SHE'S AN ANGEL TO ASIAN EVACUEES
The following article appeared on the front page of the Philadelphia Daily News on Thur, September 15, 2005. It describes the frustration and obstacles victims of the hurricane face when dealing with the bureaucracy of large organizations such as FEMA and the American Red Cross. The "protagonist" of the article only wished that the article would have focused more on the victims and the problems they encountered rather than the volunteers.
http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/12648527.htm
By SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM
simone@phillynews.com
THEY BARELY understand English let alone how to navigate the complex web of the federal goverment.
In the distant shadows of the Astrodome, thousands of Vietnamese immigrants - all evacuees from Hurricane Katrina - are stuck in Houston with no money and nowhere to go.
The news of their frustration has spread like wildfire throughout the national Vietnamese community, creating a countrywide volunteer network.
Word came last week to Au Huynh, a professional Vietnamese translator living in Grays Ferry.
"I thought since I was an interpreter I could help," Huynh said.
But Huynh quickly learned that the bureaucracy was too powerful despite her ambition.
Last Thursday, Huynh, 26, and her boyfriend, Bao Nguyen, 26, (who graduated from Temple Law School in May) took about $400 from their savings and paid American Airlines for an unplanned flight to Houston. The couple signed up with Boat People SOS, a national organization aimed at helping Vietnamese immigrants.
They went to the hub of the relief efforts for the approximately 15,000 displaced Southeast Asian evacuees - a shopping mall 17 miles from the Astrodome.
Boat People's offices were on the second-floor of the shopping center.
"There are people sitting with all their belongings in a shopping cart," Huynh said, describing to this reporter in Philadelphia what she was seeing as she walked around the Hong Kong City Mall.
"The line here is insane," she said.
During the first few days after Katrina, Southeast Asian evacuees flocked to Houston because the city and its surrounding areas house more than 150,000 Vietnamese-Americans, a community leader said, making it one of the largest enclaves in the country.
Hong Kong City restaurants began to offer free food. Then strangers started dropping clothes, diapers and bottled water at the mall. Yesterday, a Houston councilman's office said a lawyer and a psychologist were at the mall offering their services for free.
But only a handful of Vietnamese evacuees are getting help.
"We are serving the same amount of people held in the Astrodome but with no services," Huynh said.
Before the hurricane, about 30,000 Vietnamese-Americans were living in Louisiana, 5,000 in Mississippi and 5,000 in Alabama. It is estimated that about half of them went to Houston.
As of yesterday afternoon, Huynh said she still had not seen workers from the Red Cross or the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the mall aiding the evacuees who pass through its doors daily.
She was so frustrated that she drove to a Baptist church where Red Cross workers were helping evacuees and demanded to speak with a supervisor. Huynh said the woman refused to see her.
She also sought help from a friend, Jim Kenkelen, in Philadelphia, a Center City stock trader. Kenkelen said he went to the Red Cross office on Chestnut Street near 22nd Tuesday and told several employees about the problems Huynh was seeing in Houston.
"I was just asking them to make a call" to Texas, he said. "I felt shut out."
When this reporter called the press offices of the two agencies, workers said they would notify the officials in Houston about the lack of support at Hong Kong City.
But Huynh's obstacles to help the evacuees never stopped.
She said Boat People asked the evacuees to sign a waiting list to speak with translators (like herself), who then dialed the emergency-assistance numbers for the Red Cross (1-800- 975-7585) and FEMA (1-800- 621-3362).
"We had eight phones" set up, Huynh said. "We called continuously," but the lines were either busy "or we were put on hold for four hours."
FEMA and Red Cross spokespersons said that they were aware of the phone troubles and that many evacuees were experiencing similar problems. Officials asked that evacuees call later in the day or use the Internet.
Huynh and her boyfriend left Houston for Philadelphia last night, saying they had registered only about 50 people with FEMA or the Red Cross despite working 18 hour days for six days.
"You feel very sad," said Bao Nguyen. "You question what you can do" to help.