Mali Keo fled Cambodia with her husband and four children in 1992. Several years later, she was still haunted by searing memories of "the killing fields," the forced-labor camps where millions of Cambodians died, victims of Communist despot Pol Pot's quest for a perfect agrarian society. Because of the brutal beatings she suffered at the hands of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, she was still wracked with physical pain as well. Traumatized and ailing, uneducated, unskilled, and speaking very little English, Mali Keo (a pseudonym assigned by researchers) could barely support her children after her husband abandoned the family.
And now she may not even have public assistance to fall back on, because the1996 welfare-reform act cut off most federal benefits to immigrants andsubsequent amendments have not entirely restored them. In what was supposed to bethe land of her salvation, Mali Keo today is severely impoverished. Living in ahard-pressed neighborhood of Philadelphia, she struggles with only mixed successto keep her children out of trouble and in school.
The Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), an advocacy group inWashington, estimates that more than 2.2 million Southeast Asians now live in theUnited States. They are the largest group of refugees in the country and thefastest-growing minority. Yet for most policy makers, the plight of the many MaliKeos has been overshadowed by the well-known success of the Asian immigrants whocame before and engendered the myth of the "model minority." Indeed,conservatives have exploited this racial stereotype -- arguing that Asians farewell in the United States because of their strong "family values" and work ethic.These values, they say, and not government assistance, are what all minoritiesneed in order to get ahead.
Paradoxically, Southeast Asians -- supposedly part of the model minority --may be suffering most from the resulting public policies. They have been left inthe hands of underfunded community-assistance programs and government agenciesthat, in one example of well-intentioned incompetence, churn out forms in Khmerand Lao for often illiterate populations. But fueled by outrage over bad servicesand a fraying social safety-net, Southeast Asian immigrants have started toembrace that most American of activities, political protest -- by pushing forresearch on their communities, advocating for their rights, and harnessing theirpolitical power.
The model-minority myth has persisted in large part becausepolitical conservatives are so attached to it. "Asian Americans have become thedarlings of the right," said Frank Wu, a law professor at Howard University andthe author of Yellow: Race beyond Black and White. "The model-minority myth and its depiction of Asian-American success tells a reassuring story about our society working."
The flip side is also appealing to the right. Because Asian Americans'success stems from their strong families and their dedication to education andhard work, conservatives say, then the poverty of Latinos and African Americansmust be explained by their own "values": They are poor because of theirnonmarrying, school-skipping, and generally lazy and irresponsible behavior,which government handouts only encourage.
The model-minority myth's "racist love," as author Frank Chin terms it, tookhold at a sensitive point in U.S. history: after the 1965 Watts riots and theimmigration reforms of that year, which selectively allowed large numbers ofeducated immigrants into the United States. Highly skilled South and East Asiannurses, doctors, and engineers from countries like India and China began pouringinto the United States just as racial tensions were at a fever pitch.
Shortly thereafter, articles like "Success Story of One Minority in the U.S.,"published by U.S. News & World Report in 1966, trumpeted: "At a time when it is being proposed that hundreds of billions be spent to uplift Negroes and other minorities, the nation's 300,000 Chinese Americans are moving ahead on their own, with no help from anyone else." Newsweek in 1971 had Asian Americans "outwhiting the whites." And Fortune in 1986 dubbed them a "superminority." As Wu caricatures the model-minority myth in his book:
Asian Americans vindicate the American Dream... . They areliving proof of the power of the free market and the absence of racialdiscrimination. Their good fortune flows from individual self-reliance andcommunity self-sufficiency, not civil-rights activism or government welfarebenefits.
A closer look at the data paints another picture, however. If Asian-Americanhouseholds earn more than whites, statistics suggest, it's not because theirindividual earnings are higher but because Asian Americans live in largerhouseholds, with more working adults. In fact, a recent University of Hawaiistudy found that "most Asian Americans are overeducated compared to whites forthe incomes they earn" -- evidence that suggests not "family values" but marketdiscrimination.
