NCVA eREPORTER
- January 25, 2006
The National
Congress of Vietnamese Americans' NCVA eReporter is a regular email
newsletter containing information on
grant/funding
opportunities, events/forums/conferences, available
internships
and news items pertinent to the Vietnamese American and Asian
Pacific American communities.
In this NCVA eReporter:
EVENTS
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
JOBS/INTERNSHIPS
TIPS/RESOURCES
NEWS
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EVENTS
ECAASU 2006 – FOUNDATIONS: DEEP ROOTS, LASTING GROWTH
http://www.GWecaasu2006.org
*REGISTER NOW!! The 2006 ECAASU conference is in less than a
month! Online registration is available on our conference
website:*
http://www.GWecaasu2006.org. Regular registration for the
2006 East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU) conference
will end on February 1, 2006. After the February 1 deadline,
registration fees will increase to $65, and the on-site
registration fee at the conference will be $75. Payments by
credit card or check are accepted.
Please register now while prices are still low to reserve your
spot at this national conference! ECAASU delegates are strongly
encouraged to book rooms at our preferred hotel, which is listed
on our website as well.
The conference will be held during President's Day Weekend,
February 17-19, 2006 at The George Washington University in
Washington, D.C. This year's theme: Foundations: Deep Roots,
Lasting Growth, strives to utilize Asian American history as a
stepping stone to organize and shape current Asian American
communities. GW, located in our nation's capital, is the perfect
location for ECAASU since it is only a few blocks away from the
White House and Capitol Hill, and is known for being one of the
most politically active universities in the United States.
For further questions and inquiries, please contact the External
Liaison at
GW.ECAASU@gmail.com.
(http://www.GWecaasu2006.org)
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FORUM
ADDRESSES ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Arizona State University Center for Nonprofit Leadership and
Management: Forum on Nonprofit Effectiveness
The ASU Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management’s 8th
Annual Forum on Nonprofit Effectiveness will be focused on
building nonprofit effectiveness through standards and best
practice. The forum will provide an array of speakers who will
provide ideas for how to improve your organization's operations
while also increasing your accountability to your customers,
your funders and your community. This forum is relevant for all
nonprofit organizations aspiring to a greater level of
organizational effectiveness, and a higher plane of community
impact. The forum will be held March 3, 2006 in Glendale, AZ.
(http://www.asu.edu/copp/nonprofit/conf/con_ann_info.htm)
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vascon2
THE SECOND ANNUAL: Vietnamese American Students Conference
*Co-Hosted by VPS & VASCON*
*Austin, TX | Omni Hotel*
*March 24 - 26, 2006*
*What is VASCON?* confused much?
VASCON is the Vietnamese American Students Conference, an
expected attendance of several hundreds undergraduate and
graduate students from around the nation. Students discuss
issues affecting the Vietnamese American community.
*What is VASCON's goal?*
VASCON seeks to inspire and empower its registrants so that they
leave with the motivation to contribute to and advance the
Vietnamese American community.
*How does VASCON accomplish its goal?*
VASCON brings together the most ardent leaders of the Vietnamese
American community in fields ranging from politics to
journalism. Through educational seminars and interactive
workshops and discussions, participants are given a crash course
on the issues affecting the Vietnamese American community today
as well as ample time to network with fellow student leaders.
Speakers, facilitators, and entertainers are also made
accessible for participants to speak with on a more intimate
level.
*Do I have to be Vietnamese to attend?*
Absolutely not. We welcome students of all ethnicities.
*What's the registration deadline?*
You can register anytime before the start of the conference, and
on-site registration at the Omni Hotel will also be made
available. However, the conference fee will change depending on
the date of registration. *Early Registration* (January 31) -
$40 / *Regular* (Until February 20) - $60 / * Late* (Until March
20) - $80 / *On Site* - $100
(http://www.vascon2.org)
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FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
YOUTHACTIONNET TO HELP FUND YOUTH-LED SOCIAL CHANGE PROJECTS
Deadline: April 15, 2006
YouthActionNet (http://www.youthactionnet.org)
will present awards to youth leaders and emerging projects that
promote social change and connect youth with local communities.
The YouthActionNet Awards are supported by Make a Connection, a
global initiative of the International Youth Foundation (http://www.iyfnet.org/)
and Nokia (
http://www.nokia.com/).
To be eligible for an award, youth-led projects should have
clearly defined goals and the potential for growth or further
replication. Final selections are made following a peer-review
process in which previous award winners select the next round
of awardees. Award recipients will receive $500 and are eligible
to participate in an international capacity-building workshop.
The program is open to all young people between the ages of 18
and 29. Individuals applying must have a leadership role in a
youth-led initiative that works to create positive change in
their community, and applications must be written in English.
The YouthActionNet Awards will be held once a year. This year's
deadline is April 15, 2006, with winners to be announced July
30, 2006.
(http://www.youthactionnet.org/yan_awards)
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JOHNSON & JOHNSON/ROSALYNN CARTER INSTITUTE CAREGIVERS PROGRAM
ANNOUNCES GRANT PROGRAM
Deadline: March 31, 2006
The Johnson & Johnson/Rosalynn Carter Institute Caregivers
Program, a partnership of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for
Caregiving (http://RosalynnCarter.org)
and Johnson & Johnson (http://www.jnj.com),
has announced the availability of grant funding for communities
to initiate, expand, or replicate collaborative community-based
programs that address one or more of these top needs of family
caregivers: respite care; skill development;
information/education; and caregiver health and well-being.
Applications are being accepted from organizations in the
following states only: Colorado; Georgia; New Jersey; Tennessee;
and Texas.
Applicants may be public entities or organizations that are
tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Private foundations, as defined under Section 509(a), are not
eligible to apply. Funding is available to support education,
training, and support services; projects that are primarily
research efforts are not eligible for funding under this Call
for Proposals.
Organizations selected by the J&J/RCI Caregivers Program will
receive a $40,000 one-year grant and will also receive both on-
and off-site technical assistance provided by J&J/RCI Caregivers
Program staff.
(http://www.rosalynncarter.org/)
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GRASSROOTS EXCHANGE FUND ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR 2006
Deadline: Open
The Common Counsel Foundation's (http://commoncounsel.org)
Grassroots Exchange Fund (formerly the Grantee Exchange Fund)
provides discretionary small grants to build bridges between
grassroots organizations throughout the United States.
The fund was established to encourage social change
organizations to seek technical assistance from one another, and
to help build regional and national networks among
organizations. GXF prioritizes grants to small community- based
groups seeking to meet face-to-face with other grassroots
organizations, to build collaborative campaigns, and to benefit
from technical assistance opportunities.
GXF awards grants averaging $300-$800 to approximately sixty
organizations per year to cover training, travel, or conference
expenses. The fund typically makes grants to grassroots
community-based organizations working on economic,
environmental, and social-justice initiatives that give voice to
the needs of low-income people, women, youth, and people of
color.
Current criteria for GXF grants include the urgency of the
action, strategy session, or conference to the overall work of
the applicant organization; the extent to which a small grant
from GXF would make a significant impact; the extent to which
the applicant meets core Common Counsel criteria --
membership-led groups organizing for social, economic, or
environmental change.
(http://www.commoncounsel.org/pages/gxf_application_procedure.html)
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STARBUCKS FOUNDATION GRANTS FOR YOUTH LITERACY PROGRAMS
The Starbucks Foundation makes grants to nonprofit organizations
in the U.S. and Canada that work with underserved youth (ages
6-18) in the fields of arts and literacy (reading, writing and
creative/media arts) and environmental literacy. Priority will
be given to organizations that reach underserved communities and
communities of color, and that represent models in
non-traditional learning environments. In addition, emphasis
will be placed on programs that provide opportunities to
integrate Starbucks employees and stores in a meaningful way.
Letters of inquiry are due March 1 and September 1, annually.
(http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/grantinfo.asp)
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DRAPER RICHARDS FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIPS FOR SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
The Draper Richards Foundation provides selected social
entrepreneurs with funding to start new nonprofit organizations
through the Draper Richards Fellowships. The projects selected
will demonstrate innovative ways to solve existing social
problems. By delivering support at the critical start-up phase,
the Fellowships help outstanding people create wide-reaching
social change. Funded projects must have national or global
reach. Experienced, dedicated social entrepreneurs with a
developed idea for a nonprofit organization in the United States
are invited to apply for up to $100,000 annually for three
years. Applications are accepted throughout the year.
(http://www.draperrichards.org/)
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BALANCE BAR SUPPORTS AMATEUR INDIVIDUAL/TEAM
ATHLETES
The BALANCE Bar Individual/Team Grants support amateur athletes
(individuals and teams) who passionately pursue activities that
enrich their lives while enhancing their physical health. Grants
are available to sport enthusiasts and/or amateur athletes who
participate in a wide variety of sports/activities. Past grant
recipient activities have included adventure racing, archery,
rock climbing, hiking, martial arts, paddling, cycling and
snowboarding, running, and yoga. Individuals and teams can apply
for grants ranging from a minimum of $500 to a maximum of
$10,000. Applicants must be U.S. resident amateur athletes over
the age of 18 or teams consisting of the same. The next
application deadline is March 15, 2006.
(http://www.balance.com/grants/GrantTemplate.aspx?type=1&entryid=1&m=modules/rules)
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F.B. HERON FOUNDATION GRANTS FOR WEALTH-CREATION STRATEGIES
The F.B. Heron Foundation supports organizations that help
low-income people to create wealth and take control of their
lives. The Foundation makes grants to programs in urban and
rural communities engaged in wealth-creation strategies,
including home ownership, enterprise development, access to
capital, quality child care, and community development. From
2005 forward, the Foundation will concentrate the majority of
grants in the following geographic areas: Appalachia,
California, Chicago, Kansas City, Michigan, Minneapolis/St.
Paul, Mississippi Delta, New Jersey, New York City, North
Carolina, Texas, and Washington, DC. The Foundation will also
continue to support organizations with a national focus or
regional focus where proposals have broad application for the
Foundation’s wealth-creation strategies. Letters of inquiry are
accepted throughout the year.
(http://www.fbheron.org)
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PAUL G. ALLEN FAMILY FOUNDATION FUNDS PACIFIC NORTHWEST
ORGANIZATIONS
The mission of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is to
transform lives and strengthen communities by fostering
innovation, creating knowledge and promoting social progress.
The Foundation supports nonprofit organizations located in, or
serving populations of, the Pacific Northwest, which includes
Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. The Foundation’s
program areas that are open for application include: arts and
culture, youth engagement, and community development and social
change. Letters of inquiry are accepted throughout the year.
(http://www.pgafamilyfoundation.org)
******************
JOBS/INTERNSHIPS
THE BANCROFT
LIBRARY STUDY AWARD
Please apply for Academic Year 2006-2007 Fellowships
Application deadline is the first Monday in February
For each academic year, two or three fellowships are available
to graduate students on all University of California campuses
who are conducting research that would benefit from the use of
source materials in The Bancroft Library. The holders of the
fellowships, designated as Bancroft Fellows, will conduct their
research in The Bancroft Library on the Berkeley campus during
the one-year tenure of the fellowship and must therefore be
registered during the academic year at Berkeley or their home
campus under the inter-campus exchange program.
The Kenneth E. and Dorothy V. Hill Fellowship Fund will provide
three Bancroft Study Awards, of either $10,000 or $7,000,
depending on whether the recipient is from UC Berkeley or
another UC campus. UCB recipients will also receive fees.
Students must be beyond the first year of graduate study; in the
past, awards have generally gone to students who have passed
their qualifying examinations and are engaged in dissertation
research. Awards will be announced in April.
In addition, up to $3,000 will be awarded for research during
the summer session, in the form of one $3,000 fellowship (six to
eight weeks in residence), two $1,500 fellowships (four to six
weeks), or three $1,000 fellowships (two to four weeks).
The applicant's statement of purpose must describe how the
research project will make use of The Bancroft Library's
collections, which include:
* Manuscripts, printed materials, and oral histories on the
history of California and western North America, as well as on
aspects of English and continental European history
* Writings of Mark Twain and other major American and European
authors
* History of science and technology
* Rare books, and material on the history and art of the book
* Pictorial collections
* University archives
Completed applications must include: statement of purpose, 1000
words or less; official transcripts of all undergraduate and
graduate coursework; three letters of recommendation from
instructors, and, for summer fellowships, the estimated length
of time that the applicant would be in residence. The selection
committee will balance all of these factors in determining the
recipients of the full year fellowships as well as the summer
fellowships.
(http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info/fellowships.html)
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USDA GRADUATE
SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Basu Graduate
Scholarship Program provides funding for graduate school as
preparation for a career in government service. The program is
designed to recruit individuals to work for USDA after
completion of graduate course work in particular disciplines,
and will be administered under the Student Educational
Employment Program.
The scholarships will be awarded to students enrolled in
master?s or Ph.D. programs. Generally, a maximum of two (2)
years of funding will be provided for a master?s degree and four
(4) years of funding will be provided for a Ph.D. degree.
Recipients of the scholarships enter into an agreement with USDA
and receive full-tuition scholarships. Prior to graduation,
recipients intern at USDA for a minimum of 640 hours. The
internships are paid in addition to the scholarship funds.
After graduation, recipients are required to work for USDA one
year for every year of financial assistance received from USDA.
The awards include the following:
Full-tuition scholarships: tuition, mandatory university
fees and books. Paid internship (minimum of 640 hours) leading
to permanent employment Employee benefits Mentoring, career
development, and leadership training
Under this Program, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), an
agency of USDA, will offer one (1) scholarship each year over
three (3) years, starting in 2006.
Eligible Fields of Study for the 2006 scholarship
Economics or Agricultural Economics (Ph.D. or Master?s).
Specialties desired include agricultural and food marketing,
livestock marketing, price analysis, and quantitative methods.
Internship and Permanent Employment
Internship and eventual permanent employment responsibilities
for the 2006 scholarship include:
Conducting in-depth economic analyses of marketing issues
pertaining to livestock, meat, fish, and other agricultural
commodities as assigned Collecting and compiling economic,
statistical, and commodity-specific data necessary to analyze
the impact of various regulatory and program actions Preparing
background, issue, briefing, and various topical economic papers
relating to livestock, fish, grain and seed, their products, and
other assigned commodities
Eligibility Criteria
Each applicant must meet all of the following eligibility
requirements:
Be a U.S. citizen.
Possess a bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution, or
be a graduating senior, with at least a cumulative 3.0 grade
point average based on a 4.0 scale Be accepted into or enrolled
in an accredited institution as a graduate student, seeking a
master’s or Ph.D. degree in a field as defined above. Have a
strong interest in a career in public service with the USDA Not
a current USDA employee
Additionally, the recipient of the 2006 scholarship must be
willing to work in Washington, D.C. as a permanent duty station.
Application Materials
To be considered for the program, the following materials must
be submitted:
Resume: a current one-page resume.
Letter of Recommendation: ONE TYPED current letter of
recommendation on an accredited college/university letterhead
from applicant?s academic counselor, advisor, faculty member, or
employer that addresses the Selection Committee specifically.
