Well, we only have an hour. I know some people are coming because the people at the table are coming up. But the thing is, we’re getting started on time. Let me introduce Oliver Tan, Assistant to Governor Pataki and liaison to the Asian American community. He just finished putting together the Asian American Heritage Celebration last Friday that we all went to at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is going to talk about employment initiatives from the Governor’s Office. We’re very anxious to hear what the Governor has done, and I’m sure he’s done quite a bit. Oliver.
Oliver Tan:
Thank you. The title of this workshop of course, is “Integrated Approach to Employment Development.” And I think that perfectly describes the tact that the Governor has taken in trying to redevelop and renew Chinatown after the events of September 11th. When we say integrated, what we mean is cooperation between the state government and the federal government, and also the community based organizations, so that we know exactly where the majority of the help needs to go. I think I can best illustrate this by giving you a short time line of where the help has gone since September 11th. The governor was the first leader in the state to visit Chinatown after September 11th.
Well I was just talking about the Governor’s integrated approach to redeveloping and renewing Chinatown after September 11th. After the Governor visited Chinatown, and this was early October, the one thing he found was that Chinatown had been very, very heavily hit by the events of September 11th. Chinatown is only a few blocks from Ground Zero. Not many outside of the Asian communities or the people who live downtown know that. The area is very close and the area was very hard hit.
One of Chinatown’s greatest sources of income or trade is the tourism industry, and it was hit very hard after September 11th. The one thing he wanted to do was he wanted to help. The first thing he did was he came up with something called the Retail Recovery Grant, which was a $20 million program designed to help out businesses downtown. The one problem that we ran into was when we specifically tailored this program, it was the Retail Recovery Grant, which meant that only retail businesses qualified. We found out that there were many other businesses downtown besides retail – namely many of the garment factories down in Chinatown, which employ so many thousands of people in Chinatown, and also numerous other businesses that did not qualify, such as lock repair stores (which would count as manufacturing), and many other things. We found that as they were coming in, we would need to tailor the next program for these people.
That’s why when we came down with a $700 million dollar grant from the federal agency HUD, they asked us for our input, and we said we need to tailor this to everyone, not just retailers in downtown Chinatown. So we did this and we managed to include most of the other businesses. Anyone who applied for this grant would be qualified for their full amount, less if they had qualified for the previous grants. A difference we also made with this new grant was we managed to redraw the lines. You know to qualify for the Retail Recovery Grant, they had drawn the old lines at Canal St., and we found that to be a very big problem. Canal St., as you know is the main road, and literally bisects Chinatown, which would leave a large portion of the businesses north of Canal St., which were equally as affected by the shut downs. It would leave them unprotected and unqualified for the grants. So with these succeeding grants, we managed to draw the line further and further north, up until our most recent one which actually managed to qualify people all the way up to 14th street, which was the original line that the federal government had assigned as a no entry zone, immediately following September 11th.
I think I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the many organizations that we did manage to deal with, chief among which was the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. They were very helpful because they lent us the room and the actual physical location where we were able to set up the Disaster Recovery Center. We were able to base the State Department of Labor, the Department of Health, Office Child and Family Services, and many other organizations there, so that people would be able to come there directly for hel;. Also very helpful were many different community organizations that provided volunteers. Chinatown Manpower Project, the Indo-China Societal Community Center was very helpful, Asian Americans for Equality, Asian American Federation of New York.
We basically found at this one time that all of the Asian organizations managed to come together and pitch in and join together on this effort to work hand in hand with government to make sure that we would be able to get the help out to as many people as possible. Now when they did this, we used them as our community partners. We used them to get the word out, and we also called on them to lend services to us, such as translation services. At the time there was a very great need and we had thousands of people coming in for help that we were not able to provide translation services for, just because of the mass number of people that were involved. And many of these organizations, they came through for us. We often had 60 or 70 translators going at one time just to be able to help people.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Are you finished?
Oliver Tan:
I guess I can be. I can close up very quickly.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Yeah, we were allotting seven or eight minutes because we only have a whole hour and we have a number of speakers. I want to allow time afterwards so that if you have questions to ask any of the speakers, then you can get the direct information from the speaker, if that’s alright with everybody. So I’m going to limit you on your time, alright? Maybe David, you can talk. David J. Louie is [Vice] Chair of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and a very active community leader in Chinatown. He’s going to talk about “New Challenges to Job Training in Chinatown.”