What most dramatically skews the data, though, is the fact that about half thepopulation of Asian (or, more precisely, Asian-Pacific Islander) Americans ismade up of the highly educated immigrants who began arriving with their familiesin the 1960s. The plight of refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, who makeup less than 14 percent of Asian Americans, gets lost in the averaging. Yet theserefugees, who started arriving in the United States after 1975, differ markedlyfrom the professional-class Chinese and Indian immigrants who started coming 10years earlier. The Southeast Asians were fleeing wartime persecution and had fewresources. And those disadvantages have had devastating effects on their lives inthe United States. The most recent census data available show that 47 percent ofCambodians, 66 percent of Hmong (an ethnic group that lived in the mountains ofLaos), 67 percent of Laotians, and 34 percent of Vietnamese were impoverished in1990 -- compared with 10 percent of all Americans and 14 percent of all AsianAmericans. Significantly, poverty rates among Southeast Asian Americans were muchhigher than those of even the "nonmodel" minorities: 21 percent of AfricanAmericans and 23 percent of Latinos were poor.
Yet despite the clear inaccuracies created by lumping populations together,the federal government still groups Southeast Asian refugees under the overbroadcategory of "Asian" for research and funding purposes. "We've labored under theshadow of this model myth for so long," said KaYing Yang, SEARAC's executivedirector. "There's so little research on us, or we're lumped in with all otherAsians, so people don't know the specific needs and contributions of ourcommunities."
To get a sense of those needs, one has to go back to the beginning ofthe Southeast Asian refugees' story and the circumstances that forced theirmigration. In 1975, the fall of Saigon sent shock waves throughout SoutheastAsia, as communist insurgents toppled U.S.-supported governments in Vietnam andCambodia. In Laos, where the CIA had trained and funded the Hmong to fightLaotian and Vietnamese communists as U.S. proxies, the communists who took overvowed to purge the country of ethnic Hmong and punish all others who had workedwith the U.S. government.
The first refugees to leave Southeast Asia tended to be the most educatedand urban, English-speakers with close connections to the U.S. government. One ofthem was a man who wishes to be identified by the pseudonym John Askulraskul. Hespent two years in a Laotian re-education camp -- punishment for his ability tospeak English, his having been educated, and, most of all, his status as a formeremployee of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
"They tried to brainwash you, to subdue you psychologically, to work you todeath on two bowls of rice a day," Askulraskul told me recently.
After being released, he decided to flee the country. He, his sister, and hiseldest daughter, five and a half years old, slipped into the Mekong River with afew others. Clinging to an inflated garbage bag, Askulraskul swam alongside theirboat out of fear that his weight would sink it.
After they arrived on the shores of Thailand, Askulraskul and his daughterwere placed in a refugee camp, where they waited to be reunited with his wife andhis two other daughters.
It was not to be.
"My wife tried to escape with two small children. But my daughters couldn'tmake it" -- he paused, drawing a ragged breath -- "because the boat sank."
Askulraskul's wife was swept back to Laos, where she was arrested and placedin jail for a month. She succeeded in her next escape attempt, rejoining hersuddenly diminished family.
Eventually, with the help of his former boss at USAID, they moved toConnecticut, where Askulraskul found work helping to resettle other refugees. Hiswife, who had been an elementary-school teacher, took up teaching English as asecond language (ESL) to Laotian refugee children. His daughter adjusted quicklyand went to school without incident.
Askulraskul now manages a project that provides services for at-risk SoutheastAsian children and their families. "The job I am doing now is not only a job," hesaid. "It is part of my life and my sacrifice. My daughter is 29 now, and I knowraising kids in America is not easy. I cannot save everybody, but there is stillsomething I can do."
Like others among the first wave of refugees, Askulraskul considers himselfone of the lucky ones. His education, U.S. ties, and English-language ability --everything that set off the tragic chain of events that culminated in hisdaughters' deaths -- proved enormously helpful once he was in the United States.
But the majority of refugees from Southeast Asia had no such advantages.Subsequent waves frequently hailed from rural areas and lacked both financialresources and formal schooling. Their psychological scars were even deeper thanthe first group's, from their longer years in squalid refugee camps or thekilling fields. The ethnic Chinese who began arriving from Vietnam had facedharsh discrimination as well, and the Amerasians -- the children of Vietnamesewomen and U.S. soldiers -- had lived for years as pariahs.
