Treating people with dignity is the biggest lesson I learned from my experiences of chronic youth homelessness. I know the feeling of having limited options, how when you’re boxed in, you feel lost, uncertain of where to go. Sometimes when you’re more focused on where you’re going to sleep tonight, things like going to college are a distant dream. Sometimes when the only word you know is barrier, the word possibility rings different. The most freeing feeling is having access.
Resources to me are a way out. How do I survive Monday hiding for safety, lacking every basic need, and chase my dreams? Simple. I risk everything for a shot in the dark.
My adverse life experiences have led to my pursuit and passion for equity and inspiration for my latest publication, the 30-page Kakehashi: Grinnell College’s Extensive Resource Guide for Every Student & Faculty’s Bridge to Success.
I remember my first time going into the dining hall at Grinnell College feeling overwhelmed. I could have 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, every week, for the next 4 years of my life.
At Grinnell, this was just another Tuesday.
I remember different Tuesdays. My mother and her two multiracial Asian kids — my younger brother and me. We stayed on edge. It was how all the kids at the shelter lived. It was how we survived.
Emergency housing shelter, transitional housing shelter, couch surfing, motels, hotels, doubling up with relatives, fleeing for safety — led to my answer of the College application question, “How many places have you lived?”
I responded 14.
“Now.” A familiar yet simple word, but the only one it took for my little brother and I to help our mother fill our car full of trash bags, clothes and food. From worn-out teddy bears pressed up against the window of the car, I knew that was everything. It was another move, another reset, another day. The ground was constantly shifting beneath our feet.
I kept quiet. Quiet meant safety. Quiet meant another day, a normal day, at a normal middle school, being a normal student, in a normal city, with a normal housing situation, eating normal food, with a normal family, with normal life experiences, wearing normal clothes, being a normal kid, named Keanu. And Keanu kept silent.
Now I use these experiences to empower myself. My advocacy work extends to multiple publications including the YAAH Guidelines, a 205-page document to prevent, address, and end youth homelessness. Additionally, I collaborated with the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CAL ICH) to provide statewide recommendations for the creation of the first standardized measures for unhoused youth.
I have represented California at the federal level with a delegation to the offices of Senator Alex Padilla and Senator Laphonza Butler as an unwavering advocate for the reauthorization of the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act (RHYTPA), an expansion of HUD’s federal definition of homelessness and access to affordable housing for unhoused youth while enrolled in community colleges.
Most recently, I received full funding to travel to the capital of California for the California Coalition for Youth (CCY)’s Youth Empowerment Summit. Here, I advocated for $200 million for Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding and homelessness policy reform with CCY and partners, meeting with more than half of California’s legislative branch.
The word Kakehashi means “building bridges” in Japanese, and I aspire for the Kakehashi Resource Guide to serve as a bridge to end the equity gap at Grinnell College.
This document is an accumulation of extensive resources, gathered by me, from 20+ individual hours of established meetings, 50+ hours from the fall 2024 semester Multicultural Internship and extensive conversations with the Office of Admission, Office of Financial Aid, upper-level administrative staff — as well as positive endorsement by Grinnell College President Anne F. Harris.
Sections of the Kakehashi Resource Guide include everything from Wilson Center conference funding to international opportunities for faculty. You can read more about my experience of advocating at the federal level to end youth homelessness through the Wilson Center’s page, “Student Growth Through Professional Travel.”
The Kakehashi Resource Guide’s main version for publication for the 2024 year is online through The Scarlet & Black. During my fourth year, I plan to pursue SPARC funding through Grinnell College’s Press Publishing for large-scale printed publication.
My home was never set, but my aspirations are. I found my home, not within four walls and a roof but in advocacy. I stand against the opinion how limiting factors in your life predetermines where you will go. I am no longer afraid of the title that consumed me, a heavily stigmatized label, but choose to speak on why access to resources matters. To why I matter. How there is always still a chance to treat people with dignity.
Risks are a part of my identity, not because of the life experiences that have forced me to take them, but because of my deliberate choice to wake up each day, stare fear in the face, and say, “I deserve to dream too.” As I plan to go further than even what my dreams hold for me, I am accustomed to risk, and I am ready. My experiences of youth homelessness are my superpower.
As I propel towards my dreams, I take a deep breath. I pause, reflect and acknowledge, I am not defined as a label but so much more – an advocate, a trailblazer, a person. Feeling firsthand a sense of hidden identity to someone now proud of the hardships that I have overcome, I understand dignity. So, when I am vulnerable sharing my journey, I illustrate the importance of having courage in taking risks, to not let a barrier keep you down, and to grip onto hope with everything you have.
Keanu Masami Yamanaka `26 is a Multicultural Intern at the Office of Admission, Residence Life Community Advisor, and third-year student studying political science at Grinnell College. Yamanaka `26 emphasizes the utmost importance of having hope, the power of taking risks, and making the deliberate choice of treating people with dignity.
