Researcher: Audrey Tran
Because of the stereotypes perpetuated by the model minority myth, Asian Americans are often seen as successful and well-off. However, these stereotypes of Asian Americans often disregard the fact that there are certain groups within the Asian American community that face socioeconomic struggles. For example, Southeast Asian refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos may have settled in the U.S. for over 40 years, but they still deal with many financial challenges. Across the U.S., almost 1.1 million Southeast Asian Americans are low-income and around 460,000 live in poverty.
Refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia started coming to the U.S. around the 1970s after the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge regime, which killed almost 2 million people, and the U.S. “Secret War” in Laos, which made Laos the heaviest bombed country in the whole world. Within three decades, more than one million Southeast Asians moved to the U.S. When Southeast Asian refugees began resettling in the U.S. during the 1970s, the U.S. did not have a unified refugee resettlement system. Resettlement was dealt with by the State Department and volunteer groups that weren’t given clear guidelines on how to help the refugees. When Southeast Asians resettled in America, they often stayed in poorly funded areas such as Long Beach and Stockton in California or the Bronx in New York. The refugees were expected to become financially independent quickly and did not take into account the situation the refugees were in and how these refugees were dealing with trauma from the war and the aftermath.
Resettling in a new country and adjusting to the culture and language was difficult for Southeast Asian refugees. Many Southeast Asian youth faced difficulties connecting with their parents, who were dealing with their own traumas from escaping corrupt governments and countries that were devastated by war. Even though parents wanted to support their children, they were also struggling with work to help their families out of poverty. It was difficult to seek help because there was little access to mental health resources for Southeast Asian refugees, not to mention the stigma around mental health in many of their cultures. Southeast Asians also faced racism and discrimination; generally, Americans didn’t want Southeast Asian refugees in the U.S. because of their negative feelings towards the Vietnam War.
Today, many Southeast Asian Americans still struggle with socioeconomic challenges and housing instability. Almost 60% of Hmong Americans are low-income, with more than one out of four living in poverty. In a 2019 PRRI study of AAPI California workers, 44% of Hmong Americans and 26% of Cambodian and Vietnamese Americans struggled with poverty, in comparison to 20% of Indian Americans and 22% of Japanese Americans. 76% of Hmong Americans, 71% of Cambodian Americans, and 70% of Vietnamese Americans experienced economic struggles, such as not being able to pay a monthly bill or depending on food stamps. When it comes to housing stability, Southeast Asian Americans often experience many hardships and between the four Southeast Asian American ethnic groups, those who rent spend more than 30% of their income on costs relating to housing, except for Hmong Americans. Around 32% of those with home mortgages are more likely to be housing cost-burdened than average, with Vietnamese American mortgagors having the highest rate of being housing cost-burdened (45%) than all racial groups. Southeast Asian Americans, especially Hmong and Cambodian Americans, are also more likely to depend on public health insurance to survive in comparison to the average population. The public health insurance enrollment rates of Hmong Americans (39%) are similar to those of Black Americans (38%). 31% of Cambodian Americans are enrolled in public health insurance, similar to the 33% of Latinos that are enrolled.
In terms of educational attainment, Lao, Cambodian, and Hmong Americans have lower high school and college graduation rates in comparison to other Asian American groups. Almost 30% of Southeast Asian Americans have not completed high school, which is higher than the national average (13%). Around 34.3% of Lao adults and 40% of Hmong and Cambodian adults did not receive high school diplomas. While around half of all Asian Americans have a bachelor’s degree or higher, only 27% of Vietnamese Americans, 17% of Hmong and Cambodian Americans, and 14% of Lao Americans have the same level of academic attainment.