David Louie:
Thank you Betty. I want to thank Asian American Leadership Conference for holding this workshop so we can address some of the issues that are so important to the healing and regrowth of Chinatown. Specifically, my topic will be the retraining of the Chinese population in Chinatown. First, minor correction, I’m the Vice Chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of New York. The Chairman speaks Chinese.
When we talk about retraining Chinatown, one misconception that most of the population has about Chinatown is they think of Chinatown as just garment factories, restaurants and gift shops. This of course, is far from true, at least it’s far from true today. Unfortunately when you look at the media and even in Chinatown’s own promotion of itself, they promote ‘come on down to the restaurants’ and ‘come on down and get good buys on gifts’ and ‘see our culture.’ Chinatown extends the misconception that that’s all it is, is garment factories and stuff.
I’m in the sector with my own corporation – I have an insurance agency there and I have over 30 full time employees. People don’t realize that Chinatown, in that less than one square mile, occupies more banks than anywhere else in New York City or New York State, with the exception of Wall Street.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Excuse me David. I think we’re recording, so I should have done that for Oliver, we’ll get you later.
David Louie:
It’s a misconception, Chinatown. In that less than square mile, we have more banks than anywhere else in the state, the city or the country, with the exception of Wall St. If you think about all the travel agencies we have in that square mile, I would challenge any other square mile in the state to have more travel agencies or more lawyers, or more accountants, or more banks (with the exception that I mentioned), or more insurance offices. Now in my industry, I’m a typical insurance broker that sells you car insurance and home insurance. Do you know that we have over 200 independent insurance offices in one mile? Two hundred. That might also hold true for lawyer’s offices or accounting offices. The regional study by AAFA pointed out that the professional/business services out distances the retail shops. So who is going to train all these people to work there?
This is where the emphasis should be because this is where business is growing. People talk about, where’s the future, that’s another workshop. What’s the future of small retail businesses in Chinatown? Well that’s their topic. I can tell you that the future of professional services in Chinatown is definitely growing in all sectors. And we don’t have the manpower – we do have the population, but we don’t have the qualified people…(I shouldn’t use the word manpower, you’ve got me on tape). But we don’t have the qualified people. In this institution right here we have Chinese Americans who are going to graduate and become these professionals. But where is the midlevel staff that we need?
I know that we have immigrants coming over who in their own country could do these skills. However because of their lack of English, they’re not able to continue. They’re not able to function in my office. There’s another peculiarity of teenagers or young teenagers, I’m talking 12 or 13, who immigrated to New York, but who in their home country did very well – “A” students. Once they came over, with the transition, and Jacob can certainly emphasize what I’m saying, their marks dropped. Their marks dropped and they became frustrated and they dropped out of high school. Just dropped out. It was only because of the language barrier, and they couldn’t get into the colleges that they wanted. But these are intelligent immigrants. They just lack the training to get in.
I, myself, well I wasn’t an immigrant, I was born here, but I didn’t go to college. I did go to a trade school. Fortunately, I didn’t have the language barrier and I was able to get into an industry where you didn’t need a four year degree. But we don’t have enough of that training in Chinatown, and this is where we need it. If you look on a subway, any subway you choose, they’re teaching you how to be a travel agent, how to be office clerical, computer operators…it’s on every subway you go to – and they emphasize English, Spanish (predominantly Spanish). We need more of that with Chinese.
Right now there is one school that’s called [Praise Outreach], at 125 Canal, and that is growing. They’re doing wonderful. But we need more. We have an organization called Chinatown Manpower. Chinatown Manpower tries to fill that need. But they’re understaffed and overworked, and of course, underpaid and under funded. We can tell that to Oliver too. But what we say in jest we mean in earnest. This is the problem, the direction that perhaps you, the concerned leaders of Chinatown, would put some emphasis on. Perhaps the media, the press would put some emphasis on it because professional trade is growing and we do need to have qualified people to train.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Ok, I’m going to stop you. Also, I want to recognize that we have a lot of the community leaders here in our room. It’s surprising. We have Peter Cheng over there from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, who’s going to be very important. We have Bob Lee over there. We have Josephine Chung who’s very active at OCA, we have I saw Judge Doris Cohen over there. She’s been very active with OCA and trying to rebuild Chinatown. Did I miss some of the people? Of course the press, which is right here. And did I miss anybody? Asian Women in Media. So we are addressing some very important people on the panel here.