Letter of recommendation should be from someone who knows the
applicant well and can speak to his/her abilities. The letter
should discuss an applicant’s 1) Personal strengths; 2)
Leadership qualities; 3) Academic and extracurricular
achievements; and 4) Future academic and career aspirations.
Official Transcript: an OFFICIAL accredited college/university
transcript indicating undergraduate and graduate (if any)
academic work. Transcripts MUST include a cumulative GPA on a
4.0 scale. Letter of acceptance into an accredited institution
as a graduate student.
Application Deadline and Mailing Information
Application deadline is January 31, 2006
Application materials should be sent to:
Dr. Ruihong Guo
USDA - AMS
1400 Independence Avenue, SW
Room 1095
Washington, DC 20250
Additional Information
For additional information, please contact Dr. Guo at
ruihong.guo@usda.gov or (202) 720-0583.
******************
OCAPICA/UNITED WAY AAPI SCHOLARSHIP FUND
The OCAPICA/United Way AAPI Scholarship Fund offers scholarships
to Asian American & Pacific Islander college students who
demonstrate significant merit in academics, workplace, and/or
community involvement. Multiple students will be selected to
receive a $1,000 scholarship to offset their expenses at the
two- or four-year accredited institution that they are currently
attending. The scholarship is funded by Orange County United Way
and is administered by the Orange County Asian and Pacific
Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA) in partnership with the
Cambodian Family, Community Action Partnership of Orange County,
Japanese American Citizens League - SELANOCO Chapter, Kababayan
Alumni of UC Irvine, Korean American Coalition - OC,
Organization of Chinese Americans - OC, Pacific Islander Health
Partnership, Project MotiVATe/Vietnamese American Mentoring
Project, Taiwanese American Citizens League - OC, and the
Vietnamese American Public Affairs Committee - Southern
California.
Deadline, Friday, March 10, 2006
More info can be found on the application.
(http://www.ocapica.org/documents/UWAAPIScholarshipApplication2006.pdf)
******************
VIA VOLUNTEER
OPPORTUNITIES IN VIETNAM
Interested folks can read more about our history, programs,
selection process, training, participation fees and other post
availabilities at our website:
http://www.viaprograms.org. Our application deadline is
February 24 and volunteers depart late-June to mid-July 2006.
Can Tho University (CTU),
Can Tho - New Post!
Established in 1966, Can Tho University is the top university in
the Mekong Delta serving students from every province of the
Delta. CTU is comprised of 9 colleges and schools and offers 57
fields of study for undergraduates, 15 for Master's, and 5 for
Doctoral degrees.
Role: The volunteer will split their time teaching English
courses at a university department to be determined and the
Center for Foreign Languages (CFL). At the CFL, the volunteer
will help develop/improve TOEFL and IELTS curriculum and teach
classes to the Mekong 1000, a provincial project to prepare
high-level officials for study abroad. Volunteers with a
Master's degree or related education background may be asked to
teach Master's students in the English program.
Place: Can Tho is the largest city in the Delta and the fifth
largest city in Vietnam. It is modern and bustling but offers
many rich cultural sights and experiences unique to the Delta
due to its central location.
VN Plus in Long My District and Hau Giang Province, Long My,
Hau Giang Province - New Post!
VN Plus is a small Belgian-French NGO running several community
development programs in Vietnam, including in the very poor and
rural Long My district. Collaboration with local partners is
critical to VN Plus' mission and thus, so is the need to improve
human resources capacity among local, high-level Vietnamese
officials in the district and province.
Role: The volunteer will split their time teaching English to
government officials at the district and province levels. Most
of these officials are at beginning to low-intermediate English
level. This post requires an extremely independent, motivated,
and mature candidate. The volunteer is expected to evaluate the
needs of different constituents, assess their levels, recommend
a schedule/structure, and design course curriculum. The
volunteer will also have the opportunity to learn more about VN
Plus projects and accompany the staff on field visits.
Place: Long My is a small district, population of approximately
100,000, in the newly formed Hau Giang province. Long My is an
underpopulated and rural area where most Vietnamese rely on
fishing for their livelihoods. Long My's center consists of a
few small streets, a market, and some shops. There are no other
foreigners living in this area and practically no foreign
tourists visiting. This post will allow for a complete immersion
experience. On some weekends, the volunteer may take trips to
nearby Can Tho (2 hours away) or HCMC (6 hours away) paid for by
VN Plus.
Nha Trang University of Fisheries (UoF), Nha Trang - New
Post!
Nha Trang University of Fisheries is the only university in
Vietnam which offers undergraduate and post-graduate programs in
the fisheries industry. Most students are children of local
farmers and fisherman and many are from low-income rural areas.
UoF's goals are to develop into a multi-disciplinary university.
It has just created an English major program which is now only
in its first year.
Role: The volunteer will teach first- and second-year English
majors (there are only two classes as of Fall 2006), young
English department staff, and team-teach non-English majors with
Vietnamese teachers. As the English major is brand new, the
volunteer is expected to have some background in education,
prererably a Master's, so that he/she can help with capacity
building. This will include designing materials and tests,
teacher observation and feedback, and conducting teacher
workshops. The volunteer will also coordinate the campus English
club.
Place: Nha Trang is a scenic beach city and the capital of Khanh
Hoa province. While a tourist destination for Vietnamese and
foreign tourists, the city is small and maintains a slow pace.
The campus of UoF overlooks the beach and is a short 4 km bike
ride away from the central area.
Christine Tran
Vietnam Program Director
VIA (formerly Volunteers in Asia)
P.O. Box 20266
Stanford, CA 94309
650.723.3228
(http://www.viaprograms.org)
******************
APAPA CEF INTERNSHIP & SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM
The Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs Community
Education Foundation (APAPA CEF) is pleased to announce two
programs for the 2006-07 academic year. The first program is the
Internship Program. The purpose of the internship is to help the
students better understand California state and local government
and to develop future leaders in the API community. Each intern
will work for a state legislator or constitutional officer at
the Capitol during the summer of 2006.
The second program is a scholarship program where $1,000
scholarships will be awarded to undergraduate college students
who are interested in leadership and API issues at the different
levels of government.
APAPA CEF is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a purpose to
educate API Americans and the public on the public affairs,
issues, concerns, and government processes while developing
future leaders.
The awards dinner will be held on May 17, 2006 at the Holiday
Villa Restaurant in Sacramento, California
Applications & Requirements
Visit our website:
http://www.APAPA.org
Deadlines
March 15, 2006 - Internship application
March 31, 2006 - Scholarship application
Contact Information
For any questions, please send email to
info@apapa.org or Lucy
Oback@comcast.net
(http://www.apapa.org)
******************
TIPS/RESOURCES
OFFICE ON WOMEN’S HEALTH:
NEW HEART HEALTH WEBSITES FOR WOMEN AND HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS
For Your Heart (www.womenshealth.gov/ForYourHeart)
- For Your Heart is a simple, interactive Web site that provides
women with personalized information and tips on preventing heart
disease. Following a brief survey, each woman receives stories
on exercise, nutrition, weight loss, smoking, diabetes,
cholesterol, blood pressure, menopause, and stroke. These
stories are tailored specifically to each woman's
race/ethnicity, age, and heart disease risk factors. Please
visit For Your Heart at
http://www.womenshealth.gov/ForYourHeart or call
1-800-994-WOMAN (1-800-994-9662) or 1-888-220-5446 for the
hearing impaired.
(http://www.womenshealth.gov/ForYourHeart)
******************
HEART HEALTHY WOMEN
Heart Healthy Women (www.hearthealthywomen.org)
-- Heart Healthy Women is the online source for the most
up-to-date information on diagnosis and treatment of heart
disease in women. The website features separate educational
sections for women with heart disease and their healthcare
providers. Information offered includes: 1) the most important
signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease in women; 2) the
accuracy of diagnostic tests for women; and 3) the safety and
effectiveness of treatments and surgical procedures that are
appropriate for women. For online information on the diagnosis
and treatment of heart disease, please visit Heart Healthy Women
at
http://www.hearthealthywomen.org.
(http://www.hearthealthywomen.org)
******************
ADVERTISING: MULTIPLE CHANNELS CAN MAKE AN IMPACT
The combination of radio and print advertising can be a power
one-two punch for reaching potential planned giving donors.
For many organizations, radio advertising is as essential as
brochures and direct marketing, according to Karen L. Jackson, a
principal of Beechwood, Ohio-based Results in Giving, Ltd., who
presented "Radio Advertising Marketing Not to Be Missed" at the
National Conference on Planned Giving in Kissimmee, Fla.,
recently.
"Radio builds institution awareness and draws attention to
planned initiatives," she said, adding that, in some cases,
radio advertising can be less expensive than print ads, with
better results. Radio spots, combined with magazine inserts,
bought more closed gift annuities than print advertising alone.
Radio advertising can be cheaper and more productive than
newspaper or magazine advertising but, with any decision,
Jackson presented some pros and cons
Pros
* Large number of people reached.
* Identify new donors of all levels.
* Less expensive than some print advertising.
* Direct message to specific group.
* Market segments easily identified.
* Able to adjust message to market segment.
* Ability to quickly change time slots and message content.
* Promotes organization in a general sense.
Cons
* Requires understanding radio lingo.
* Requires negotiating price.
* Need to understand a stations market reach.
* Research into local stations and markets necessary.
* Can be expensive, depending on location.
* Testing of times and sequence of ads needed.
* Best results from long-term commitment.
* Content must be tightly written.
(http://www.nptimes.com/enews/tips/marketing.html)
******************
RISK MANAGEMENT: DISASTER PLANNING FOR YOUR TECHNOLOGY
Taming the technology beast can be a daunting prospect for many
nonprofits, particularly when it comes to emergency
preparedness. Taming that beast involves a detailed assessment
of your organization's current processes and systems.
Dennis Bagley, manager, and Michael Harnish CPA, Associate,
technology, consulting and solutions at Plante & Moran provided
an assessment questionnaire during the American Institute of
Certified Public Accountants' Not-For-Profit Financial Executive
Forum. Scoring is on a basis of 0 to 5 with no being 0 and 1,
sort of and 5 for yes.
1. Within the past 12 months, has your organization made a
detailed assessment of all its computer applications and
identified which ones are of top priority in supporting routine
business operations?
2. Based on the results of study and analysis, do you know the
estimated dollar losses your organization would suffer if it had
a computer or network outage for a week, two weeks, a month?
3. Do you think the quality and completeness of your
organization's documentation and operating instructions for
information systems would enable otherwise qualified strangers
to understand and operate your systems without undue delay,
research and guesswork?
4. Does your organization back up computer tapes (or diskettes)
off-premises, so that at least minor recovery operations might
be performed?
5. When was the last time you inventoried your organization's
computer backups to ensure that all needed files are being kept?
(Be sure to consider your newer applications and changes to
older ones)
6. Within the past 18 months, have you formally surveyed or
interviewed key representatives from departments that use and
rely on your computers or network to obtain their views on what
kind of manual or semi-automated processing could be
accomplished if all services were suddenly cut off for periods
ranging up to one month?
7. Does your organization have an up-to-date, detailed, written
set of procedures on what to do in an emergency and on exactly
how recovery operations would go forward if your computer
facilities were destroyed or made inaccessible?
8. Has your organization performed tests under simulated
disaster conditions in order to help verify that its computer
processing can be accomplished at an alternate computer site
under whatever provisions your organization has for backup and
recovery operations?
A score of 40 indicates a good state of emergency preparedness;
30-39 shows a need for additional attention in some areas.
Consider strengthening your disaster recovery plan in areas of
relative weakness; 20-29 indicates you are unprepared for
potential difficulties that could have been foreseen and
avoided. Address the indicated weaknesses in your recovery plan;
10-19 shows very spotty attention to a number of key areas.
Significant difficulties and delays in data recovery can be
expected. Prompt corrective action is advised; 1-9 shows little
attention has been given to a disaster recovery plan. A system
disaster is sure to be very costly. A task force should be
chartered immediately to address the development of a plan;
0 - Indicates the need for divine intervention to preclude major
dollar losses and delays should you experience a disaster.
(http://www.nptimes.com/enews/tips/risk.html)
******************
NEWS
January 12, 2006
REBUILDING
PROPOSAL GETS MIXED RECEPTION
Critics vocal, but many prefer to watch and wait
By Gordon Russell and Frank Donze
Staff writers
Tempers flared as expected Wednesday with the unveiling of a
bold plan to temporarily halt the issuance of building permits
in flood-ravaged parts of New Orleans -- a four-month timeout
proposed by Mayor Ray Nagin's rebuilding commission to allow for
a planning process that would chart the future of those
neighborhoods.
The message to Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back commission from
many of the roughly 20 audience members who spoke out at the
presentation of its land use plan was direct and simple: Don't
tell me what I can do with my property. Fueling the anger was
the plan's call for using eminent domain, as a "last resort," to
buy out homeowners in areas that show few signs of rebirth.
The proposal also drew a pre-emptive Bronx cheer from City
Council members, who held a news conference minutes before the
unveiling to assail it.
While the mayor appears to be in favor of the four-month
planning process, he indicated after the meeting that he is
uncomfortable with preventing people from renovating their homes
and is unlikely to support the building moratorium.
The chorus of opposition also included groups like the NAACP and
Louisiana ACORN, though not all the plan's opponents shared the
same objections and some seemed to contradict one another. While
representatives of some neighborhoods called the four-month
planning process too long, for example, Louisiana ACORN said the
time frame was too short to gather enough public input.
After the commitee presented its plan in a Sheraton Hotel
ballroom packed to the brim, a number of speakers argued that
temporarily barring them from getting permits would choke the
progress that is starting to show in their neighborhoods.
"We don't want to wait four months," said Jeb Bruneau, president
of the Lakeview Civic Association. "We want to be able to go
down to City Hall and get permits. We have the means to help
ourselves, so don't get in our way."
Others called the plan a "land grab" cooked up by greedy
developers. Carolyn Parker of the Lower 9th Ward warned the
group that her home would be taken "over my dead body." Rodney
Craft, also of the 9th Ward, warned: "If you come to take our
property, you better come ready."
Though most of those who spoke strongly opposed the plan, the
crowd of about 500 applauded at several points during the
presentation and many seemed willing to listen and consider the
proposal.
Even some of those who attacked parts of the plan seemed to
welcome its promise of civic participation. Former state Rep.
Sherman Copelin, who spoke for the New Orleans East Business
Association, criticized the proposed building moratorium but
said his Eastover subdivision, one of the wealthiest in the
area, welcomed the chance to plan its own rebirth.
"We want to accept your challenge that we come up with a plan.
But we want a commitment that you will work with us on that
plan," Copelin told commissioners.
Outcry expected
The outcry was hardly surprising. Since the mayor's commission
began its work, by far its most controversial question has been
whether the city's footprint should be made smaller to reflect a
population expected to reach only half its pre-Katrina number by
2008.
Nagin himself didn't comment publicly after the presentation
ended, but said via e-mail afterward that he has "serious
reservations" about the permit moratorium. He said that he is
especially concerned that those rebuilding in the flattened
Lower 9th Ward may be putting themselves in harm's way --
particularly as long as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet
remains open. But he indicated that, even there, he is inclined
to allow residents to rebuild.
