In the News

To expand its reach of legal services in the growing Filipino community, non-profit organization Asian Americans Advancing Justice — Los Angeles has launched a free Tagalog helpline to assist the community with citizenship issues.

The show drew low ratings while the lack of African American nominees had prompted complaints about diversity prior to the broadcast.

But jokes told by host Chris Rock during the show also prompted complaints from prominent Asian-American members of the entertainment industry.

Pictured: Members of ALOFA, an organization spreading the word on Prop. 47 to API’s in Long Beach.

LONG BEACH, Calif. — In middle school, Nicole Bennett-Pote was an honor roll standout even as the walls around her appeared to be crumbling. Her brother was a gang member and her mother was an addict.

Bennett-Pote, who is part Japanese, made a vow then that she would never fall into that life. She stuck to softball and stayed at school everyday until the sun went down to avoid trouble at home.

Angela Guanzon remembers learning about human trafficking growing up in the Philippines, but she never imagined that one day she would be a trafficking survivor.

"All I heard about was human or sex trafficking—not labor trafficking," Guanzon, 38, told NBC News.

After graduating from college, Guanzon struggled to find work to support her parents and five siblings. With her father's health rapidly deteriorating, she looked for opportunities outside of the Philippines. In 2005, she was recruited to work as a caretaker at a residential care facility in Long Beach, California.