The next person is going to be Don Lee. I’m mixing them all up here. Don Lee heads the Internal Program Development Group for Computer Associates Services Division. Since 9/11 he has been very active in Chinatown working to obtain disaster relief for those thrown out of work. And I know, I’ve been down there at times and all I do is see Don running around like a chicken without a head, helping and moaning about the lack of resources and lack of funding that he has been getting for the Lower Manhattan Group. He’s also a member of the Community Board 2 and a member of Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Resident’s Advisory Council. He’s going to talk on “Specific Recommendations for Re-Channeling and Re-Training Chinatown’s Labor Force”, which is a very important topic, which they just mentioned, but maybe
Don can follow up on.
Don Lee:
Thank you Dr. Sung. Thank you everyone for participating. I think it’s quite an opportunity to really be able to learn from everyone else so I’ll share some of my observations of what I’ve seen in the last few months. The topic is on rechanneling and retraining Chinatown’s labor force. I think David pointed out that there is a whole sector of professional folks that we have been missing – that hasn’t been accounted for, so to speak – and I agree with that But these professional people are largely supported by the needs of small businesses, of other Chinese or anyone for that matter. But their existence depends on the success and the number of small businesses that are successful.
Having said that, when we talk about jobs, think about jobs at this level. Someone gets a job. He works for someone, probably a small business. If you go up one level, all of these small businesses are in a particular community. I think clearly what’s been missing – to be successful is not only at the job level. If a small business is successful, they will bring in more jobs. I will give you an example. The government’s been wonderful in providing some support, but the truth of the matter is when the Grand St. station closed, some of the businesses had to lay off a lot of people. A bakery that normally hires twenty people, now it hires ten. Some of the businesses that used to be restaurants for example, they would hire 20 or 30 people. Now they’re a gift shop, hiring only four. So you see the impact. Not only do they have to be successful, the type of business will also dictate how many people they’re going to hire.
Now having said that, taking it to the next step, they all belong to a community. And what is a community. And David Louie pointed out, most people think of Chinatown as restaurants and shops. That’s not too far from the truth. There are a lot of professional people who work on the upper floors, but if you walk down the street there is no community, and to me that is a sad, sad statement. Because when I was in Chinatown, there would be much more cultural institutions, they would be much better supported. There used to be events at Columbus park, there used to be movie theaters. It has passed its time. But the bottom line is, if you look around neighborhoods in our city, if you look at the success of Soho, the Guggenheim Museum, what they did to bring the people to rebuild that entire neighborhood – most people who remember 10 years ago, what Broadway used to look like – it was a ghost town. Look at it today. Why?
Because it’s not just shops. Shops by themselves won’t do it. You need cultural institutions and that’s what we need the Governor and the Governor’s Offices to say, not just that it’s a wonderful thing, but to make the commitment to make sure that it actually happens. The community is very important. If we develop the community, small businesses will survive and there will be more jobs. I’ll give you one example of …
I’ve been going to the [Business Development Center in Chinatown], which has been helping some 20,000 people. One of the experiences that I had was I said, wow, I see a whole bunch of people who are limo drivers. And I said, how did you end up becoming limo drivers? I’m just curious. Did you come from…whichever region? They speak very little English. I said, what happened? How did you guys do that? He said, it’s simple. We know what we do best, which is to take instructions and we work hard. If you tell me where to go, I’ll show up at that particular street, I’ll flash a number some guy in a suit typically comes out (or a woman, sorry I’m being sexist again), gets into the car, and gets driven home. I come back, and I’ve got my $50 for the day. Not a bad deal. The reason why they’re interested in those jobs is because with all the limitations and challenges that we talk about (English difficulties), they work hard.