"I just do not recommend it (rebuilding there) at this time,"
Nagin said.
Those objections aside, the mayor said the land use plan is a
good starting point from which a shattered city can rebuild
itself. "I like the plan," Nagin said. "It was well presented
and is well thought out. The committee chairs, commissioners and
citizens who contributed should feel proud for a job well done."
In remarks before the plan was presented, Nagin said he realized
that many in the audience would object strongly to it.
"This report is controversial," he said. "It pushes the edge of
the envelope."
But he reminded the crowd that the proposals are far from final.
"Let's take the time to discuss it, debate it, analyze it and
tweak it," he said. "This is a recommendation from the
commission. We as a community have the ultimate say in how we
move forward."
Joe Canizaro, the banker and developer who chairs the land use
panel, said after the meeting that he does not believe the plan
requires a halt to permitting for it to succeed.
While some residents interpreted the proposed moratorium as a
signal that city leaders don't want them to come back, Canizaro
said, the panel's intent was to protect homeowners from
investing heavily in renovations and later facing the
possibility of a forced buyout.
"I don't have any problem at all if the mayor chooses
otherwise," he said of the moratorium, adding that he realizes
some flooded sections are already bouncing back. "I hope that
the people in this community, when they make those investments,
make sure that they're going to have neighbors and they're going
to have services provided. The city may not be able to provide
services if they're stuck out there by themselves. There are a
lot of things that people emotionally in today's environment
aren't thinking about."
The plan, which has been subject to numerous revisions over the
past few weeks and even late into the night Tuesday, contained a
few changes from a draft published Wednesday by The
Times-Picayune.
The most significant change was the suggestion that, for
neighborhoods to be considered viable, at least half their
pre-Katrina population must commit within the next four months
to return.
The report also recommended that the buyout legislation proposed
by U.S. Rep. Richard Baker, R-Baton Rouge, be modified to give
homeowners forced to sell in devastated areas 100 percent of
their equity. The bill that stalled last month in Congress
guaranteed only 60 percent to homeowners.
However, Canizaro also said that even without the Baker bill, he
thinks enough federal money will be available -- in the form of
Federal Emergency Management Agency grants and other sources --
to make homeowners whole.
The panel estimates it will cost $12 billion to buy out every
home that received at least 2 feet of water, but Canizaro said
he expects only half of the flooded homes will be bought out in
the end.
The commission also recommended that a new public authority be
created by the Legislature, tentatively called the Crescent City
Recovery Corp., to oversee the expenditure of federal money and
in particular the buying, selling and, in some cases, seizure of
homes.
Giving the recovery agency the powers the panel wants will
require voters to amend the City Charter. Voters would also have
to approve the panel's recommendation to take away the City
Council's power to overrule decisions of the City Planning
Commission. Instead, those seeking to appeal would go directly
to the courts.
Canizaro said he hopes both matters will be placed on the ballot
at the time of the next election, which may be held in April.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco has indicated she plans to call for a
special session next month.
No legal force yet
For the time being, none of the panel's recommendations has any
legal force. On Wednesday, the mayor's committee voted
unanimously to accept its report, but it will be up to Nagin to
decide how to tweak the proposal, along with those of six other
committees scheduled to be heard next week: education,
infrastructure, government efficiency, health care, culture and
economic development. The White House and a state commission
appointed by Blanco that will disburse billions in federal money
would also have to OK the plan.
Canizaro said the committee will nonetheless begin to lay the
groundwork for the next phase of planning called for in its
report. The report calls for planners to begin holding meetings,
starting March 20, for residents of each of the city's 13
planning districts. By May 20, those plans would be finalized.
The process will be quarterbacked by New Orleans architect Ray
Manning and Tulane University's school of architecture dean,
Reed Kroloff.
Manning and Kroloff said Wednesday they will begin immediately
to assemble data about different neighborhoods. They will also
start to formulate a strategy for including displaced residents
scattered across the country who may not be able to attend
meetings in New Orleans. They said their efforts may include
teleconferencing meetings.
The two men acknowledged that they are about to enter uncharted
waters.
"This is an evolutionary process," Kroloff said. "We're learning
as we go. This is a problem of unprecedented scope and
dimension. Answers aren't immediately available. We've got to
gather as much as we can from the best minds everywhere to help
us come to terms with this."
Manning said the tight timeline is daunting, but not impossible.
"Some of what we have to do is tantamount to doing a study that
would normally take, in some places, a year and a half," rather
than four months, he said.
Like Canizaro, Kroloff tried to assuage the fears of residents
who believe that because they live in a flooded area, their
property rights are threatened.
The planning process and the proposed moratorium, he said,
should be seen as "a breather, a moment in time to assess these
neighborhoods with their residents -- and under the direction of
their residents -- to determine what is the best for protecting
their long-term future in the city. It doesn't mean they won't
be able to rebuild, it doesn't mean they won't be able to come
home."
Canizaro said he believes the planning process will help bring
clarity to residents and officials alike, and the end result
will be a smaller footprint, though he declined to speculate on
its shape.
"Nature and people's own emotions will cause them to want to
consolidate," he said. "Maybe I'm looking for too much out of
this process, but I'm hopeful that it will bring people together
to understand what is best for them."
Perceived as the driving force behind the proposal, Canizaro
took much of the heat Wednesday. During roll call, scattered
boos broke out when his name was announced. More than one
speaker mentioned him by name.
"Mr. Joe Canizaro, I don't know you, but I hate you," eastern
New Orleans resident Harvey Bender said. "You've been in the
background trying to scheme to get our land."
Canizaro buttonholed Bender in the hallway afterward and
encouraged him to attend the planning sessions to make himself
heard. He also told Bender he does not have any financial
interest in any panel recommendations.
Individual residents were not the only ones to attack the plan.
In a news release, ACORN leaders said the four-month window was
far too narrow for neighborhoods to prove their sustainability.
Dorothy Stukes, spokeswoman for the agency's Katrina Survivors
Association, said: "They are just changing the rules around to
justify a land grab."
NAACP branch President Danatus King, meanwhile, suggested that
the plan was designed to help "fat cats" and a "chosen few,"
pointing in particular to sections of town that the land use
panel described as "infill areas" where large commercial,
industrial and residential development might occur.
The local chapter of the Sierra Club, meanwhile, weighed in with
a cautious endorsement of the plan, calling it a "thoughtful
step forward" but expressing concerns about the accelerated time
period for the planning process and the possibility that there
is lingering toxicity in the soils of flooded areas.
First to attack the plan was a group of City Council members who
held a hastily called news conference a few minutes before the
mayor's commission unveiled its report, just one floor below the
ballroom where it was presented. The opposition was not
unexpected; the council in December passed a resolution calling
for aid and city services to be distributed equally across the
entire city, and trashed the notion of a "reduced footprint."
Council members, who have been at increasing odds with the Nagin
administration in recent months, also complained that they were
not briefed on the plan.
Councilwoman Cynthia Willard-Lewis, whose eastern New Orleans
district was among the hardest-hit by the storm, told reporters
that the council had come out with a "strong, forceful
declaration of the right of everyone to return."
Councilwoman Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, whose district
includes Algiers and the French Quarter, which were lightly
touched by the storm, went further, calling the panel
recommendations "a blatant violation of private property rights
that is unprecedented in America."
Also present were Jay Batt and Renee Gill Pratt.
Mel Lagarde, the usually diplomatic health care executive who
co-chairs the mayor's panel, promised to do a better job at
communicating with other elected officials, but said he refused
to let the debate become a political sideshow.
"The tolerance in this community for any kind of political
foolishness is over," said Lagarde, who up till Wednesday has
declined to speak publicly about the process. Lagarde said the
situation is too dire to worry about making everyone happy.
"The size of the problem always dictates the size of the
decision," he said. "And there's no way you're going to be able
to finesse a decision around a problem of this magnitude that
everybody's going to feel comfortable with. There is no way that
is going to happen."
Lynn Jensen contributed to his report. Gordon Russell can be
reached at
grussell@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3347. Frank Donze
can be reached at
fdonze@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3328.
(http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1137052078313930.xml)
******************
January 13, 2006
IRS
REVOKING EXEMPTIONS OF CREDIT COUNSELORS
Firms Make Up Most of Industry
By Caroline E. Mayer
Washington Post Staff Writer
The Internal Revenue Service has concluded that more than 30
credit-counseling firms -- accounting for more than half of the
industry's revenue -- are not entitled to tax-exempt status.
Five firms, mostly small ones, have already had their tax-exempt
status revoked, while the rest have been notified of the
agency's intention, according to the agency.
The proposed and final revocations are the results so far of 60
audits the IRS has been conducting for more than two years into
credit-counseling organizations. The audits were prompted by
hundreds of consumer complaints of deceptive business practices,
including high fees, high-pressure tactics and inadequate
educational services. The IRS has been trying to determine if
credit-counseling agencies were misusing their tax-exempt status
to take advantage of financially strapped consumers.
Steven T. Miller, commissioner of the IRS's tax-exempt and
government entities division, said the agency is seeking
revocations for a combination of reasons. In some cases, "we do
not believe they are providing sufficient education to the
debtor," he said. "Or regardless of what they are providing, too
much money is being siphoned out of these organizations and
going into the pocketbooks of the CEOs and for-profit
affiliates."
To date, none of the credit-counseling agencies under review has
been given a clean bill of health. However, Miller said, "I
think some of them, as we continue, will pass muster."
The firms can appeal the proposed revocations, but, if they do
take effect, "that doesn't mean we're closing their doors,"
Miller said. It means "they are a taxable entity and are
responsible for income tax like any other corporation."
However, in eight states, including Maryland, credit-counseling
groups are required to be tax-exempt to be able to offer their
services.
Industry officials say the revocations could affect the economic
viability of many entities because much of their funding is
dependent on their tax-exempt status. About half of the
industry's funding comes from banks and credit card issuers that
pay the counseling firms a percentage of money recovered through
repayment plans drawn up by counselors. Up to now, most banks
have insisted that the counselors be tax-exempt to receive the
funds, called "fair share" in the industry.
"The basis by which we survive are grants and fair-share
contributions," said John C. Gormley III, head of Consumer
Credit Management Services. "To the extent they are not
available, they will have to be offset by the consumer," said
Gormley, whose firm was notified Friday that it was about to be
audited.
The IRS action comes at a critical time for the
credit-counseling industry, which has been given a new, central
role in the nation's bankruptcy system under changes that went
into effect last October. The new bankruptcy law, designed to
make it harder for consumers to wipe out their debts, requires
consumers to consult with an approved credit-counselor course
before they may seek protection from creditors in bankruptcy
court.
The proposed revocations raise concerns about whether there will
be enough counseling firms to provide that service. No one knows
for sure because the IRS, under law, may not identify firms it
is auditing, even to another government agency. The Justice
Department's U.S. Trustee Program, which oversees the nation's
bankruptcy courts, decides which credit-counseling agencies can
give pre-bankruptcy advice.
It is unclear whether the large national credit-counseling firms
that are currently advising thousands of debtors a month could
be affected.
"Hopefully, there's no overlap, because it's going to get
messy," said Samuel J. Gerdano, executive director of the
American Bankruptcy Institute, a nonprofit education and
research group.
Washington attorney Jeffrey S. Tenenbaum, who represents about
50 credit-counseling agencies, said he was not surprised at the
number of proposed revocations and predicted more to come. But,
he said, it was frustrating that the IRS has not yet given any
counseling group a green light or issued guidelines on what
groups must do to retain their tax-exempt status. "At a time
when credit counseling has been endorsed by Congress and is now
mandatory prior to filing for bankruptcy, the industry is
operating in the dark as to what the IRS's tax-exemption
standards are. This has created great instability in the
industry."
Unless a firm announces that its tax exemption has been revoked,
the only way for the public to know is through the revocation
listings that the agency periodically posts. Last year, the
agency revoked tax exemptions for A Better Way Credit Counseling
Inc. and Gibson Trust Inc., both of Florida; National Consumer
Council Inc. of California; National Credit Education and Review
of Michigan; and the National Center for Debt Elimination of
Pennsylvania. Most of these have closed their operations or sold
their accounts to other firms. One of the agencies, the National
Center for Debt Elimination, is no longer accepting new
customers. President David Leuthold said the company was
mistakenly set up as a nonprofit, so "we welcomed the revocation
of tax-exempt status."
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011202085.html)
******************
January 13, 2006
RENEWED TULANE UNIVERSITY REOPENS FOR CLASSES
New Wave staff writers
newwave@tulane.edu
Five months after Hurricane Katrina caused at least $200 million
in damages and closed its doors for a semester, Tulane
University gladly welcomed back first-year students yesterday
(Jan. 12) for move-in to residence halls in preparation for the
spring semester.
Tulane rolled out the red carpet with "Welcome Back" banners and
flags on buildings and light poles, as well as numerous signs
promoting its "Orientation Déjà Vu" activities for the entering
class. While students and their parents moved boxes and luggage
out of car trunks and down sidewalks, members of the news media
photographed and videotaped the festivities.
On hand to report on Tulane's renewal were the Christian Science
Monitor, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Associated
Press, NBC, National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times and
Fast Company magazine, in addition to local television stations.
Tulane will reopen for classes on Tuesday (Jan. 17).
Approximately 88 percent of Tulane students are expected to
return for the spring semester.
"We have always taught history at Tulane; now we are going to
make it," Tulane President Scott Cowen said. "As the largest
private employer in Orleans Parish as well as the largest
importer of brainpower, our students, faculty and staff will
take the lead in rebuilding our great city."
Cowen, who is also a member of Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New
Orleans Back Commission, estimates that the population of New
Orleans will increase by 10 percent as the Tulane community of
students, faculty and staff return.
After moving into residence halls yesterday, first-year students
and their parents gathered in McAlister Auditorium for a
convocation ceremony to be officially welcomed back to campus by
Cowen.
Returning students will be able to take advantage of a full
slate of orientation activities through Monday (Jan. 16),
including tours of the campus and city, a jazz brunch,
receptions, concerts, sporting events, a job fair, religious
services and more. Additional orientation information can be
found at
http://www2.tulane.edu/orientation_0106.cfm.
Students also will be given plenty of volunteer opportunities to
help rebuild New Orleans and learn more about the hurricane
disaster through approximately 30 Katrina-related courses.
In addition to its own students, Tulane will also welcome Xavier
and Dillard students, whose universities were severely damaged
by Katrina. A number of Xavier and Dillard students will attend
classes at Tulane and share Tulane's libraries and recreational
facilities. The arrangement is part of a consortium formed
between Tulane, Dillard, Loyola and Xavier universities in the
wake of Katrina.
Grammy-winning jazz great Wynton Marsalis, with help from his
father Ellis Marsalis, will help kick off the reopening of
Tulane with a special talk and performance at 7 p.m. on Monday
(Jan. 16) at Tulane's McAlister Auditorium. The event is free
and open to the public but seating is limited. Doors open at
6:15 p.m.
