Refugee Relocation Effort : Indochinese Urged to Go East for New Homes, Jobs

WASHINGTON — Like many Indochinese refugees, Chang Yer Xiong left the refugee camps of Thailand a decade ago in search of prosperity in America. What he found was 10 years of hard times, the last three on welfare with a wife and four children in Milwaukee.

Then, in March, a friend suggested a way off the dole. “In Georgia, they have many jobs,” Chang recalls the friend saying. Sure enough, Chang, a 32-year-old Laotian Hmong, quickly found work as a machinist, making saw blades at Dixie Diamond near Atlanta. Now, instead of getting $806 a month on welfare, Chang’s family brings home twice that amount.

“It was exactly like my friend said,” Chang said in an interview the other day. “We have a better life.”

Chang, whose friend was involved in a federal program aimed at relocating Southeast Asian immigrants, is one of the success stories in a growing effort to find homes for Indochinese refugees in America, who have numbered 806,200 since 1975. Only two weeks ago, the nation witnessed a dramatic illustration of this effort when 213 Montagnard tribesmen who fought alongside Americans in Southeast Asia resettled in North Carolina.

However, in spite of some achievements in relocating newcomers, the flood of Indochinese immigration has resulted in a major problem: Because more than one-third of the refugees came to California upon entering the country, officials say, the state’s job market and ability to provide social services have been seriously hampered. And, as Chang’s plight in Wisconsin indicates, such problems are not unique to California.

Now, federal and state officials say, it is time to look east for new homes and jobs.

As a result, the federal government has begun a program with Health and Human Services Department grants to relocate refugees to other areas that have lower welfare use and higher job prospects. North Carolina and Georgia are the current “hot spots,” said Toyo Biddle, an official in the department’s office of refugee resettlement.

The solution, however, may be only temporary. If the program becomes too successful, some state officials fear, these alternative locations could become “little Californias.” Robert B. Edmundson Jr., North Carolina’s refugee coordinator, said: “We don’t want everybody to get in the car and come on over here.”

$1 Million in Funding

But Edmundson needn’t worry about this occurring as a direct result of the federal program, which was funded at only $1 million last year.

The program, known as Planned Secondary Resettlement, was begun in 1983 but was not fully developed until last year. So far, it has relocated about 140 people to Atlanta and 60 to North Carolina--most from California’s Central Valley. (The 213 Montagnards came directly from overseas and, thus, were not part of this program.)

Traditionally, the federal government has tried to spread Indochinese refugees throughout the country as they arrive, though many eventually gravitated to such popular states as California, Texas and Washington. But the secondary resettlement program represents the most ambitious federal effort to date to encourage them to move after they have settled in America.

Moreover, in spite of its currently small size, it bears greater significance as a model for integrating immigrants into American society. Biddle said the program will inspire “a lot of natural movement” to relatively prosperous places.

Pays for Itself

“It has symbolic value because, if you see your neighbor succeed, it may encourage you to try a little harder here or seek employment elsewhere,” said Walter Barnes, chief of refugee services in California. Also, he said, the program pays for itself because it saves money in California, where 60% of the state’s refugees receive some form of public assistance.

And some U.S. industries--particularly those that have problems attracting Americans because of the grueling nature of their work--are helping to stimulate the process by recruiting California Indochinese to work in other states. IBP Inc., for example, has recruited Long Beach refugees for its beef-packing plant in Dakota City, Neb., the world’s largest.

For its part, the federal government pays a total of $35 million a year to private organizations like Catholic Charities--$560 for each refugee the agencies resettle directly from overseas--but has been reluctant to allocate additional money to relocate the refugees once they have found homes in America.

No Massive Relocation

Some officials fear that massive relocation efforts would leave the government open to charges of using “Big Brother” tactics in dictating where the refugees should live. “Engineering where people go to live is not something the government is good at,” said Douglas R. Hunter, resettlement program officer at the State Department.

Such factors notwithstanding, Planned Secondary Resettlement has been widely praised, as have Indochinese communities for their strong moral and material support of the transplanted refugees.

Program officials have sought to place immigrants in areas that already have established such communities, relying on private organizations such as religious and charitable groups to identify these locations. In fact, these private organizations actually carry out the program, though it is financed by the federal government.

The groups, working in conjunction with state officials, identify families who have been in the country for at least 18 months and are jobless. The organizations submit proposals for federal funding, then sponsor the families in a new location, helping them find work and housing and steering them toward services like English classes. The relocation costs vary, depending on distance, family size and agency expenses.

Increased Need Likely

The need for relocations is almost certain to grow steadily, especially if the experience in California holds true for other states. It is not clear, however, whether federal funding for programs like Planned Secondary Resettlement will grow correspondingly.

About 32,000 Indochinese are expected to settle in America during the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. And, as has been the case with each succeeding wave so far, their average education and job skills are expected to decrease, government officials said.

Linda W. Gordon, a statistician on secondary migration at HHS’ office of refugee resettlement, said the immigrants who arrived just after the Vietnam War were Vietnamese, “much more a white-collar group,” who had worked for Americans before and usually spoke English. Later, she said, the newcomers “were more likely to be blue-collar” Cambodians, Hmong and Laotians.

But North Carolina and Georgia in many ways are perfectly suited for such immigrants, say federal, state and private organization officials. Chief among the advantages are a wealth of entry-level manufacturing jobs and adequate low- and moderate-income housing. Also, climates in those states are not likely to shock the newcomers, who are accustomed to the hot, wet summers and mild winters of Southeast Asia.

‘Country Folks’

In Greensboro, Raleigh Bailey, director of refugee programs for Lutheran Family Services, which resettled the Montagnards and others, said the Indochinese fare well in his state because “they’re country folks, and North Carolinians are country folks, and they all get along.”

Kue Chaw, director of the Hmong Natural Assn. in Marion, N.C., agrees. Kue’s group helped resettle seven families from Fresno to North Carolina last year and is already seeking to relocate 15 more, he said, because “there are no jobs there.”

So far, North Carolina seems to have plenty of room. Of the state’s 6 million residents, 5,600 are Indochinese.

And, in Georgia, where 10,500 Indochinese live among a population of 5.7 million, Barbara Burnham, a refugee program consultant at the Department of Human Resources, said the state is “not yet reaching the saturation point.”

Advantages Cited

Siong Koua Vanchiasong, director of Lao Family Community Inc., which helped relocate Chang and others from Milwaukee and Banning, Calif., to the Atlanta suburbs, offers a powerful argument for resettling there: One eight-member family in which only the husband, wife and one son work earns $2,258 a month--but had received less than half that amount on welfare in California.

“I tell them we have the climate, and that the cost of living and jobs are better,” said Siong, a native of Thailand who emigrated to Atlanta in 1976. He said he expects to relocate at least 1,000 more refugees under the secondary resettlement program.

Not all resettlement experts share Siong’s unqualified enthusiasm; many are more circumspect about the future of relocation programs.

Carol Leviton Wetterhahn, a State Department consultant on resettlement issues, appeared optimistic about the program’s possibilities but pessimistic about its funding. “Many things have to be tried” to fully integrate refugees into American society, she said, “but whenever everybody gets their act together and things go right, there’s no money.”