But the part that does not get done, is to have supervisors, and to use technology to enable them to do the work. So you have a whole lot of people working in an industry, that if you ask me, or anyone ten years ago, do you expect Chinese to be predominant limo drivers in New York City, the answer would be no. But at the same time, these are not taxi drivers. Taxi driving requires English speaking skills. If you take that as an example, I think we have to rechannel the jobs and opportunity to Chinatown’s workforce. It’s beyond training individuals. You have to look at it in a systematic way, what the problem is, to train also these same people to get over that bridge, so that while they’re getting those foundation skills, while they’re getting their job skills, there is someone there to shorten that gap, to bridge what it takes for them to be employed. If we can do that, and I hope and I’m sure that the New York State Department of Labor will focus on not just the labor forces, but all the supervisory people, the other people that will make them successful.
The bottom line is, this is my recommendation: Government needs to focus not just on the state of job development. Community development is what’s going to make it happen. It’s not just cleaning the streets, it’s mobilizing. If we do that, we’re putting in process that it actually makes sense to support the small businesses, and they will hire more people. Chinatown is no different than other places. We are all hardworking people. If you give us opportunity, then that’s all we need. But we do need support, not just direct, but look at the whole entire, what I call job development cycle – putting the resources that are needed. Look at examples of success and it will happen. Thank you very much.
Betty Lee Sung:
Thanks Don. I think we’re getting very, very excellent recommendations and suggestions for the redevelopment and revitalization of Chinatown. But we also have in this room the people who can make it happen.
Now we’re going to listen to Angela Tang. Angela is with the U.S. Department of Labor. She is the representative of U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, in the New York Region. Before joining the Department of Labor, Angie Tang was a cabinet official in Mayor Giuliani’s Administration. She was head of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and Language Services. I hope you’ve listened to Don and to David. David, maybe you can switch seats with Angie. The microphone won’t stretch that far. You already heard Angie this morning, but she’ll amplify on her remarks.
Angelica Tang:
Maybe I’ll just do a little recap for the benefit of those who weren’t here this morning. The core messages in my remarks were, number one—I think Don is definitely right—that the government alone cannot do it. In terms of empowering a community, to that end, the Bush Administration has announced a very ambitious community-based initiative (that was at the beginning of his Administration), and actually creating offices to work on those projects in various cabinet departments, including the Department of Labor.
Secretary Choa was the first one to actually come out and announce a grant on state and community-based development efforts. The solicitations for grant applications came out two weeks ago. It’s a small number, about $15 million dollars, which is small considering that our annual budget is about $53 billion, and 93% of our budget goes to unemployment insurance, employment training, and workers’ comp benefits. So the $15 million would go to – there are three different tiers: part of it would go to the state – Governor Pataki would receive that, and they would have to apply for it, obviously. These are competitive grants. Different states apply – that’s one tier, the states.
The other tier is intermediaries. Something like the Asian American Federation – a group with a network of grassroots community groups that they could help manage the grant for these groups that they are applying for. If the Federation gets the grant, they could apply for small churches or small community based groups in Flushing that have never received grants or funding before. The smaller grants would be something like $20,000-25,000, whereas the intermediate grants would be about $1 million each and the fiscal manager would be free to divide the grants. The only requirements are that these community groups have to have a track record of providing services in the community, and those services to be provided, have to have a linkage with the workforce investment system. I’m not saying they have to be an official regulated program, it has to have shown that there is some linkage to finding a job. It has to be, whether it’s English as a second language, or soft skills training, dress for success, whatever it is, it has to have a target towards finding a job.
Another point I want to highlight, which I did not mention in my very brief remarks this morning was that the reason why I think there has to be a much more community-driven approach is that the government, meaning well, has its shortcomings, and maybe they’re not shortcomings so much. As a part of a democratically elected system, there are checks and balances. We are endowed by the taxpayers’ money. The $53 billion we are given are from all of you. We have a charge to keep. We have to answer to you; we have to spend that money well. Every penny that we give out is accounted for with results. That’s what President Bush has required from all us managers.
When he announced his management agenda earlier this year, he said that government likes to start programs, and it’s true. The administrations, they come and go and they come in and they start initiatives and they start programs, and that’s it. You never hear from them about results or performance of the staff. This president wants to change that. He is a MBA president, he wants results and he wants to hold his high managers accountable, down to the very bottom level, with obviously the case workers as well. Everyone has a goal to keep. That’s why traditionally some of our grants are much harder to get because there is performance requirements built into the contract.