The semester will culminate with the university's commencement
on May 13.
(http://www2.tulane.edu/article_news_details.cfm?ArticleID=6146)
******************
January 18, 2006
ASIAN ADOPTIONS ON THE
RISE
Asian Nation, C.N. Le, Jan 18, 2006
In the last several decades, the adoption of children born in
Asia to new parents in the U.S. has become increasingly common.
As these adopted Asian children grow up in predominantly White
families, they frequently encounter adjustment and ethnic
identities issues and conflicts about their "place" in American
society.
HISTORICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
Various economic, cultural, and demographic factors have
contributed to this phenomenon. On the "push" side, an
oversupply of children from impoverished areas in Asia combined
with a cultural devaluation of girls frequently leads many birth
parents to give their children up for adoption. "Pull" factors
in the U.S. and other western countries include large numbers of
couples who are unable or unwilling to conceive children
themselves have created a demand for overseas adoptees.
The practice of Asian-born children being adopted by primarily
American (and predominantly White) parents became increasingly
common beginning in the 1970s. During this time, several Asian
countries experienced political and/or economic upheavals that
resulted in the worsening of living conditions for many of their
citizens, particularly poor, working class, or rural families.
These events led many families in vulnerable circumstances to be
more willing to give up their infants and young children to be
adopted.
One of the most visible examples of this situation were the
events surrounding the end of the Viet Nam War in 1975. One
month before the South Vietnamese government fell to advancing
North Vietnamese communist forces, "Operation Babylift" was
approved by President Gerald Ford that would airlift 2,700
orphans out of Viet Nam to be adopted by families in the U.S.
Many of these children were those who had lost their parents,
were children of American GIs whose Vietnamese mothers had put
them up for adoption, and/or were malnourished, sick, or
disabled. After a disastrous first flight that crashed shortly
after takeoff and killed 154 children and adults on board,
several planeloads of Vietnamese children eventually landed in
the U.S. and were adopted into predominantly White families.
Also during the 1970s, adoptions from other Asian countries such
as China, South Korea, the Philippines, and India began
accelerating. In addition to worsening conditions within each
Asian country, many of these governments began to streamline
their adoption procedures to make it easier for overseas
families to adopt children in their countries.
While comprehensive statistics on Asian adoptees are very
difficult to find, the most accurate information comes from the
U.S. Department of State, who keeps track of all immigration
visas issued to orphans, which are required for international
adoptions. The table above shows the number of such visas issued
by years(s) and country of origin.
The results show that from 1989-2003, China sent the most
numbers of adoptees to the U.S. (and continued to do so in
2003), followed closely by Russia and South Korea a distant
third. Other Asian countries that have sent significant numbers
of adoptees include India, Viet Nam, the Philippines, and
Cambodia. Although adoptions from the top four countries
continues to be strong, the data also show that in recent years,
notable numbers of adoptees have come from the former Soviet
Union countries of Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
ISSUES ASSOCIATED WITH ASIAN ADOPTIONS
The vast majority of these Asian adoptees have been and continue
to be girls and this has led to one of the criticisms
surrounding such Asian adoptions. Specifically, many people (not
just Asian Americans) feel that because of centuries of
deeply-ingrained patriarchy and discrimination against women,
these Asian countries continue to systematically value the life
of a girl much less than that of a boy. Boys are valued more
because they can supposedly contribute more labor and have more
legal rights.
As critics argue, the result is that when there are too many
girls being born, they are too quickly considered "excess
property" that needs to be disposed. Many claim that's the
reason why so many Asian girls are adopted each year. Although
these criticisms are directed toward the cultural, political,
and social systems of the Asian country and not at the adoptees
themselves or their American adoptive parents, this gender
imbalance continues to be a point of controversy for all parties
involved in the adoption process.
In recent years, many critics of Asian adoptions have argued
that in many cases, the status of these Asian children as
orphans may not be valid. Specifically, there have been
documented instances in which mothers have been coerced or
tricked into giving up their children for adoption or where
mothers have been paid money (or given non-monetary incentives)
to relinquish custody of their children for adoption.
In extreme cases, some children may have been kidnapped from
their mothers in order to be "sold" to adoptive parents
overseas, who in most cases had no knowledge of these suspicious
and/or illegal activities. In fact, several adoption agencies
have been charged with fraud and suspicions of improper adoptive
activities had led the U.S. State Department to impose
significant restrictions on or even suspend adoptions from
certain countries until investigations are completed.
On the other side of the adoption process, another concern that
has been raised in regard to such Asian adoptions is that since
the vast majority of these orphans are adopted into White
families, these children may be socialized into ignoring or even
abandoning their Asian culture. Specifically, many critics feel
that non-Asian adoptive parents will "whitewash" these Asian
children into White society so that they quickly and perhaps
permanently lose their Asian identity and sense of ancestry.
As described in many books written by Asian adoptees that have
emerged in recent years, their experiences confirm that because
they tended to grow up in an almost all-White environment, they
never had to think about their ethnic identity -- they just
assumed they were like everyone else. That is, until they
experienced some form of racial prejudice or discrimination from
schoolmates, strangers, or even relatives of their adopted
family.
Because their adoptive families and parents either could not
shield them from this almost inevitable process or could not
adequately understand or support their feelings, many of these
adopted Asians experienced an "identity crisis." It become clear
to them that they were not White but they had little if any
connection to their Asian ancestry. To complicate matters, the
Asian community often shunned their attempts to connect with
their "roots" because they had lost the ability to speak their
"native" language and/or had little knowledge of their ancestral
culture.
POSITIVES OUTWEIGHING THE NEGATIVES
While many Asian adoptees have faced this dilemma, this has not
been the experience of all Asian adoptees. Rather, many others
have enjoyed extraordinary levels of love and understanding from
their non-Asian adoptive parents, who have made concerted
efforts to help their adopted children retain their Asian
identity by teaching them about Asian history, culture, and
sometimes even language. These parents have also sympathized and
comforted their children when racial discrimination has
happened. They have also supported their children's attempts to
find their birth parents back in Asia.
At the same time, while many well-meaning parents make sincere
efforts at educating their child about his/her Asian roots,
observers again point out that these parents frequently forget
to educate the child about Asian American issues. That is, many
adoptive parents implicitly assume that being Asian is the same
as being Asian American. To the contrary, critics note that it
can be just as important for the adopted child to learn about
and understand the historical and contemporary issues that Asian
Americans face because ultimately, that will be the child's
social and cultural environment as long as s/he lives in the
U.S.
Many support groups have also formed across the country for both
adoptive parents of Asian children and for the adopted children
themselves. These groups allow parents and children to share
experiences, support each other, and to learn together about
both sides of their racial/ethnic identity. Ultimately, the fact
remains that while the criticisms about the devaluation of girls
in Asia ring true, that should not take away from the happiness
and love that most Asian adoptees share with their adopted
family who have given them a much better life than what they
would have had otherwise.
Ultimately, many adopted Asian Americans have gained the ability
to incorporate two cultures into their own identity. As many of
them point out, their experiences do not make them half of one
culture or another. Instead, their experiences have doubled the
richness of their lives and personal identity. Further, as Asian
adoptions continue to occur, adopted Asian Americans are likely
to be an increasingly prominent feature of the Asian American
population. As such, the collective experience of the Asian
American community is likely to be influenced by the
contributions of adopted Asian Americans for years and decades
to come.
Immigration Visas Issued to Orphans by Country of Origin and
Year(s)
China
Avg. per Year 1989-2004 2,233
Total between 1989-2004 35,730
2004 7,044
Russia
Avg. per Year 1989-2004 2,168
Total between 1989-2004 34,688
2004 5,865
S. Korea
Avg. per Year 1989-2004 1,710
Total between 1989-2004 27,361
2004 1,716
Guatemala
Avg. per year 1989-2004 801
Total between 1989-2004 12,823
2004 3,264
Romania
Avg. per year 1989-2004 439
Total between 1989-2004 7,029
2004 57
India
Avg. per year 1989-2004 353
Total between 1989-2004 5,645
2004 406
Colombia
Avg. per year 1989-2004 345
Total between 1989-2004 5,526
2004 287
Viet Nam
Avg. per year 1989-2004 268
Total between 1989-2004 4,290
2004 <50
Philippines
Avg. per year 1989-2004 252
Total between 1989-2004 4,034
2004 196
Ukraine
Avg. per year 1989-2004 224
Total between 1989-2004 3,587
2004 732
Kazakhstan
Avg. per year 1989-2004 170
Total between 1989-2004 2,716
2004 826
Bulgaria
Avg. per year 1989-2004 111
Total between 1989-2004 1,781
2004 110
Cambodia
Total between 1989-2004 71
Total between 1989-2004 1,128
2004 <50
Source: U.S. Department of State
(http://www.asian-nation.org/adopted.shtml)
******************
MAGIC ACT: FUNDRAISING EXPENSES CONTINUE TO BE HIDDEN IN 990S
For Joe and Judy Regular Public, attempting to compute
fundraising expense ratios from the Form 990 can confuse even
savvy donors. Form 990s have many backdoors and yes, the
occasional folding of fundraising expenses into the more
socially acceptable program expenses. In other instances, the
numbers conceal a more simple explanation.
In reviewing Form 990s for the most recent NPT 100 list of the
nation’s 100 largest nonprofit, many interpretation for
fundraising accounting were found.
In reviewing the FY04 Form 990 for Berlin, Ohio-based Christian
Aid Ministries ( CAM), the eye is immediately pulled toward two
figures -- a robust $211.4 million in public support followed by
a diminutive fundraising expense of $472,081. “Of the $211
million, approximately $17 million was in cash and the balance
was gifts in kind,” explained Roman Mullet, corporate secretary
at CAM. “We have one individual here who spends a lot of his
time in procurement of gifts in kind. Other than that, we don’t
have a lot of expense in procurement.”
Of its fundraising expenses, Mullet said that it includes the
procurement individual’s salary, some direct mail and travel
expenses. CAM ’s fundraising expense number has come in
consistently at that level, he added.
Such explanations are not always so easy to ascertain since the
990 suffers fundamental faults, according to Julie Floch, CPA,
director of nonprofit services at Eisner LLP in New York City .
“Everyone says that the 990s are flawed and need to be redone --
the IRS recognizes it, the Senate Finance Committee recognizes
it,” Floch said. “If I want to look at the fundraising of one
organization and compare it to another organization am I really
making a like comparison? The answer is probably not. That’s why
some are saying that the audited financial statement should be
attached to the 990 because maybe that would make things a
little more clear.”
That lack of clarity extends to the reporting process as well.
The rules regarding how numbers are to be recorded are not as
evident to nonprofits as they should be, according to Floch. She
cited the oft-apparent scenario of volunteer efforts being
improperly reported on the 990 as one example.
In a pure reporting sense, and not the “real world” as Floch put
it, all of the costs that go along with trying to secure
government money are not fundraising costs according to how a
tax filing is prepared. Those costs are measured in general
costs. Government money can easily distort the picture in the
990 world, she added.
Then there is the question of special event revenue. How do you
define direct special event expenses? Typically, that would
include hotel and food costs -- cost associated directly with
putting on that event. Those costs are not being shown on the
face of the return as fundraising expenses, which is
appropriate, even though one might argue that if you’re paying
for hotels and meals for a fundraising event that you are indeed
fundraising, Floch said.
Allocations provide nonprofits with yet another avenue to
confuse the casual 990 peruser. If an organization sends out an
educational mailing that includes an ask, how much of that
mailing is a fundraising expense? It becomes a game of
subjective mathematics.
Think about your basic bills. One family might receive invoices
for a mortgage, credit cards, cable television and utilities. A
nonprofit could be getting hundreds or thousands of invoices
during the course of a year. Rather than tie up staff and
volunteers in trying to figure out the programming and
fundraising ratios for each bill, it utilizes some form of handy
dandy allocation method. It may be a method based on salaries.
An organization knows its payroll, it knows people’s job
descriptions, and so it can calculate what percentage of payroll
is going to fundraising. It can take that ratio and allocate its
costs in a similar manner. It’s an imprecise estimate at best
and one that can be manipulated.
“There’s a perception in the real world that programmatic
activities are terrific and other activities are not so
terrific,” Floch explained. “So when one is doing an allocation
… consciously or unconsciously people tend to be very liberal in
the allocation for programs and a little less liberal toward
other categories. The question becomes, should we really be
measuring organizations by programmatic percentages? Is that
really an indication of efficiency and effectiveness? Because
the perception is that a high programmatic percentage is a good
thing, organizations could err on throwing as much as possible
into programs.”
It begs the simple question: From where is the revenue coming?
Prior to investigation, the Public Broadcasting Service’s (PBS)
FY’04 numbers raised an eyebrow or two. The nonprofit realized
$235.3 million in public support through a meager $201,134 in
fundraising expenses.
According to Jan McNamara, director of corporate communications
at PBS, Form 990 Line 1a, direct public support, is calculated
from two main sources. The first source, the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, is not considered federal money because it
doesn’t come directly from the federal government even though
Congress appropriates it and passes it to PBS. The second part
of the money comes in from program underwriting. In most cases,
it is not PBS executives who are going out and getting the
programming underwriting money. The producers do the vast
majority themselves, like Ken Burns for example, or the
producing station. That’s why its fundraising costs are so low.
It’s not as if its raising funds through the well-publicized
pledge drives like its stations conduct.
“A lot of it is undertaken by the producers of the various
programs,” McNamara detailed. “For example, if the Acme Mouse
Trap Company decided to fund an American Masters program, that
check would go to American Masters. It shows up on our 990 for
obvious reasons but it goes into PBS funding. It’s considered a
donation because the program underwriters don’t receive a good
or service in return for that funding. In a way, the expenses
aren’t showing up on our 990 because we do not incur those
expenditures.”
In-kind organizations also tend to be on the lower tier of
nonprofits that spend money to raise revenue. The National
Association for the Exchange of Industrial Resources (NAEIR)
receives significant ongoing in-kind donations from a number of
large donors, said Bob Gilstrap, vice president and chief
financial officer at the Galesburg, Ill.-based organization.
“The fundraising expense to generate or attract new donors
occurs primarily in the beginning stages,” Gilstrap explained in
regard to NAIER’s $690,910 of reported fundraising expenses in
FY’04. “When a company is in the habit of donating goods in an
excess inventory situation to us, we’re getting the benefit of
the donation without virtually any fundraising expense. That’s
why our figures look much different than an organization that is
primarily raising money.”
With $371.2 million in public support, ALSAC/St. Jude Children’s
Research Hospital in Memphis , Tenn. is in the habit of raising
money and, as Gilstrap posed, its numbers look markedly
different than other nonprofits. With more than $60 million in
fundraising expenses, St. Jude’s outspends what many nonprofits
reap in revenue, while adhering to a basic definition: A
fundraising expense is anything that directly drives a dollar.
Its fundraising expenses are derived from allocations, according
to Jeffrey Pearson, ALSAC/St. Jude controller, and include mail
costs, events and salaries.