Once here, these refugees often found themselves trapped in poverty, providinglow-cost labor, and receiving no health or other benefits, while their lack ofschooling made decent jobs almost impossible to come by. In 1990, two-thirds ofCambodian, Laotian, and Hmong adults in America had less than a high-schooleducation -- compared with 14 percent of whites, 25 percent of African Americans,45 percent of Latinos, and 15 percent of the general Asian-American population.Before the welfare-reform law cut many of them off, nearly 30 percent ofSoutheast Asian Americans were on welfare -- the highest participation rate ofany ethnic group. And having such meager incomes, they usually lived in the worstneighborhoods, with the attendant crime, gang problems, and poor schools.
But shouldn't the touted Asian dedication to schooling have overcome thesedisadvantages, lifting the refugees' children out of poverty and keeping them offthe streets? Unfortunately, it didn't. "There is still a high number of dropoutsfor Southeast Asians," Yang said. "And if they do graduate, there is a low numbergoing on to higher education."
Their parents' difficulty in navigating American school systems maycontribute to the problem. "The parents' lack of education leads to a lack ofrole models and guidance. Without those things, youth can turn to delinquentbehavior and in some very extreme cases, gangs, instead of devoting themselves to education," said Narin Sihavong, director of SEARAC's Successful New AmericansProject, which interviewed Mali Keo. "This underscores the need for SoutheastAsian school administrators or counselors who can be role models, ease thecultural barrier, and serve as a bridge to their parents."
"Sometimes families have to choose between education and employment,especially when money is tight," said Porthira Chimm, a former SEARAC projectdirector. "And unfortunately, immediate money concerns often win out."
The picture that emerges -- of high welfare participation and dropout rates,low levels of education and income -- is startlingly similar to the situation ofthe poorest members of "nonmodel" minority groups. Southeast Asians, Latinos, andAfrican Americans also have in common significant numbers of single-parentfamilies. Largely as a result of the killing fields, nearly a quarter ofCambodian households are headed by single women. Other Southeast Asian familieshave similar stories. Sihavong's mother, for example, raised him and his fivesiblings on her own while his father was imprisoned in a Laotian re-educationcamp.
No matter how "traditional" Southeast Asians may be, they sharethe fate of other people of color when they are denied access to good education,safe neighborhoods, and jobs that provide a living wage and benefits. But for thesake of preserving the model-minority myth, conservative policy makers havelargely ignored the needs of Southeast Asian communities.
One such need is for psychological care. Wartime trauma and "lack of Englishproficiency, acculturative stress, prejudice, discrimination, and racial hatecrimes" place Southeast Asians "at risk for emotional and behavioral problems,"according to the U.S. surgeon general's 2001 report on race and mental health.One random sample of Cambodian adults found that 45 percent had post-traumaticstress disorder and 51 percent suffered from depression.
John Askulraskul's past reflects trauma as well, but his education,English-language ability, and U.S. connections helped level the playing field.Less fortunate refugees need literacy training and language assistance. They alsoneed social supports like welfare and strong community-assistance groups. Butmisled by the model-minority myth, many government agencies seem to be unawarethat Southeast Asians require their services, and officials have done little tofind these needy refugees or accommodate them. Considering that nearly two-thirdsof Southeast Asians say they do not speak English very well and more than 50percent live in linguistically isolated ethnic enclaves, the lack of outreach andtranslators effectively denies them many public services.
The problem extends beyond antipoverty programs, as Mali Keo's storyillustrates. After her husband left her, she formed a relationship with anotherman and had two more children. But he beat the family for years, until she askedan organization that served Cambodian refugees to help her file a restrainingorder. If she had known that a shelter was available, she told her interviewer,even one without Khmer-speaking counselors, she would have escaped much earlier.
Where the government hasn't turned a blind eye, it has oftenwielded an iron fist. The welfare-reform law of 1996, which cut off welfare, SSI,and food-stamp benefits for most noncitizens -- even those who are legalpermanent residents -- sent Southeast Asian communities into an uproar. Severalelderly Hmong in California committed suicide, fearing that they would becomeburdens to their families. Meanwhile, the lack of literacy programs prevented(and still does prevent) many refugees from passing the written test that wouldgain them citizenship and the right to public assistance.