But now with the newer round of monies – the $15 million that I was talking about – the only requirements are very simple – that there will be no onerous reporting data that needs to be entered. Simply, that the system is a building grant to help community organizations build up their administrative efforts, and to enhance the service ability and to help them better manage grants and better present proposals. With that, I’ve already given more than my five minutes this morning, so I’d like to hear from my other fellow panelists and if there are questions, I’ll be more than happy to respond.
Betty Lee Sung:
We want to think Angie very much. Since she’s mentioned all these grants that are coming from the federal government, we hope that AAARI, as the newly established research institute will be looking into some of the problems again, and since we have an Asian American faculty at the City University of over 400 Asian Americans, we hope we can mobilize some of these people to do some of the research to help our community rebuild itself.
Now we come to Jacob Wong, who I’ve known (I’ve known everybody for a long time), but I’ve known Jacob for especially long I guess. He’s the Special Assistant to the Superintendent of School District No. 2. That’s the Chinatown district. He’s also the Secretary and former Chairman of the Chinatown Manpower Project. Now we did invite somebody from the Manpower Project to come, but they’re having another event that they have to attend to, so Jacob Wong is speaking for them. Is that right?
Jacob Wong:
I am now. Thank you Betty. The first time I talked to Betty was in her house. I was being interviewed for some of the projects that you were doing. I remember that. She gave me the directions to her house, and a few years later, I moved to the neighborhood. Then she sold the house and moved to Manhattan. But anyway, thanks for inviting CMP to be here. I was the last minute person to make the presentation. As a matter of fact 9/11 had an impact on CMP. We are located south of Canal St. and we were closed for a time. Looking in the audience, Peter Chan was the director of CMP before, and David Louie was the Secretary of CMP before, so they can chip in whatever I can’t present to you.
During the period of 9/11, CMP participated in some of the activities in the Chinatown area, as I think David mentioned or Oliver mentioned, that we provided some translation services because many of the businesses weren’t able to communicate with the federal, state or city officials. I think many of you may or may not know about CMP. CMP is an employment job skills training agency with a lot of programs – computer training, bookkeeping, accounting, clerical, office skills, and one of the most important job training we have done is called LPN (Licensed Practical Nurses).
As a matter of fact, Betty just mentioned that we were at another event. We were just honored two or three hours ago by the Future of America for having played a very important role in the Bilingual Nursing Care Workers Training Initiative. That was funding by the Future of America and so on and so forth. If you are familiar with the Chinatown Manpower Project, you will know what we are doing. I heard all the speakers, but I have a different perspective.
We have heard a lot about 9/11, we need some actions and so forth, but I personally am an educator. I’m an educator. The first thought I have is education. Education is the very key to a good job. As a matter of fact, David was mentioning the immigrants. Many of the immigrant workers, working in the Chinatown area, lost their jobs. Now they don’t know where to find jobs because of their language ability. Many of these displaced workers come to Chinatown Manpower for training. But because of the fact that central policy has a lot to do with what we can do for them (there are many, many restrictions), it makes it very difficult for displaced workers to get a job, for those people whose language ability is not there.
Some years ago, two or three years ago, (Angie knows better than I do) the federal government started an employment policy called WIA (Workforce Investment Act). There were many restrictions for agencies like CMP to do job training. The emphasis of WIA is for job placements. Based on how many people you place in jobs in order to get funding. So it’s performance-based funding. Because of the fact that many of our clients and students are deficient in language, they cannot go and get a job right away. They have to go through some training. But the longer you train them, the less money you get from them. Suppose we used to train people 12 weeks, now we have to get them out in four weeks so that we get funding. There are many conditions. I don’t think we have time to go into that.
The first thought I have had so far is education. We have to give the first opportunity for our immigrant families to receive training to get jobs. By the same token, many of the children coming from immigrant families have to have a good education. We don’t want to see them in the same boat as their parents. They have to get a good education. That comes to the services the schools can provide. We’re trying our best, but lately you must have read a lot of things in the paper – $350,000,000 and if you go to the website, you will see all the cuts listed on the Board of Education website. We are in a lot of dilemma so to speak. We heard Don and everyone was talking about plans. How do we do that?
I think in terms of education, we have to educate the parents. At the same time, we have to provide job training opportunities for them. We have to involve the parents to make sure the children will get a good education. So I think in Chinatown we need a lot of effort to start something, to revitalize, to rebuild, or refocus our priorities in the community. Otherwise we don’t [get anywhere]. I’ve been in the community for thirty years, but the same thing is happening year after year. We need young blood. Thank you very much.
