By May Chow | AsianWeek Staff Writer
In a small kitchen inside a basement that has been converted to an in-law housing unit, Chen Lei sits in her chair, in front of a backdrop of cereal boxes, Carnation Dried Milk cartons and beef and barley soup cans.
“You see all of this I get because of welfare and food stamps and it helps my family a lot,” says Lei, 35, in Cantonese as she points to the products, attempting to pronounce the English labels. “It takes some getting used to cooking with American products, but you can add some fresh vegetables to the soups and use the milk powder in desserts.”
Lei, who lives with her husband and daughter in San Francisco’s Bayview District, left her home in Hunan, China and came to the United States seven years ago. Her husband works as a butcher in a grocery store in Chinatown, and she works as a restaurant waitress in the Sunset.
On a cold Sunday night, Lei is making sure that she has enough food to hold her family over for the next couple of weeks.
“The good thing about these foods, is they can last long but the vegetables, fish and meat, we need to eat quickly, so we can’t save and eat a little bit at a time,” she said. “One, two, three, four boxes of Hamburger Helper.”
Although her house is well-stocked with food — her bedroom has become a food pantry with packages of cookies and rice sticking out from underneath her bed — Lei is counting the days until her family will be cut loose from welfare benefits.
As part of the 1996 federal reform law, the Personal Responsibility and Work Reauthorization Act, the Aid to Families with Dependant Children (AFDC) program was changed into Temporary Aid for Needy Families (TANF). In California, the program is called CalWORKs.
On Jan. 1, 2003, California will begin the second phase of its welfare experiment by terminating public assistance to those who have received five years of cumulative cash benefits. Low-income families who have been receiving CalWORKs since Jan. 1, 1998 — the date California implemented its program — will have a portion of their benefits cut. Each family will be cut $130 per adult.
The first to feel the brunt of the time limit include a large percentage of Asian Pacific American immigrants who have limited English proficiency and cannot find work outside of kitchens, retail shops or factories. Many of these recipients are married couples who work and have families, shattering the stereotype of welfare recipients as single moms who have either left abusive relationships or are battling an addiction problem.
Victor Hwang, an attorney at the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach (API Legal Outreach), said that in San Francisco and Oakland, roughly 70 percent of the families facing these cuts are APAs, though APAs make up only 25 percent of the overall CalWORKs population.
“This is largely due to the fact that there have been less efforts to assist monolingual immigrants in finding employment and because APAs have not taken advantage of the number of exemptions and exceptions that are available to avoid the cut-offs,” Hwang said. “The amount that’s going to be cut can be a significant portion of their income, meaning the difference between homelessness and just making it.”
According to the California Department of Social Services, 90 percent of the APA participants in CalWORKs are refugees from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sixty-three percent of Hmongs, 51 percent of Laotians and 47 percent of Cambodians in California live below the poverty line.
Although APAs have the highest median income of any racial group, the percentage of APAs living in poverty, 10.7 percent of the APA community, is high compared with 7.8 percent of non-Hispanic whites, according to the 2000 Census.
Lei is worried that the cuts could have an adverse affect on her family, mainly her daughter.
“My daughter is in high school now, and things are different, you know?” Lei says. “She’s beginning to see that the other girls are wearing nice clothes, and she’s going to want them, but we’re going to have to save money for food and necessities.”
Lei said she’s afraid her daughter is going to want to work long hours at an after-school job so she can make money to buy the clothes and music that her classmates have. What’s worse is that her daughter may become uninterested in school and homework and put all her concentration on work.
“My daughter knows that we work hard, but you can’t blame a young girl for asking,” she adds. “I’m worried she won’t work toward college — a reason we came to the United States.”
Under CalWORKs legislation, however, Lei’s daughter may still be eligible to receive aid in the form of vouchers or cash assistance.
Hwang said many APAs he had spoken to were unaware of the exemptions and extensions families could receive after Jan. 1, 2003. Exemptions include those who are 60 years or older; those who are caring for an ill or incapacitated person living in their home, which prevents the recipient from working or participating in welfare-to-work activities; and those caring for a dependent child of the court, or a child at risk of placement in foster care.
To be eligible for an extension, an individual needs to have a medical disability expected to last at least 30 days; be a survivor of domestic violence; be participating in the Cal-Learn or another state-approved teen parent program; not to have received CalWORKs because his or her cash grant was less than $10 or was sanctioned; and have been receiving only supportive services such as child care, transportation and case management.
“Even with these exemptions, many APAs don’t know about them so they’re not being put to use,” Hwang said. “It’s going to be tough, these are families who are barely even making it and to lose even that bit could put a lot into crises.”
Many APAs have received inadequate welfare-to-work job training or none at all. Hwang said that in addition, many are not being advised about how to prevent themselves and their families from being cut off from aid. Hwang said, however, that San Francisco is doing a much better job than Alameda County in terms of outreach and bilingual services.
“I think overall, the Asian immigrants have just been overlooked and shunned and are now being penalized when Jan. 1 comes along,” Hwang said. “API Legal Outreach is working with and training organizations such as Cameron House and Asian Perinatal Advocates to better serve the APA community, whether it’s assisting recipients with forms or filing appeals. ”
As Lei removes yellow leaves from some vegetables, her daughter cracks six eggs into a chipped bowl and begins to whisk the mixture until bubbles cling to the side of the bowl.
The quiet of the yellow-tinted kitchen is interrupted by the sear of the vegetables in the hot wok. Lei, whose hands are pink and cracked from the detergent at her work, tosses the green vegetables and places a lock of hair behind her pierced ears.
“I never really knew everything about the five-year time limit,” she says. “I read something about some changes in the welfare program in the Chinese newspaper, but there wasn’t like a conscious effort to inform families in [the APA] community. I know people who are very worried and are having terrible headaches because of this change.”
For now, Lei and her husband will continue to work and save and hope that their family can get by with this cut. Their goal is to be able to save enough money to open up a restaurant or donut shop.
Reach May Chow at mchow@asianweek.com
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