"We achieved welfare reform on the backs of newcomers," Frank Wu said."People said that 'outsiders' don't have a claim to the body politic, and evenliberals say we should care for 'our own' first." Few seemed to ask the questionposed by sociologist Donald Hernandez: "What responsibility do we have to ensurea basic standard of living for immigrants who have fled their countries as aresult of the American government's economic, military, and political involvementthere?"
But welfare reform also had a second effect. "It was such a shockingevent, it completely galvanized the Southeast Asian community," said KarenNarasaki, executive director of the National Asian Pacific American LegalConsortium. "In different Asian cultures, you have 'the crab who crawls out ofthe bucket gets pulled back' [and] 'the nail that sticks out gets pounded down.'But in the United States, 'the squeaky wheel gets the grease,' and people had tolearn that."
The learning process has been a difficult one. At first, because of theirpast negative experiences with the United States and their homeland governments,many Southeast Asians feared political involvement. Many saw themselves asnoncitizens and second-class "outsiders" with a precarious standing in the UnitedStates. But as they have grown more familiar with this country, even noncitizenshave started to think of themselves less as refugees in a temporary home and moreas "new Americans" who are entitled to shape their destinies through politicalengagement.
The energy for this new activism grew out of the mutual-assistance associations(MAAs) that have taken root in various Southeast Asian communities. Primarilystaffed by people like Askulraskul -- the more successful members of the ethnicgroups they serve -- MAAs form the backbone of support for Southeast Asians,providing, among many other things, child care, job training, school liaisons,and assistance with navigating government bureaucracies.
But the MAAs are facing problems of their own. The funding they used to getfrom the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is dwindling. In 1996 new federalguidelines mandated that these funds go exclusively to organizations serving themost recent refugees. (In response, several Southeast Asian MAAs have tried tostay afloat by offering their services to newer refugees from places likeEthiopia and Iraq.) As for outside funding, only 0.3 percent of all philanthropicaid goes to groups that work specifically with Asian-American populations, according to the 1998 edition of Foundation Giving. "A lot of people in philanthropy think [that Asians] are doing so well, they don't need help," Narasaki said.
Despite these problems, MAAs and national advocacy organizations like SEARAChave won limited restorations of benefits and food stamps for immigrants. And asignificant victory came in 2000, when legislation sponsored by Minnesota SenatorPaul Wellstone was adopted: It will allow Hmong veterans -- or their widows --from America's "secret war" in Laos to take the U.S. citizenship test in Hmong,with a translator.
One key to the MAAs' success is their networking with other minority-advocacygroups, says Sandy Dang, executive director of Asian American LEAD, anorganization based in Washington, that provides a range of services forVietnamese Americans, including ESL classes, youth mentoring, and parent-supportgroups.
When Dang founded the organization, she didn't know how to write grantproposals, so she asked the director of a nearby youth center for Latin Americansto provide guidance. "The Latino organizations have a lot of empathy for peoplestarting out," she said. "They understand the refugee-immigrant experience.
"Disadvantaged people share a lot in common," Dang continued, "and we have tohelp each other. People who are empowered in this country like to play us offeach other, like with the model-minority myth. They need the poor anddisadvantaged to fight each other. Because if we unite, we can make it difficultfor them."
Southeast Asians are disproving the model-minority myth not just with theirdifficult lives but with their growing insistence that it takes more than"traditional values" and "personal responsibility" to survive in this country. Ittakes social supports and participation in the legacy of civil rights activism aswell.
The refugees and their children are forging their identities as new Americansand are starting to emerge as a political force. At first, Yang said, "we had notime to think about anything else but our communities -- and no one was thinkingabout us. But now we know that what we were grappling with [affects both] me andmy neighbor, who might be poor black, Latino, or Asian. We are no longerrefugees, we are Americans. And we know what being 'successful' is: It's beingsomeone who is truly aware of the meaning of freedom to speak out."
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