Betty Lee Sung:
Thank you Jacob. Now as the first prerogative, I’m going to ask the first question. With all this money from the Governor’s Office, from the Department of Labor, from the Mayor’s Office and so forth, there’s a lot of construction jobs that are going to be need happening. One of the things I’ve always noticed in Chinatown are the garment industries and the restaurant industries are the two main ones, and people perpetually just go into them although it’s oversaturated.
Now what is the possibility of retraining many of our people into construction jobs, so that they can get away from what they call, quote “ethnic jobs”? At the same time, my feeling is that with jobs…people need jobs immediately and that’s the crucial point right now. Seven thousand people lost their jobs, maybe more. Many of them are working just part time. But the thing is, when they go into a larger environment, an American environment where they are forced to speak English and forced to interact with other groups, that they will learn English quicker than doing it in a classroom. I hope one of you can respond to that.
Don Lee:
Betty, you’re referring to the construction trades, which is a fine idea. You don’t have to know how to speak English to put up sheet rock or to do electrical work. I’m sorry I’m being recorded now, because one of the major stumbling blocks is the unions. The unions have control of who gets the construction work. Now in order to get trained, the unions have their own training. They have training workshops. You can learn dry wall. You can learn locksmithing. You can learn electrical contracting, by going to the union education center. But the union isn’t open to certain ethnic groups. That is a problem.
Now, when we talk about training, why can’t we train them in Chinatown? We can. You have public schools in Chinatown and you could have after school workshops where you have instructors come in. That should be the direction we’re taking – getting funding, so that after the kids leave at 3:00, from 7:00 to 9:30 we can have people come in and train locksmiths and train electricians. Or maybe we can go into the unions and say, listen unions, you’ve got to broaden the spectrum of the people you’re training.
Betty Lee Sung:
That’s a very good answer. Did you want to say something?
Angelica Tang:
I wanted to add that there are also apprenticeship programs at the U.S. Department of Labor that we foster and grant, and that we give money to the state and also unions take advantage of that and we work together to train for construction…all the trainings that are traditionally secured by the unions, like the construction industry.
Also to mention that there is a fraction of those jobs that the women could be eligible for as well. I think a lot of people, when they talk about construction jobs, they don’t think of what they call non-traditional employment occupations for women, which includes most of the interior work, and the U.S. Department of Labor is also looking into initiatives to tap women for job training and apprentice programs as well.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Those are wonderful suggestions. Don?
Don Lee:
I agree that training is important and should always be ongoing. But I also want to point out that we’re in a different situation now. We’ve got six thousand unemployed garment workers, and six thousand unemployed workers means a lot of them are going to restaurants, a lot are going to drycleaners, and a lot of them are cutting hair. I have a story. I went to get my hair cut, and I said leave it longer. She cut it really short, and I said, ‘Didn’t I tell you to leave it a little bit longer?’ She said, ‘Well every customer’s cutting it shorter because they can’t afford as many.’ This is a true story. That tells you we need to have a sense of urgency to deal with this problem now.
The planning and training that goes on is necessary. But the fundamental question that I would ask is, has the government done enough? Has the government given us our fair share? We’re talking about $20 billion here. What a unique situation where we’re not ask for money, we’re just asking for our fair share. The money is allocated. Look at the paving of the streets in Chinatown. That in itself would have a huge impact. If we had parking, people could come in to shop and visit grandma. That would have a huge impact.
The fundamental things which would help the community survive are what needs to happen and what must happen now. When I asked these guys to pave the street, they said well lower Manhattan blah, blah, blah…guess what? When it happens, Chinatown’s excluded. Is it systematic? You bet. So what I’m saying is, let’s focus on the problem. I don’t believe that we really have….Not that people are starving. They are getting other jobs, but having to go out of the way. I remember Reverend Jesse Jackson once said it best: it’s not just about getting a job, because back in the days of slavery, everyone had a job. It’s really about getting a job that can support your family, raise your children, and that’s what we need to do.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
I think we have some questions from the audience.