Southeast Asian Americans also deal with immigration detentions and deportations, which rose significantly under the Trump administration. However, even before Trump took office, the U.S. has ordered the removal of around 16,000 Southeast Asian refugees since the mid-1990s. Since 2002, more than 500, possibly up to 1,000 Cambodians have been deported and 41 of the deportees have died and at least six of them took their own lives. During the Trump administration, deportations of Cambodians increased by 279%. In 2018, 110 Cambodians were deported and as of September 2018, almost 2,000 Cambodians received orders of removal. In 2017, the Trump administration reinterpreted an agreement with Vietnam made in 2008 that granted Vietnamese refugees immunity from deportation if they arrived before July 12, 1995. The agreement was reinterpreted in a way that allowed for permanent residents who have committed certain crimes or for those who came to the U.S. after the Vietnam War and lived in the U.S. for most of their lives to be deported back to Vietnam. As of November 2018, this left around 8,000 Vietnamese refugees at risk of being deported and between 2017 and 2018, there was a 58% increase in Vietnamese deportations. In June 2018, around 43% of Vietnamese Americans that were detained had lived in the U.S. for more than twenty years. At the beginning of 2020, the Trump administration tried to form a similar repatriation agreement with Laos and as a result, almost 5,000 Lao Americans were given final orders of removal. 86% of Lao Americans and 75% of Cambodian Americans who were detained have lived in the U.S. for over twenty years.
Many Southeast Asian Americans that are at risk of deportation have committed previous crimes. For many Southeast Asian refugees in America, they had little resources to help them start a new life in America. Difficult situations and bullying led many young Southeast Asians to drop out of school, join gangs, or commit crimes. However, crimes committed in their youth often led to deportation. Because of the strict immigration laws and policies established in 1996, Southeast Asian refugees are 3 to 4 times more likely than other groups of immigrants to be deported due to old convictions. As many Southeast Asian refugees came to America to start a new life, the imprisonment of Southeast Asians increased, with the AAPI prisoner population increasing by 250% in the 1990s. The criminalization of immigrants was especially apparent in areas with large AAPI populations. In 1990, Lao and Vietnamese Americans were one of the topmost arrested groups in the San Francisco area. Even though most Southeast Asians in America are legal residents with green cards, over the past two decades, at least 16,000 Southeast Asians were given final orders of removal.
The model minority myth covers up the struggles and challenges that all Asian Americans, not only Southeast Asian Americans, face and ignores the fact that there are Asian Americans who live in poverty and deal with socio-economic challenges, not to mention that Asians Americans have the greatest wealth disparity among all racial groups. It also hides the discrimination and racism that Asian Americans face on a daily basis, especially now with the recent surge in hate crimes towards Asian Americans. Because of how the model minority myth depicts Asian Americans, Asian Americans that are struggling cannot have access to resources needed to help them.
Sources:
Constante, Agnes, “Largest U.S. refugee group struggling with poverty 45 years after resettlement”, NBC News, 4 March 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/largest-u-s-refugee-group-struggling-poverty-45-years-after-n1150031
Constante, Agnes, “How Southeast Asian American refugees helped shape America’s resettlement system”, NBC News, 20 April 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/how-southeast-asian-american-refugees-helped-shape-america-s-resettlement-n1187961
Ramakrishnan, Karthick, Shao, Sunny, Wong, Janelle et al. “Understanding the Struggles of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders”, AAPI Data, 22 November 2019, http://aapidata.com/blog/aapi-struggles-2019/
SEARAC, “Southeast Asian American Journeys”, SEARAC, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles, 2020, https://www.searac.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/SEARAC_NationalSnapshot_PrinterFriendly.pdf
Pham, Duy, “Asian-American Students Have Highest Amount of Unmet Need”, Clasp, 6 December 2018, https://www.clasp.org/blog/asian-american-students-have-highest-amount-unmet-need
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Wiltz, Teresa, “Southeast Asian Refugees and the Prison-Deportation Pipeline”, Pew Trusts, 5 April 2016, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/04/05/southeast-asian-refugees-and-the-prison-deportation-pipeline
Yam, Kimberly, “The Forgotten Asian Refugees Fed Into The U.S. Prison System”, Huffpost, 29 January 2018, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/southeast-asian-prison-deportation-pipeline_n_5a1dd48ee4b0569950233065
Kusakawa, Gisela Perez, “Giving Visibility to an Invisible Issue: The Rise of Southeast Asian Deportations”, Advancing Justice, Medium, 22 November 2019, https://medium.com/advancing-justice-aajc/giving-visibility-to-an-invisible-issue-the-school-to-deportation-pipeline-for-southeast-asian-543025bf3ba4
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