“If we’re mailing a four-color flyer and 75 percent of it is
talking about the warning signs for childhood cancer and some of
the advancements we’ve made, we can put a significant portion of
that toward education (program expenses),” Pearson said. “But if
a letter goes out telling a patient’s story and leading up to an
ask, that’s primarily going to be fundraising. It’s purely an
allocation, and there are some percentages that you can just see
on 990s that are unreasonable, but we try to be as level in our
assumptions as possible. There are a lot of fundraising
organizations out there that are a little more aggressive than
we are in the way that they allocate their expenses.”
There’s no question that some nonprofits are “category shifters”
when it comes to allocations, said Brant Houston, executive
director of the Mo.-based nonprofit, Investigative Reporters and
Editors, Inc. Houston said that he believes that it’s to the
entire sector’s advantage for individual nonprofits to show that
they are spending money on fundraising. It’s an appropriate
expense, he added.
“With accounting, whether it’s nonprofit or for-profit, there
are always some people out there who will want to play games,”
Houston said. “What I’ve found refreshing are the growing number
of organizations that will post a 990, audited statements and/or
annual report on their Web site.”
Both Houston and Eisner LLP’s Julie Floch agree that the 990
alone provides “empty statistics” to a public looking for a
nonprofit’s effectiveness. Floch advised the use of watchdog
agencies such as the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving
Alliance to help supplement and clarify 990 information. Houston
urges people to request an organization’s audited financial
statements, annual report and budget in addition to the 990.
“Nonprofits have to report their fundraising expenses with
integrity,” Houston said. “To do otherwise is like the Emperor’s
New Clothes. Either that or it’s the one perfect nonprofit -- a
receptacle where everyone goes on their own to deposit
donations.”
(http://www.nptimes.com/jan06/sr2.html)
******************
January 19, 2006
OVERSEAS
REAL ESTATE BOOM LURES ASIAN-AMERICAN BUYERS
By K. Oanh Ha
Mercury News
BEIJING - They rushed through the glass doors of the sleek
Zhubang 2000 high-rise and pointed excitedly at a lobby
directory. The Bay Area visitors snapped photos of a wall of
metal plates engraved with tenants' names and office numbers.
``That's mine!'' Jen Corsa shouted, pointing to a Japanese
semiconductor company. Giddy as a teenager on a shopping spree,
the middle-aged Taiwanese-American exclaimed to no one in
particular: ``This is so exciting!''
Corsa doesn't own stock in the Japanese firm. But before the end
of the day, the Benicia resident would become its landlord and
an investor in the 23-story building at the edge of Beijing's
central business district. Her excitement was shared by 18 other
Bay Area Chinese-American investors who came to investigate
Zhubang's investment potential.
Investments by Asian-Americans are helping fuel sizzling real
estate markets thousands of miles away. Stymied by nosebleed
California property prices, many immigrants turn to their
homelands for cheaper investments -- and a chance to ride the
Asian boom. Foreign developers are accelerating that trend by
marketing directly to eager buyers through California mortgage
brokers.
Once the domain of deep-pocket institutional investors,
international real estate markets have opened to small investors
as globalization creates porous borders for people and money.
The potential for profits is huge, experts say, but so are the
risks.
``In the '90s we only found investors from Hong Kong, Macao or
Taiwan . . . a few overseas Chinese,'' said Philip Wu, an
executive at Beijing real estate consulting firm DTZ Debenham
Tie Leung. But in the past two years, he said, large numbers of
Chinese immigrants from the United States have invested in
China.
Bay Area ethnic newspapers and radio stations now advertise real
estate projects in China, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Developers and area brokers hold weekend seminars here to sell
properties across the Pacific.
• In Manila, Robinson Land Co., one of the Philippines' largest
developers, is building a residential and retail community
modeled after San Jose's Santana Row. Forty percent of buyers
are Filipinos living abroad -- half in the United States.
• Indian banks and land developers attract expatriate home
buyers on the Internet with drawings for free scooters,
refrigerators and flat-screen TVs. Land and new homes in
Bangalore are especially popular with Silicon Valley investors
because the city is a major technology hub.
• Vietnamese developers lure Vietnamese-American buyers with
California-style abodes tucked into secluded communities. One
development in Ho Chi Minh City is named ``Lang Viet Kieu,'' or
Overseas Vietnamese Village.
In Beijing, the Bay Area visitors were greeted by a Zhubang
executive on the high-rise's top floor.
Silver bowls filled with tangerines, pears and grapes beckoned
from white-cloth-covered tables. In the corner room where the
deals were signed, floor-to-ceiling windows revealed dozens of
office towers under construction.
Zhubang began marketing to Chinese-American immigrants in 2005
as a test run for a larger, $8 billion project encompassing a
hotel, service apartments and office buildings to be built in
Shanghai this year, said Zhubang board director Liao Quanjun.
Privately held Zhubang teamed up with Infohome and issued the
San Jose company 84 office units -- 15 percent of the building
-- to sell. Infohome's brokers, who hold weekend sales pitches,
receive a 1 percent sales commission from the developer.
Demand is brisk -- and most buyers pay the full amount, in cash,
averaging $210,000 for a 1,300-square-foot unit.
``It's a huge, untapped market,'' said Liao from his top-floor
office. ``There's a huge demand by overseas Chinese to take part
in the country's boom.''
Shanghai-based Shimao Group saw the trend three years ago, and
partnered with ReMax, an American household name, to help sales
in California and New York. In October, Bay Area agents received
deposits for 230 condos near Shanghai -- averaging $80,000 each
-- in just three weeks, said agent Linda Wei.
Prospective buyers have concerns, particularly those eyeing
property in communist China and Vietnam, where all land is
state-owned and leased to buyers. Investors are gambling that
the government will renew the leases without piling on new fees
and taxes.
Many have flocked to Shanghai, despite warnings from analysts
who say a housing bubble may be bursting.
One million homes are now under construction in the city of 20
million residents, said Andy Xie, Morgan Stanley's Hong
Kong-based chief Asia economist. By comparison, 2 million homes
were under construction in the entire United States last year --
for a population of 296 million -- according to the National
Association of Home Builders.
Chinese officials have warned of an overheated market, but they
do not appear to have been widely heeded.
``Investing overseas is not for the faint of heart,'' said
Delores Conway, director of the Casden Forecast at the
University of Southern California's Lusk Center for Real Estate.
``You have to be willing to move with changes.''
Overseas investors can easily be duped or cheated in Asia's hot
economies, and often have few remedies. In China, for example,
even if a wronged investor spends the time and money to take a
developer to court and wins, collecting on the judgment is
unlikely, according to Youguo Liang, managing director of
research at Prudential Real Estate Investors.
`The assets aren't there,'' he said. ``Most Chinese developers
are small-scale operators.''
But those risks don't stop investors, many of whom are attracted
to Asia because of family ties. Clark Li of Fremont was on the
Zhubang trip with Corsa. Though he left Shanghai 20 years ago,
he and his wife consider retiring in China, where they have
family.
Asian cultural practices also figure prominently. Many Asians
are inclined to invest in real estate first, rather than in
stocks or other commodities.
``There's a Chinese saying: `Land never rots,' '' said Corsa, a
dental assistant who also owns properties in California. ``You
can always live in it. You can't say the same for other
investments.''
Corsa and Li once looked to California for investments, but
skyrocketing prices statewide make China more affordable, where
$80,000 can buy a luxury condo in Beijing or Shanghai.
Talk of a real estate bubble in Shanghai doesn't faze Li.
``If you think about risks, the Bay Area is more risky than
China,'' said Li, a financial planner. ``China has real growth
and development behind its boom.''
Li ended up not buying into the Zhubang high-rise. Instead, he
and his wife bought a $500,000 office unit in Shanghai.
Li was the only one of 19 Bay Area investors on that trip who
didn't buy a Zhubang unit, said Jeffrey Yang, who runs
Infohome's Chinese sales operation. Though Zhubang's executive
offered a session to answer questions, half the group marched
straight to the signing table.
Corsa was among them. She has traveled often to China -- and
wanted in on the action of the rising Middle Kingdom. Less than
24 hours after her arrival, she purchased a $200,000 unit.
``I feel good,'' she said, beaming. ``It's a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity.''
Contact K. Oanh Ha at
kha@mercurynews.com or (408) 278-3457.
(http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/13660738.htm)
******************
Fact Sheet
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
January 19, 2006
NEW DIRECTION FOR U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE
Foreign assistance is an essential component of our
transformational diplomacy. In today’s world, America’s security
is linked to the capacity of foreign states to govern justly and
effectively. Our foreign assistance must help people get
results. The resources we commit must empower developing
countries to strengthen security, to consolidate democracy, to
increase trade and investment, and to improve the lives of their
people. America’s foreign assistance must promote responsible
sovereignty, not permanent dependency…Ladies and Gentlemen: We
were attacked on 9/11 by terrorists who had plotted and trained
in a failed state: Afghanistan. Since then, we have cycled tens
of thousands of troops through the country, spent billions of
dollars, and sacrificed precious lives to eliminate the threat
-- and to liberate the brutally repressed people of Afghanistan.
In the final analysis, we must now use our foreign assistance to
help prevent future Afghanistans -- and to make America and the
world safer.
-- Secretary Rice,
January 19, 2006
Secretary Rice today announced a major change in the way the US
government directs foreign assistance. In a time of
transformational diplomacy—as America works with our partners to
build and sustain democratic well-governed states—changes are
necessary to meet new challenges. This reorganization will:
* Ensure that foreign assistance is used as effectively as
possible to meet our broad foreign policy objectives * More
fully align the foreign assistance activities carried out by the
Department of State and USAID
* Demonstrate that we are responsible stewards of taxpayer
dollars.
New Position: Director of Foreign Assistance
The Secretary announced her intention to create the new position
of Director of Foreign Assistance. The DFA will:
1. Serve concurrently as USAID Administrator while carrying out
the duties of Director of Foreign Assistance.
2. As USAID Administrator, be nominated by the President and
confirmed by the Senate, and serve at a level equivalent to
Deputy Secretary.
3. Have authority over all Department of State and USAID foreign
assistance funding and programs, with continued participation in
program planning, implementation, and oversight from the various
bureaus and offices within State and USAID, as part of the
integrated interagency planning, coordination and implementation
mechanisms.
4. Develop a coordinated USG foreign assistance strategy,
including developing five-year country specific assistance
strategies and annual country-specific assistance operational
plans.
5. Create and direct consolidated policy, planning, budget and
implementation mechanisms and staff functions required to
provide umbrella leadership to foreign assistance.
6. Provide guidance to foreign assistance delivered through
other agencies and entities of the USG, including the Millennium
Challenge Corporation and the Office of the Global AIDS
Coordinator.
7. Direct the required transformation of the USG approach to
foreign assistance in order to achieve the President’s
Transformational Development Goals.
This change will be implemented consistent with current law. No
new legislation will be required at this time. USAID’s status as
an independent organization with an administrator reporting
directly to the Secretary of State remains unchanged.
2006/62
(http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2006/59398.htm)
******************
January 19, 2006
LITTLE SAIGON
EXPORTS ITS PROSPERITY
By James Flanigan
The New York Times
Three decades ago immigrants from Vietnam started coming in
sizable numbers to the United States, fleeing the rule of the
Communist government after the Vietnam War.
The newcomers arrived with little money or possessions, but they
have built a beehive of commerce bridging two cities in Orange
County, Calif. - Westminster and Garden Grove. The two cities
are home today to more than 150,000 Vietnamese-Americans and
more than 5,000 Vietnamese-owned businesses.
Yet, there was no Vietnamese-owned bank in the community - known
today as Little Saigon - until last year. The banking needs of
the immigrant companies were served by major institutions, like
the Bank of America and Wells Fargo, or by Chinese and Korean
banks.
But now, two new banks with investors and owners from the
Vietnamese community have opened, indicating the rising
prosperity of Vietnamese businesses in America and growing
economic connections with a vibrant entrepreneurial sector back
in Vietnam.
First Vietnamese American Bank raised more than $11 million in
capital and opened in May. "We can provide leadership to this
community," said Hieu T. Nguyen, the bank's president.
"When Vietnamese businesspeople come to this bank, they can deal
with the bank president personally. They can come home," said
Mr. Nguyen, who has worked for banks in California and Asia
since immigrating to the United States in 1980.
More than pride is at stake for ethnic groups in having banks of
their own, said John J. Kennedy, president of the other new
institution, Saigon National Bank, which opened in November.
"When the local people put money in a bank like this, they know
that it understands their community and its opportunities," Mr.
Kennedy said. "Its loans and activities, in turn, help to
further the community's economy."
Mr. Kennedy, who has 31 years leading small banks in California
and other states, was hired to get Saigon National going by its
founding investors, led by Kiem D. Nguyen, owner of one of the
largest supermarkets in Little Saigon, as well as fertilizer and
plastics businesses in Vietnam.
The new banks answer a need for California's Vietnamese
population, which numbers close to half a million people - 55
percent of America's total. An estimated $8 billion a year in
cash remittances and trade in goods and services flow between
ethnic Vietnamese in America and relatives and business partners
in Vietnam. Sending cash to relatives through informal transfer
agencies can be expensive for the families and a source of
concern for bank regulators worried about irregularities. That
is one reason state and federal authorities welcomed the new
banks.
"At the very least, we can handle those money transfers more
efficiently and at a lower cost to the families," said Walter L.
Hannen Sr., a director of the First Vietnamese American Bank.
Also, there is plenty of business to do. The economy of Vietnam,
a country of 83.5 million people, has been growing at 7 percent
to 8 percent a year for almost a decade. A bilateral trade
agreement with the United States in 2001 has helped accelerate
that expansion, according to George A. Baker, who opened a bank
branch 13 months ago in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, the city
formerly known as Saigon, for Far East National Bank, a Los
Angeles institution that is owned by a Taiwan banking company.
"Few people realize that Vietnam is one of the world's largest
exporters of coffee and rice and that it has special
capabilities in garments and high-tech components," Mr. Baker
said.
For example, Jocelyn Tran, who worked in the fashion industry in
Southern California for 20 years, now runs a subsidiary of
Limited Brands in her native Vietnam and ships more than 200
million garments a year to the company's chains, which include
Victoria's Secret, Limited and Henri Bendel stores. "China does
large mass-merchandise orders, but for hand-beading and
intricate needlework, Vietnamese workers' skills give us a good
niche," Ms. Tran said.
Vietnamese immigrants also found work in Silicon Valley in the
1980's and '90s and now are employing their expertise in the
both the old country and the new. Thinh N. Nguyen, for example,
founded Pyramid Development Software in 2001 after working for
20 years for start-ups in California. The firm has its
headquarters and a small marketing staff in Milpitas, Calif.,
about 45 miles south of San Francisco, but 60 engineers in Ho
Chi Minh City do software support for American companies
including Novellus Systems and Motorola.
Similarly, Nguyen Huu Le, who worked for 22 years in research
and development for Nortel Networks, is today chairman of TMA
Solutions, a company in Ho Chi Minh City that does software
engineering for clients like Lucent Technologies, Nortel and
NTT-Data of Japan. "Vietnam today is the most optimistic country
in Asia for 2006," Mr. Le said, citing a CNN poll.
