dip its toe into Asian cultural activities, hosting its first-ever Lunar New Year Potluck. In the past month, it's held three focus groups to help assess the needs of the Asian population.
"We change," said Dan Logan, executive director of the YMCA branch on Ross Road. "We want to be hospitable to change. I've been here 40 years. Every year's a little different."
In Palo Alto, about 17.2 percent of residents are of Asian descent, up from 10 percent in 1990. At the Palo Alto Family YMCA, the Asian membership has grown the most of all ethnicities.
Women attending a recent daytime focus group represented the diversity of the Asian community, including new immigrants and those whose families have been in the United States for generations. They talked about both the opportunities facing the YMCA, and the challenges.
The YMCA has the chance to become a community center, said Matra Majmundar, the founder of a nonprofit that serves local Indo-Americans. She's been a member of the YMCA for about 20 years. It could provide a sense of belonging that is especially important to immigrants, she said, adding that community groups could use the YMCA's conference rooms for talks and meetings.
Focus-group participants also expressed interest in the YMCA hosting seminars on health issues of particular importance to the Asian community, such as hepatitis, diabetes and cardiac disease.
The growing population of Asian members has brought its challenges as well, the focus-group attendees acknowledged.
Members who don't speak English don't understand all the YMCA rules, such as age limits for bringing boys into the women's restroom, they said. Signs in Chinese or an orientation in Mandarin could help ensure more members are abiding by the rules.
The issue of employing some staff with the ability to speak Chinese or other Asian languages provoked different opinions within the group: Women born overseas thought language ability would be helpful, whereas American-born Asians ranked it as less important.
Likewise, opinions on what one YMCA director termed "Asian athletics" -- badminton and table tennis -- were mixed, reflecting the focus group's range of personal interests in and cultural connections to activities popular in Asia.
This research effort isn't the first that the nonprofit has undertaken. About eight years ago, a Latino task force was organized to address the area's growing Hispanic population. That resulted in the opening of the Ventura Youth Center, said Grace Mah, a board member who is heading up the Asian task force.
Following the dot-com bust, however, the YMCA saw a drop in the Latino membership. Logan believes the Asian population, however, is stable and growing.
The YMCA also plans to implement a more general survey of its members. As to when changes will be made, Logan said some adjustments would be made soon.
"Some things are easier; some things are more challenging," he said, adding that he was already thinking of making the ping-pong table available more frequently.
Senior Staff Writer Jocelyn Dong can be reached at jdong@paweekly.com.
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