American entrepreneurs, too, see a lot of potential. Rick
Bakanoff, of Capitola, Calif., on Monterey Bay about 25 miles
west of San Jose, Calif., has built the Machinery Corporation of
America over three decades by buying up cannery equipment,
refurbishing it and selling it to the food processing industry
in Thailand. Now Mr. Bakanoff is expanding operations in
Vietnam. "It could be big in fruit and vegetable processing, if
its small farmers formed cooperatives to combine crops and feed
a processing plant," Mr. Bakanoff said of Vietnam.
Walter Blocker, formerly of Louisville, Ky., has lived in Ho Chi
Minh City for 12 years, representing global consumer product
companies, including L'Oréal and Walt Disney. His company, the
Gannon Group, has built a beverage processing plant and now is
organizing the construction of an electric power plant.
"Industry is growing here, and the greatest need is for
electricity, roads and airports," Mr. Blocker said.
Vietnam's economic progress is cheered these days in California.
To be sure, the bitterness of immigrants who fled the aftermath
of the war in the mid-1970's has not entirely faded; one still
sees Vietnam Republic flags - three red stripes on a yellow
field - waving in some front yards in Orange County. But
business beckons.
"I want our bank to serve all the Vietnamese communities in
America and one day serve business in Vietnam, as well," Mr.
Nguyen of First Vietnamese American Bank said.
One of the bank's major clients supports the idea. "It is great
that we have First Vietnamese Bank for our community," said Paul
Nguyen, owner of the Pacific Machinery Company, an airplane
parts supplier, in Garden Grove.
The success of Pacific Machinery speaks loudly of the spirit
that enabled once-penniless immigrants from Vietnam to build
prosperous communities in America - and undoubtedly is helping
other Vietnamese to build entrepreneurial companies in the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam today.
A former first lieutenant in South Vietnam's army who was
educated in the United States, Mr. Nguyen was imprisoned in
Vietnam for 10 years when North Vietnam won control of the
South. He said he returned to America in 1985 at age 37.
While working in machine shops, Mr. Nguyen taught himself
computer-aided design and manufacturing. In 1992, he opened his
company and qualified as a minority contractor, supplying parts
to Boeing. "I work hard, 12, 13 hours a day," Mr. Nguyen said.
Today, he owns three buildings and a company employing 70
people, with annual revenue of $10 million, supplying Northrop
Grumman and Raytheon as well as Boeing.
Mr. Nguyen, now 58, said he was ready for the next phase. "I am
going to invest $5 million to buy a larger plant and machinery
so I can supply Boeing's new planes," Mr. Nguyen said. Raising
capital is no obstacle, he said. "I can raise $5 million," he
said. "Bankers are happy to lend to me. The people from Boeing
say, 'Paul, you are the American dream.' I say 'thank you,
America.' "
(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/business/19sbiz.html)
(http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/19/business/banks.php)
******************
January 20, 2006
ASIAN
GANGS POSE
NEW PROBLEMS FOR POLICE
By Alex Branch
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
It wasn't hard for police to sort out a recent drive-by shooting
in northwest Fort Worth's "Laotian Village." It happened within
view of a federal agent and police officers.
The gunmen, police said, were Asian gang members -- the portion
of the city's gang population most unfamiliar and challenging
for area officers.
"We don't have a ton of stuff on Asian gangs," said Sgt. Bill
Beall of the Fort Worth police gang unit. "Everything is really
closemouthed. We can have a hard time getting information."
It's even hard to tell whether the Asian gang presence is
growing, police said. Unless somebody is killed or seriously
wounded, many crimes go unreported as Asian residents struggle
with language barriers and wariness of outsiders.
Several major clashes have come to police officers' attention in
the past year, including the gang-related killing of a
21-year-old college student last year outside a Euless bowling
alley. Police said two women held the student down while a man
shot her in the head.
Euless police Lt. W. Pavlik said investigators believe the
shooting was an isolated case.
Police in Arlington and Haltom City, cities with large Asian
populations, said they haven't seen any recent violence related
to Asian gangs.
In Fort Worth's Laotian Village, an area west of Saginaw that is
heavily populated with Laotians, police say gang members who
have moved here from California may be inflaming problems.
"I don't know [if] there is more crime or if we are just
becoming more aware of it," said officer Gwen Maxwell, the
area's community police officer. "But it's picked up the last
few years."
Several leaders in the Asian community agreed, saying gangs are
a big concern in their neighborhoods.
"Kids are dropping out of school and getting involved because
they think it's something fun to do," said Tom Ha, a
Vietnamese-American community leader. "And soon they become a
major gangster. This is a major concern for our community."
Officer J.G. Kalbfleisch, who handles intelligence for the gang
unit, estimated that Asians make up less than 5 percent of the
city's gang members. Their numbers, like all gangs, remain down
from the crime wave of the early 1990s.
And, like other gangs, they're involved in drugs, burglary,
robbery and theft, he said.
A difference is that "they're very specific in who they deal
with," he said. "That's how they try to stay under the radar."
The recent shooting occurred as authorities were following up on
the shooting death of Fort Worth police officer Henry "Hank"
Nava at a mobile home in the 7000 block of Seth Barwise Street.
Two cars pulled onto the street, and a man in one car fired into
the other, hitting an 18-year-old man in the arm and chest,
police said. Officers gave chase and arrested three people a few
blocks away.
The victim is expected to survive.
Beall said the shooting may have been retaliation for another
shooting.
Maxwell, who has patrolled Laotian Village for five years, said
she sees a generation gap within families. The parents and
grandparents, honest and hardworking, arrive in the United
States looking for a better life. They often don't speak
English.
Their children, however, go to school and try to fit in and
become Americanized, she said. There is a high incidence of
runaways.
"The children somehow get detached from their family values,
their traditional values," Maxwell said. "It's hard for the
adults to understand how or why this is happening. They don't
know why they're changing."
Tarrant County's Asian Pacific American population has grown
more than 550 percent in the past five years, according to the
Tarrant County Asian American Chamber of Commerce.
Ha said gang members recruit newly arriving young Asians, aware
that they will be looking for friends. The child's parents, he
said, are working so hard that they don't recognize the warning
signs.
"The kids leave in the morning and come back at 5 in the
afternoon," he said. "Dad and Mom think they're at school."
Language barriers discourage adults who are aware of gang
problems from going to police, he said. That's why he thinks
cities need more storefront programs like the one Haltom City
had with Vietnamese-speaking officers about five years ago.
Vietnamese-Americans could go to them with information and
concerns, he said.
"We need more police officers who understand the Vietnamese
culture," Ha said. "People feel comfortable with them."
The Fort Worth gang unit has no Vietnamese-speaking officers,
Beall said. But several elsewhere in the department help the
gang unit as needed.
Beall said the gang unit hasn't needed a permanent Vietnamese
speaker. For example, everyone police contacted while
investigating the Seth Barwise Street shooting spoke English.
Kalbfleisch said Asian gangs are gradually becoming more
westernized and easier to understand.
"They are not a lot different than any other gang," he said.
"They cause the same problems."
Alex Branch, (817) 390-7689
abranch@star-telegram.com
(http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/13669943.htm)
******************
January 21, 2006
CHINESE SCIONS TAKE ROOT
The rail fortune behind the Huntington Library was built using
men society shunned.
Now local Asian wealth is key to the site's future.
By Jia-Rui Chong and Lynn Doan
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
For more than a month, big rigs filled with crates of limestone
mined from Lake Tai west of Shanghai have rumbled down the
winding roads of San Marino and through the gates of the
Huntington Library.
When the final shipment arrives at the end of the month, the
library will have collected about 650 tons of loose rock,
destined for the largest Chinese garden outside of China.
When the $80-million project is completed, it will become not
only an ambitious new feature in the Huntington's world-famous
gardens, but an ironic capstone to a remarkable turn in history.
The Huntington, with its more than 150 acres of botanical
gardens, 18th century British and French art, and rare books
such as a manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales,"
has virtually embodied the image and aspirations of California's
white ruling elite.
The money to build it originated from the vast fortune of Collis
P. Huntington, one of the founders of the Central Pacific
Railroad. His nephew and heir, Henry E. Huntington, founded the
library in 1919, supplementing the bequest with his own wealth
from the Pacific Electric Railway, utilities and real estate
deals around Southern California.
The Central Pacific Railroad, which connected Sacramento to
Promontory, Utah, employed more than 10,000 Chinese immigrants
to lay the most treacherous part of the transcontinental
railroad through the Sierra in the 1860s. The Chinese laborers,
who went on strike to get the same hourly wage as their white
counterparts, hacked tunnels through the mountains and laid
track in the bitter cold. Many died.
Those who survived were excluded from citizenship in the state
and forbidden to purchase land. For decades, Chinese immigrants
in California were a largely impoverished underclass.
"If you go back to the deeds of trust in San Marino, a long time
before, they stated very clearly this land should not be sold to
Jewish people, blacks, and it cannot be sold to the Chinese
too," said Dr. Matthew Lin, vice mayor of San Marino and a local
developer.
"We've come a long way now."
Indeed, San Marino now has an Asian majority, principally
Chinese. And China's booming economy is bringing in many more
affluent immigrants.
Though members of the white establishment continue to be a main
source of support, the Huntington Library realized that to
secure its future it needed help from ethnic Chinese in ways
never envisioned by Henry Huntington. The Chinese garden was a
way to connect with the new residents, and donors.
"It was about serving a new community," said Suzy Moser, the
Huntington's assistant vice president for advancement. "If our
neighborhood changes, we need to change."
"When you have an opportunity to serve a new constituency - and
an element of that is to invite them to support you - you'd be
fools not to do it," she said.
To Lin, the Huntington's interest in Chinese donors - and the
community's enthusiastic response - reflects a change in
attitude of the area as a whole.
"Before this, not a lot of Chinese people belonged to the
Huntington," he said. "When people immigrated to this area in
the '70s or '80s, they tried to raise their children and make
ends meet. While they were very busy, they didn't have time to
look into the surrounding area.
"Now in the later stages the businesspeople look around and
really appreciate it. They've started to give back."
Collis and Henry Huntington's attitude toward the Chinese was
simple: "They thought of the Chinese as a labor source," said
Dan Lewis, the curator of American historical manuscripts at the
Huntington.
Collis Huntington wrote admiringly to a colleague about their
usefulness. "I like the idea of your getting over more
Chinamen," he wrote to a company official in 1867. "It would be
all the better for us and the state if there should a half
million come over in 1868."
Anti-Chinese sentiment grew in California, and by the time Henry
Huntington was building his local rail lines, the clamor was so
strident that he mostly used Mexican and white workers,
historians said.
Collis and Henry Huntington would probably be extremely
surprised that an institution started by their family was now
asking Chinese Americans for money, said Selena Spurgeon, an
82-year-old Arcadia resident who has written a biography of
Henry Huntington.
Though Henry Huntington would probably be delighted that people
of all backgrounds appreciated his generosity, she said she
would expect Collis to be entirely amazed at Chinese Americans'
change in social stature.
"He just considered the Chinese servants, not equal socially at
all," Spurgeon said. "I'm sure he didn't have any social
connection."
Henry Huntington helped found San Marino before his death in
1927. The mansion-lined community of 13,000 became synonymous
with old money and power, and a number of its wealthy residents
served on the library's board of trustees.
By the 1980s, the San Gabriel Valley was seeing a huge wave of
immigration from Hong Kong, Taiwan and later mainland China that
transformed once-white-majority cities to San Marino's south
such as Monterey Park, Alhambra and San Gabriel. San Marino's
prestigious address and highly regarded public schools made it a
popular place for wealthy Chinese to settle.
Vivian Chan, who moved to San Marino in 1990, said she and her
restaurateur husband initially focused their charitable work on
programs related to their three children, such as volunteering
at schools, and with educational programs for the Pasadena
Symphony Orchestra.
Chan said she took visiting family to stroll around the
Huntington back then – but saw the imposing institution more as
a place to visit than as a place to support with donations.
About four years ago, the Huntington recruited some prominent
local Chinese Americans, including one of Chan's closest
friends, to help with its fundraising efforts. They started with
two dinner parties.
Moser came on board about that time, and she said her experience
raising money in Hong Kong for another organization was
considered a plus in her application. Moser knew from her
experience in Hong Kong that fundraising in the Chinese
community relied heavily on guanxi, or the connections of the
person asking for money.
"In Western culture, you make the case for support," she said.
"You pitch the project. Of course, always the better person to
be pitching a project is the peer of the person you're talking
to. They know each other, belong to the same club. But our
emphasis tends to be on the project. In Chinese culture, it
tends to be on the person who's asking. If the right person
asks, it matters less what the project is."
Chan and her husband eventually donated $10,000 for the garden.
She didn't give the Huntington family history a second thought,
even though grand uncles worked on the railroad in the 19th
century.
Although she remembers hearing stories about how her relatives
had to cut their braided queues and wear the same work clothes
every day, her grand uncles did manage to make a lot of money
laying track. They enriched their villages in the Guangdong
province when they came back.
Chan said the support of so many Chinese Americans to the
Huntington's new Chinese Garden will showcase their reversal of
fortune. "I am quite proud as a Chinese descendant to say, 'Now
is our time,' " she said. "We want to make sure our generation
and the next generation to come will not forget how far we've
come."
The Chinese "weren't treated equally back then, but that is
history," added Rosa Zee, a 56-year-old San Marino resident who
has also donated $10,000 for the garden.
"I don't have any personal feelings against Henry Huntington's
uncle," said Zee, who until recently worked as outreach director
for the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena. "It happened and you
can't go back and say you hate them.. This country has treated
me well."
One reason donors have responded so well to this Huntington
project is the Huntington's commitment to build the garden
according to Chinese traditions – right down to importing the
rocks, Moser said.
That commitment was crucial, said Paul Zee, 55, a retired South
Pasadena businessman (not related to Rosa Zee) who donated about
$10,000. Zee last summer became one of the Huntington's first
Chinese American members of the board of overseers, the
library's advisory group.
"If I wanted to invite you over for a Chinese dinner, I'm not
going to serve you chop suey," a dish invented in America's
Chinatowns - he said. "I'm going to give you an authentic
Chinese dinner. It's that simple."
Many of the donors feel the same. The president of the Los
Angeles branch of the China Ocean Shipping Co. donated 100 cargo
containers so the garden would not have to bust its budget to
bring over materials from China.
When completed in 2008, the first phase of the Chinese Garden
will include a 1.3-acre lake, an ornate teahouse, a zigzag
granite bridge, and lush landscaping with native Chinese plants
such as bamboo, camellias and tree peonies. Eventually, if all
$80 million can be raised, the garden will cover 12 acres of the
Huntington's grounds. The cost of the six-acre first phase is
estimated at $16 million.
"It has to be authentic," added Yee-Jen Shuai, a San Marino
lawyer who has donated about $5,000 to the project. "In China,
the stone workers and woodworkers have their own way of
building. American laborers could do it with no problem, but
they wouldn't use the same techniques."
One recent afternoon, in a woodsy area behind the nursery, about
40 wooden crates sat holding bone-white pieces of limestone
webbed with peach-colored veins of sediment and embedded with
gray pebbles. The surface of the Tai rocks was scarred and
rough, but they all bore smooth holes as big as a pomelo or as
small as a cherry. They are one of the distinctive features of a
scholar's garden typical of Suzhou, an ancient city near
Shanghai.
"They don't look like anything you see" in the United States,
said Laurie Sowd, the operations director of the Huntington's
art collections and botanical gardens.
Library officials commissioned artisans in Suzhou to pick
granite cladding for the bridges and carve traditional swirling
patterns on select pieces of granite. Other artisans have carved
the wood that will decorate windows, doors and beams.
But unlike Collis Huntington and his contractors, who could
easily import boatloads of Chinese laborers, the library ran
into modern-day visa problems trying to bring 13 of the artisans
associated with the Suzhou Institute of Landscape Architectural
Design to supervise the placement of the limestone rocks and
granite.
For a few months, the visa impasse caused a problem for the
contractors. For one thing, they couldn't read the Chinese
writing on the crates, so they had difficulty figuring out which
batch of granite went with what bridge.
The library sought the help of some of its well-placed friends,
including Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), Sen. Dianne Feinstein
(D-Calif.) and the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles. The visas
cleared Thursday afternoon.
(http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-garden21jan21,0,2560428.story?coll=la-home-headlines)
******************
January 21, 2006
SOME REFUGEES
LOSE HEALTH BENEFITS
By Karen M. Thomas
The Dallas Morning News
ARLINGTON – Rot Pham squats on the floor of his apartment and
opens a small plastic bag filled with prescription bottles. They
hold medication to treat his wife's high blood pressure,
diabetes and the gangrene that has turned her left big toe
black.
All were prescribed for Trang Nguyen in April after she suffered
a stroke. Now, several weeks later and home from a 13-day
hospital stay, Ms. Nguyen, 74, rests in bed in a tiny back
bedroom, her limbs propped up with pillows.
Mr. Pham wants to make sure he gives his wife the right amount
of medicine at the right time. But he cannot read the directions
on the bottles. They are in English, which the 76-year-old
Vietnamese refugee and his wife can't read, speak or write.
The couple's inability to learn English has led them to be among
the nation's 45 million uninsured. They are also part of a small
but growing group of refugees left without federal assistance
when they need help the most.
Under the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, refugees, who arrive here
under special immigration rules, have seven years to become
citizens or lose eligibility for the federal assistance that
most rely on for health care and survival when they arrive in
this country. But some of the oldest and sickest are failing to
do so.
"We are talking about some of the most vulnerable people on
earth. They have come here because they sided with us during war
or they were persecuted because of their faith. We promised to
help them, and now our government, in this instance, isn't
living up to that responsibility," says the Rev. Sophia DeWitt
of Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries in California.
Some refugees face processing delays and increased security
checks that prevent them from becoming citizens within seven
years. Others face a backlog in getting green cards that allow
them to become permanent residents and work.
Others are like Mr. Pham and Ms. Nguyen: They are too old to
work. Without English, neither can pass the citizenship test.
Both have failed to qualify for disability waivers, which would
acknowledge that they have medical conditions that prevent them
from learning English.
In July 2004, they reached their seven-year limit for benefits
and lost their $864 monthly Supplemental Security Income payment
and their Medicaid coverage.
"Their income is zero," says Tuan Le, a Fort Worth Catholic
Charities caseworker who has taken on their case. "I have
hundreds of elderly cases. They cry, they beg, they do
everything when they hit the seven-year mark. But I am
powerless. It makes me very sad. They need many things."
Small but growing
In 2004, the couple were among 156 people in Texas who had
become ineligible for benefits. Nationwide, 4,392 had been cut
off, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a
liberal think tank. And although the numbers are tiny, refugee
advocates say they expect them to grow.
The Social Security Administration says that more than 45,000
refugees could lose their benefits by 2011; the Hebrew Immigrant
Aid Society estimates that about 20,000 of those will actually
lose their eligibility.
Congress is considering legislation to extend the cutoff by two
years. Refugees' advocates say that while the proposed extension
will help, it is still a temporary measure.
"In the long term, we believe there should be a complete fix,"
says Gideon Aronoff, vice president of government relations and
public policy for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, in
Washington, D.C.
"Economic survival shouldn't lie on senility, and they shouldn't
be sentenced to that kind of poverty," he says.
Those who have lobbied for stiffer immigration policies agree
that an extension does little to solve the problem. They say
there's a bigger issue.
"If our immigration policy was admitting too many people who use
welfare – which it was and still is – the solution isn't to keep
them off welfare," says Mark Krikorian, executive director of
the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank in
Washington, D.C. "It's to let in fewer people.
"The problem stems from trying to use welfare law to fix
problems caused by immigration."
While other states slash Supplemental Security Income, , some
use state money to allow refugees to keep Medicaid. Texas, which
has a significant number of refugees, does not.
"I recently saw a Bosnian couple," Mr. Le says. "They have taken
ESL [English as a second language] classes for four years, two
times a week for two hours a day. After four years, they
remember very few words. They can say 'thank you,' and
'goodbye.' That's it. They are elderly, too. Their SSI and
Medicaid will be cut in 2007."
Left with nothing
The story of Mr. Pham and Ms. Nguyen is familiar for many
Vietnamese refugees. Mr. Pham has the equivalent of a
seventh-grade education. Ms. Nguyen never attended school. Mr.
Le says it is unlikely she can read or write her native
Vietnamese, making it nearly impossible for her to learn to do
so with English.
They married in 1963, a second marriage for Ms. Nguyen, whose
first husband died. Mr. Pham, a former soldier, says he spent
time in a communist jail. After less than two years, he was
released and worked as a farmer.
Ms. Nguyen once owned a small stall where she sold items such as
instant noodles, coffee and soda. She also cared for the baby
daughter of an American soldier and a Vietnamese woman. One day,
the girl's mother disappeared, and Ms. Nguyen and Mr. Pham
raised the child as their own without formally adopting her.
When the Amerasian girl won approval to come to America, the
couple came with her. They sold all their worldly goods to make
the journey in 1997.
"We have no house, no property, no nothing," Mr. Pham says
through an interpreter. "We sell everything to have the money to
come here."
When they arrived, the extended family settled in Arlington, the
parents living in public housing and their daughter, who is
married and the mother of four children, nearby. In the years
since, though, their relationship with their daughter has
collapsed.
The couple cobbled together a life in their new community, where
many Vietnamese live. They made friends. They hung huge frames
filled with family pictures on a wall of their apartment. They
created an ancestors altar to honor their Buddhist religion. And
they tried hard to become Americans.
Mr. Pham studied English through Catholic Charities. On the day
of class, he says, he could remember some English words. The day
after, he says, he could not. He shrugs and then smiles. Not
understanding that his benefits might eventually be at risk, Mr.
Pham stopped trying.
Meanwhile, Ms. Nguyen began to feel sick. Two months after
arriving here, her knees ached. She had trouble walking. A
doctor soon diagnosed diabetes. He sent her to physical therapy
and prescribed several medications.
With Medicaid, they didn't worry about affording doctors or the
medicine that they needed. They paid rent on their apartment and
saved enough to buy a run-down, rusted-out car. They scraped
together insurance money and enough gas to go to the doctor and
the grocery store.
In July 2004, though, the Supplemental Security Income check
stopped coming. They received a letter saying they were no
longer eligible for Medicaid. The couple didn't understand.
Without the federal benefits, Ms. Nguyen tried to take care of
herself. She began to skip taking insulin and other medication
because she couldn't afford it. She didn't know how to apply for
programs that might have helped her get the medicine for free.
She didn't know whom to ask for help. She exercised by walking
in circles in the apartment.
Finding help
When Mr. Pham received Supplemental Security Income, he gave
money to friends who struggled. Now the couple's friends do the
same for him. The man upstairs knocks on the door. A woman who
lives next door peeps in, the front door propped open to cut
down on electricity use and allow the whirling fan to better
circulate air. They slip Mr. Pham $10 for gas or $5 for the
electric bill, $20 to keep the phone connected.
"It's very common," says Ms. DeWitt of the Fresno ministry. "In
Southeast Asian communities, people like to live close together
and develop their own new communities here in the United States.
That practice of helping your neighbor through the hard and
difficult times is just the way things operated back in the
villages of Vietnam."
Mr. Pham and Ms. Nguyen will not talk about their daughter, who
could not be reached for this article. Something has happened
that they cannot yet put into words. When asked, Ms. Nguyen sits
in a chair in the front room. Behind her is the wall filled with
family photos. She shakes her head and cries. Mr. Pham watches,
making soft clucking noises to soothe her.
For months, the couple limped along. Then, on the morning of
April 26, Ms. Nguyen couldn't move her left arm. She had trouble
speaking. Mr. Pham drove her to a public clinic in Arlington. A
doctor examined her and sent her by ambulance to John Peter
Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, where doctors discovered she'd had
a stroke.
Mr. Pham struggled to figure out when to give his wife her
medicine. Mr. Le of Catholic Charities, who stopped by,
translated.
"This one, you take one pill at night," he told Mr. Pham. Mr.
Pham made a notation on the bottle with a pen.
"If something else happens, it won't be a surprise," Mr. Le said
about Ms. Nguyen's health.
It didn't take long. On May 15, Mr. Pham just had a feeling.
Early in the morning, he checked on his wife. He couldn't wake
her. He dialed 911. His wife was taken to nearby Arlington
Medical Center. She spent several days in the hospital and was
discharged. Mr. Pham doesn't know what was wrong with her.
What he does understand is that he received a bill for more than
$10,000 for her medical treatment – a bill he cannot pay. And he
could not fill the costly prescriptions that doctors ordered for
his wife because she was treated at a private hospital and not a
public facility.
Most states offer aid for refugees. But in Texas, advocates say,
you have to know where to look. For Mr. Pham and Ms. Nguyen, Mr.
Le has been the bridge to that aid.
He calls the couple lucky. At the Arlington office of the Texas
Department of Aging and Disability Services, an employee struck
a deal with public housing to allow Mr. Pham and Ms. Nguyen to
live there rent-free after Mr. Le contacted them. The couple
maintained their eligibility for food stamps. The same employee
was able to secure a home health aide several hours each day for
the couple through a community assistance grant. The aide helps
bathe Ms. Nguyen, clean the house and do the laundry.
Public clinic
Mr. Le took the couple to a John Peter Smith Hospital public
clinic in Arlington and signed them up for medical services.
They are supposed to pay $20 for each visit and up to $20 for
prescriptions, far less than private health care costs. Even
with that, though, they are unable to pay for their care.
"I just tell them to go there and say you don't have the money
and to send the bill. Then we find some way for it to be paid,"
Mr. Le says.
Meanwhile, Mr. Le began helping them apply for disability
waivers so that they could become citizens.
There are no national statistics on how often medical waivers
are granted. Anecdotally, experts who work with refugees say
that such waivers are difficult to get.
"Our Houston program told me that they have applied for
something like 15 waivers each year and they only had two
waivers approved in the last two years," says Laura Burdick of
Catholic Charities' Legal Immigrant Network, a support agency
based in Washington, D.C.
Experts say that barriers include getting time-pressed
physicians to fill out complicated forms. Doctors must clearly
state that a disease or sickness is what's prohibiting an
immigrant or refugee from learning to read and write.
"It is quite difficult," says Wafa Abdin, a lawyer with the
Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance, which is part of
Catholic Charities, in Houston. She says that her office has
worked closely with physicians and immigrant officials during
the past three years and that it is starting to see an increase
in the waiver approval rate.
So far, Ms. Nguyen and Mr. Pham have both applied for disability
waivers twice. Both have been denied. Ms. Nguyen has applied
again, and her case is pending, said Mr. Le.
As Mr. Le talks, Mr. Pham heads to the bedroom. It is time to
check Ms. Nguyen's glucose level. When he is done, he shows Mr.
Le the monitor. It reads 39, which is low.
"That's not right," Mr. Le tells him. He checks the machine and
asks Mr. Pham to try again. As he watches the slight man make
his way to his wife, Mr. Le shakes his head.
He says: "Everything depends on his ability and his memory now."
E-mail
kthomas@dallasnews.com
For more information regarding refugee and immigration
services and legal help, contact Catholic Charities of
Dallas, Refugee and Empowerment Services, 9850 Walnut Hill Road,
Suite 228, Dallas, or call 214-553-9909.
For information regarding federal programs, contact the
Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Administration for
Children and Families, 370 L'Enfant Promenade S.W., Sixth
Floor/East, Washington, D.C. 20447 or call 202-401-9246.
(http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/012206dnmethealthrefugee_0122liv.State.Edition1.29c1184.html)
******************
January 23, 2006
FREEDOM REIGNS AT
TET FESTIVAL
By Tom Lochner
Contra Costa Times
OAKLAND - Old Glory and the flag of South Vietnam rose slowly,
side by side, into the clear blue sky over Clinton Square to the
strains of "The Star-Spangled Banner" followed by the anthem of
the former Republic of Vietnam, the South's official name.
Then came a mournful tune "for our ancestors, for the freedom
fighters, for the boat people, for everybody who fought for
freedom and to escape from Vietnam," as Tuan Hoang, a master of
ceremonies of Sunday's Oakland Tet Festival, told it. Then
firecrackers broke the silence as the crowd cheered.
Three decades after the end of the Vietnam War and the Communist
takeover of the South, the Vietnamese community is a vibrant
piece of Oakland, evidenced in the many shops with Vietnamese
names surrounding the square and the growing corps of
politicians who show up at Tet, the annual lunar New Year's
festival.
But in this community, which hails mostly from Vietnam's South,
the wounds of war have scarcely healed with time. Their flag is
still South Vietnam's yellow background with three red strips,
not the hated red flag with the yellow star of today's Socialist
Republic of Vietnam. Their capital will always be Saigon, not Ho
Chi Minh City, as the victorious Communists renamed it.
"People from here refer to it as Saigon," said Uy Nguyen, 32, of
San Jose, an insurance agent. "Even worldwide, people still say
'Saigon.'" Especially, in business circles, he added.
Many of Oakland's older Vietnamese are former members of South
Vietnam's military, said Nguyen. His father, a former military
man, was thrown in a re-education camp to be brainwashed, he
said.
"When he came out of the camp, they said, 'You worked for the
Americans.' He couldn't get a job."
Chi Le, 44, of Antioch, who sells real estate in Oakland, said
her husband, a former military pilot, escaped Vietnam "with the
boat people" a year before she and their two daughters managed
to get out. The new regime "treated everybody in the South
badly," she said.
"They pushed us out of the country," said Chi Le's friend
Nguyen, speaking for all of Oakland's Vietnam-born.
Sunday's festivities began with a ribbon-cutting under an arch
inscribed with the words "Chuc Mung Nam Moi" and "Happy New
Year" and the ceremonial lighting of strings of firecrackers to
ward off bad luck and demons. Two dragons danced to a drumbeat
through the arch and on to the base of the stage, tantalized by
a fan-wielding, masked man, Ong Dia, or "Mr. Earth, a holy
person from Buddhism," according to Hoang. After more
firecrackers, speeches and appearances by elected officials or
their representatives, there was dancing and singing by local
Vietnamese pop stars Nhu Quynh, Don Ho, Huong Lan and Phuong
Hong Que and others.
Nguyen Duy Trung, 60, of Oakland, no relation to Uy Nguyen, is a
former South Vietnamese Navy officer who works for the Alameda
County Social Services Agency. Nguyen, who also helped organize
Sunday's event, said he wants Americans to understand the hard
line many local Vietnamese take toward the regime in power in
their homeland today and offered himself as an example.
"I was put in a Communist prison for five years," he said. "I
suffered a lot of hardship. After jail I couldn't get a job. So
I ran back and forth between Saigon and Cambodia selling
medicine illegally in order to feed and take care of my family."
His daughter, once the outstanding student in her high school,
could not pursue a medical career. Nguyen, his wife and two sons
eventually made it to the United States and his daughter will
arrive shortly, he said. Today, the regime that threw him in
prison as a traitor for his alliance with the Americans seeks
good relations with the United States, he said, "so why did they
put us in prison? It's unreasonable."
Other families had it worse than his.
"They lost their property; their house was taken by the
Communists; their relatives were killed by the Communists or
died trying to escape from Vietnam.
"We cannot forget. That is why we cannot get along with the
Communists. Ever."
Reach Tom Lochner at 510-262-2760 or
tlochner@cctimes.com.
(http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/13690307.htm)
******************
January 24, 2006
FARMER BRANCH CHIEF APOLOGIZES, DECLARES RETIREMENT
Leader of 16 years denies bias against Vietnamese, any others
By STEPHANIE SANDOVAL
The Dallas Morning News
FARMERS BRANCH – Police Chief Jimmy Fawcett apologized Tuesday
for making racially insensitive statements about people of
Vietnamese heritage – and then announced his retirement.
Leaving the department he has been with for 32 years would aid
the community's healing process, he said. City officials said he
would work for the city on a contract basis for the next six
months.
Jimmy Fawcett "I am here today to offer my sincere and heartfelt
apologies to the Asian community and to admit that comments I
have made offended members of our community," Mr. Fawcett said
at Farmers Branch City Hall.
"I made insensitive comments that I deeply regret. These
comments make me appear to be the kind of person I've spent my
entire career trying to keep out of my profession."
Sandra VuLe, spokeswoman for the Vietnamese American Community
of Greater Dallas, said the organization's leaders had made it
clear that an apology from the chief would not be enough to
atone for his comments.
"He needed to step down," she said.
The Vietnamese American Community of Greater Dallas and its
sister organization in Fort Worth had planned protests at
Farmers Branch City Hall on Thursday and Friday if the chief had
not stepped down or been forced out, saying in a news release
that they would not be able to trust Mr. Fawcett to carry out
his duties fairly.
In his apology, Mr. Fawcett mentioned his military service in
Vietnam more than 35 years ago.
"I inappropriately used slang terms from that era that were
offensive and unfortunately lead some to believe that I have a
bias against Vietnamese," he said. "Let me assure you right now,
I have no bias against Vietnamese or any other ethnic group."
The comments by the chief were made to members of the Police
Department's Oral Review Board, which had gathered to interview
job applicants. One of those applicants was of Vietnamese
heritage. Neither he nor the other applicants were in the room
at the time.
A high-ranking police officer and member of that board filed an
oral complaint with the city's human resources department.
The chief acknowledged making insensitive remarks and was
suspended for 10 days, starting Jan. 5. He subsequently took
several vacation days. Tuesday was to be his first day back on
the job.
He made the apology wearing civilian clothes, flanked by Mayor
Bob Phelps and City Manager Linda Groomer.
Mr. Fawcett will no longer have direct Police Department
responsibilities, but he will remain with the city under a
personal services contract for six months. He will work for the
city manager to complete work on projects in progress, including
legislative issues, budget, staffing, community policing and
gang prevention.
He will be paid $7,500 a month for that work. He currently earns
$10,618 a month, or $127,423 a year.
Ms. VuLe said her organization understands the city's desire to
keep Mr. Fawcett in a consultant's capacity temporarily to help
finish some projects in the works, she said.
"That is OK and acceptable with us, because that is for the
greater good of the city," Ms. VuLe said. "But we do not want
the chief involved in the hiring process and especially the
hiring of a new chief."
Mr. Fawcett had been chief for nearly 16 years. He was fifth in
line to lead the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
The chief did the right thing for the department and for the
city in stepping down, said Ron DeLord, president of the
Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas.
"Once you've damaged a position of trust, it's almost impossible
to come back," Mr. DeLord said. "I think he was man enough to
admit it. He didn't try to lie about it. He took his punishment
and probably for the betterment of community relations, it's
best he retired. It probably will heal things up better if he's
not there."
If he had remained, the incident would have haunted the city and
the department, Mr. DeLord said.
"What if something were to happen and they had an incident with
an Asian or they shot somebody," he said. "If anything would
have happened, it would have come back up."
The mayor, Mr. Phelps, also said the chief's decision to retire
was made with the best interests of the city in mind.
Mr. Phelps said the chief helped to make Farmers Branch a better
place to live, work and raise a family, and that under Mr.
Fawcett's leadership, the 100-employee department became "one of
the finest, most efficient and well-trained group of police
officers and support personnel that can be found anywhere."
He also said he hopes the apology and retirement will provide
closure to the scandal and hurt that have rocked the city for
weeks.
"I hope you will accept that apologies have been made. It is
time to put this behind us and move forward," Mr. Phelps said.
E-mail
ssandoval@dallasnews.com
FULL TEXT OF CHIEF'S APOLOGY
I am here today to offer my sincere and heartfelt apologies to
the Asian community and to admit that comments I have made
offended members of our community.
I made insensitive comments that I deeply regret. These comments
make me appear to be the kind of person I’ve spent my entire
career trying to keep out of my profession.
Please allow me to provide a little background information. When
I became Chief here nearly 16 years ago, the Police Department
with only one or two exceptions was white males. There was a
need to diversify the agency and I made a commitment to do so. I
made this commitment because I believe and have stated many
times in public settings that diversity leads to enrichment,
whether it be in a place of employment or an entire community.
Today, the Farmers Branch Police Department enjoys a higher
level of diversity in the makeup of our employees. We by no
means have achieved the levels we would like. It is the policy
of the City of Farmers Branch and the Police Department to seek
out those who can demonstrate they have the ability to be Police
Department employees and meet fully all the qualifications for
the positions they desire. Ethnicity, gender, age and/or other
factors have no part in the consideration process.
My role in the hiring process is the very last step for an
applicant. In 16 years as chief, with one exception, I have made
a job offer to every candidate who was recommended as a result
of the process, and that one exception was based on information
in the candidate’s background.
I have had conversations about my experiences, which occurred
over 35 years ago in Vietnam. I inappropriately used slang terms
from that era that were offensive and unfortunately lead some to
believe that I have a bias against Vietnamese.
Let me assure you right now, I have no bias against Vietnamese
or any other ethnic group. My wife of 36 years is Japanese and
we have four children who are very proud of their Japanese
heritage. I am tied to the Asian community. My family supports
and conducts business with members of the Vietnamese community.
To this end, I want to again apologize to the Vietnamese
community, the Asian community and anyone else who was offended
by any comments I have made that were insensitive or led anyone
to believe I have a bias against them.
I want to thank the Vietnamese community for their expression of
willingness to move forward and to take this as an opportunity
to grow together. This is a very important day for me. A day
that I will commit to you that I want to start the healing
process in our community and move forward.
While the focus of my apology is to the Vietnamese and Asian
community, I also want to apologize to residents of Farmers
Branch, the elected leaders, the city manager, the city of
Farmers Branch staff and members of the Police Department for
the unnecessary attention they have received. I accept and
respect the swift action that was taken.
We have enjoyed a stellar reputation for years and I will commit
to restoring that. The men and women of the Police Department
are professionals who have great pride in our profession and
none of us would ever tolerate discrimination against any group.
I also want to apologize to my family for the stresses they have
had to endure as aresult of my comments.
1 John says, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us." I am saying to you, I am not
perfect.I recognize I have hurt my friends, my family and the
community and have damaged the good relationship and confidence
you have in me. Again, I want to assure you that I harbor no
bias against anyone or group. Ourhope is that we are judged not
by the mistakes we have made, but rather by how we are able to
rise above them.
To enhance the healing process, I am announcing my retirement
effective today. I want to thank the city leaders for the many
opportunities they have afforded me. Being able to serve in a
community like Farmers Branch for 32 years exceeds what anyone
could expect from a career.
The opportunity to serve in Farmers Branch has not been a job;
it is more like being with family every day. I will miss the
residents and staff that make up this community. I will pray for
the continued health and success of the members of this
community.Thank you and God bless you all.
(http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/012506dnmetfbchief.34df3dd1.html)
******************
January 25, 2006
ASIAN
AMERICAN MEDIA AN UNEXPLORED GOLDMINE
Olivia J. Quinto
New York -- Asian American media, according to industry
insiders, is a goldmine out there waiting for the taking. Yet,
none so far has managed to hit it big.
This was the opinion of a distinguished panel that composed a
recent discussion entitled “Investment Opportunities in Asian
American Media.”
The event, hosted by Columbia University’s Business School
Alumni Club of New York last Thursday, brought together various
Asian American media experts from journalism, television, the
web and advertising.
All seemed to extol on the potential of profit from investing in
the field. The numbers, they said, almost seems too good to be
true.
According to the 2000 US Census, there are 15 million Asian
Americans in the United States. The six biggest Asian American
groups are: the Chinese, the Indians, the Filipinos, the
Vietnamese, the Koreans and the Japanese.
Filipinos were in second place, until the Department of Commerce
– which updates the census annually – ranked Indians above them
for the first time in 2003.
However, as a collective, Asian Americans in all levels – from
education, to income, to home ownership – had the highest rates
among all ethnic groupings.
So, why is it, the panel wondered, were Asian Americans lagging
behind their counterparts?
Anil Kumar, the evening’s moderator and a principal for a
strategic investment media firm, made the comparison to the
Hispanic market – the largest growing ethnic group in the US.
Hispanics, although only three times more than the Asian
American population, have twenty times more cable outlets and
fifteen times more magazines.
The Filipino American community, for example, has only two major
Philippine content channel providers, ABS-CBN and, more
recently, the GMA network – neither of which is US grown but
rather imported from already established media giants in the
Philippines.
What, asked Kumar, is the basis for such a huge discrepancy?
Sreenath Sreenivasan, a journalist and dean at the Columbia
Journalism School, said that it might be rooted in the current
crisis “with epic proportions” that American journalism is
undergoing.
From newspapers to television, the industry has taken a lot of
hard knocks lately. At the end of this year, for example, the
newspaper industry alone will lose 2.6 million subscribers,
while television news in some cases is off 50% with new viewers.
Couple this with an underlying cultural dissatisfaction with the
quality of American journalism – which, thanks to the internet,
has made recent media scandals like the New York Times’ Judith
Miller affair high profile and made bloggers the new foot
soldiers to assault mainstream reporting – and you have an
industry struggling to keep its breath.
Meanwhile, Saul S. Gitlin, the executive Vice President of Kang
& Lee advertising which is the only firm specializing in Asian
multicultural agency, revealed that despite a buying power of
$1.9 trillion dollars – the annual GDP of China – the three
largest multicultural audiences in the US (Hispanics, Blacks and
Asians) only receive five percent of the annual ad spending
corporations do to target these audiences specifically.
Prem Panicker, an editor for the oldest weekly for Indian
Americans in the US, brought up a related issue: the second
generation bias against the ethnic press.
Indeed, members of this second generation – which is usually
more educated – stay away from the ethnic press and read
mainstream news outlets, like everyone else.
So, said Panicker, it isn’t any wonder that the ad money is not
going into the smaller ethnic press venues.
Sreenivisan, however, countered that the second generation –
being born in the US – has developed a more discriminating and
sophisticated media palate. Maybe if the production of these
ethnic presses were the same caliber as shows like The
Apprentice or Desperate Housewives, the younger audiences would
flock to them instead.
In fact, Asian American media’s tendency to cut corners –
especially in research and auditing – have hurt the industry as
a whole, as these two actions result in the hard figures that
advertising clients look into.
“The landscape [of Asian American media] can support more
players,” said Vinodh Bhat, a partner at a NY-based media firm,
“but the challenge is going to advertisers and proving that
there’s a market looking for your product [on the magazine rack]
of Barnes and Nobles.”
Yet, the panel concluded that this ‘second generation’ audience
is a group in which more research needs to be done to discover
the identities of its members, especially in light of the
‘English dominant’ content trends which is making a buzz in the
Hispanic market as younger generations of Hispanic Americans
look to outlets to reflect their ethnic and cultural uniqueness
in the language they grew up in: English.
This trend, the observers said, could very well point to a
pan-Asian American version.
Indeed, a consolidation of both Asian American media as an
industry and as an audience seemed to be the agreed future
strategy for many of the panelists.
Ron Shah, a colleague of Kumar’s, claimed that consolidating
Asian media represents the industry’s main opportunity and
challenge.
Asian American media, said Shah, should behave in the likes of a
Time Warner, so that Asian Americans can have their own
Univision or BET channels.
There is however a pioneer in that sphere. Imaginasian TV is the
first 24-hour national television network committed to promoting
and serving the diverse cultures that comprise the Asian
American community. Established first on the West Coast, with a
current viewership of about 4.5 million, the company is now
gaining inroads to cable outlets in New York, North Carolina,
Hawaii and Texas.
Imaginasian’s holdings also include a pan-Asian radio show which
broadcasts in San Francisco and on the internet and a movie
theater in New York which showcase both Asian and Asian American
made films. The company is set to launch the latter as a chain
with a new theater opening in downtown Los Angeles in August,
which they also plan to make a cultural center.
The internet, however, was pointed out by the consulting experts
as maybe the biggest venue for advancement.
Asian Americans are the most mature and sophisticated users of
the Internet, meaning they are on the web longer and conduct
transactions online more frequently than the rest of the
population. For instance, Asian American men trade stocks online
four times more than White Americans do on a daily basis.
However, Asian Americans need not wait for a revolution in their
media to enact change in the mainstream. A simple phone call
giving positive feedback to a network which, for example,
features a prominent Asian American in the cast of one of their
prime time shows, goes a long way.
“Call them,” said a panelist, “because maybe next time, when
choosing between a White American and Asian American [actor],
with all things being equal, they’ll choose the Asian.”
(http://www.philippinenews.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=14bf30e73580b8b136244f04b996fb3e)
******************
About NCVA
Founded in 1986, the National Congress of Vietnamese
Americans is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community advocacy
organization working to advance the cause of Vietnamese
Americans in a plural but united America – e pluribus unum –
by participating actively and fully as civic minded citizens
engaged in the areas of education, culture and civil
liberties.
Copyright material is distributed without profit or payment for
research and educational purposes only, in accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. section 107
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