Jacob Wong:
I just have a thought about this training. I can say that Manpower has the capability to help you do all the training, number one. Number two, if you go to Chinatown, you see so much garbage on the curb. One of the thoughts I have had, is can we start a company to pick up the garbage for the businesses in Chinatown? I don’t think it’s possible in the near future, because certain things are being controlled by certain groups, but it’s something to think about.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
I know David would have an answer to that, but I want to take some questions from the audience. And please make your questions and your answers very brief.
Audience Member (Bob):
I want to pick up on something that Don just said. It’s not exactly a question. I think something that’s been missing after 9/11, I think the time has come for the cycle of community development. How do we get into that in order to make the infrastructure work for our community? I believe, I can speak for the arts. I’ve been working in the arts in Chinatown for the last 27 years and many other organizations are doing this. And we believe that 9/11 has shown that when the community pulls together and we become aware of ourselves as a community, we’re going to create 80-20 groups.
When we’re aware of ourselves as a block, we’ll become aware of ourselves as Asian Americans, not just Americans, but Asians as well. And that means awareness of our culture. What Don said is that the Guggenheim can exploit the assets of Asian culture by creating an exhibit of China’s history. It revitalized the whole of Soho. But somehow Chinatown has overlooked its most important asset, which I believe is its culture and its art. I think when we can realize what that can do for our community, how it can change the whole nature, not only of tourism and attraction, but our family life and community life and how we view ourselves.
Becoming aware of ourselves as a political force means becoming aware of ourselves as a cultural presence. Our cultural presence in the United States is not yet developed. I believe this is the way to go, and I’m going to pass around…We’re going to hold a major conference at NYU on June 1st and June 22nd, talking about this nationally in Washington D.C., and also with [Kate Levin] (I hope) from the City who said she wants to now bring resources to local community cultural organizations. If this trend is going to happen when our time culturally is now.
This is the only poster I have because it’s not off the press yet. This is off my printer. But this is a visual image hoping that you will remember. If it’s effective, then that will show you that the arts are effective – its symbols and ideas are effective and we can use them to change our community.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Thank you Bob. Thanks for bringing up the topic because this is one area, that it’s very true, we’ve overlooked – the arts and the culture.
Audience Member:
I have a question. For over 30 years, I always get upset when I see the big construction sites and there’s not a single Asian face. And I was told that they are kind of not allowed to join the union, and if you’re not in the union, you cannot get a job. And I know a lot of Chinese even notice and maybe because of language or another reason. I just wanted to ask the question.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
I think David has answered your question. The question was because it’s unionized, is it kind of a closed shop?
Audience Member:
How can we overcome that?
Don Lee:
I think the solution is that there’s going to be a lot of construction happening in Downtown Manhattan. Before it happens, I think this is the time for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation or the Governor’s office to say, hey there is a whole pool of people who are unemployed. They have these skills. I’m not asking for quota. I’m not asking for anything more than these are people who are unemployed who are impacted and deserve getting a shot at getting the job done. Ask for it now; ask for commitment. Let’s ask for commitment. That’s what’s going to make it work.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
I know 9/11 was a tragedy, but I think it’s also an opportunity now for drastic change to take effect. I think this is an opportunity to say, look, as Don said, there are all these people who are unemployed. This is an unusual event that we may the union and get into the construction. I think has been working very hard in many ways, indirectly, in the rebuilding so I want to let her talk. Judge Doris Cohen.
Judge Doris Ling-Cohan:
Thank you. My question has to do with economic empowerment zones. Having traveled to Harlem a number of times, I’ve noticed a renaissance in Harlem that’s been attributed to an economic empowerment zone. So why cant Chinatown have an economic empowerment zone that would encompass a cultural incentive to develop private and cultural institutions, such as Bob’s Asian American Art Center as well as private development of a manufacturing base.
As we know, a lot of the garment factories have closed. This would seem to me, a way of generating jobs and also providing vitality and a renaissance to Chinatown at a much desperately needed time. The other thing that I wanted to announce to people is that the court, in response to 9/11 has sponsored a Community Awareness Law Day which I invite everybody to, on May 20th, and we will also be covering careers in the courts (speaking of jobs), and hopefully we’ll get more Asians in the courts as well.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
I want everybody to know that Doris Ling-Cohan is running for Judge of the New York State Supreme Court. We will get more people into the administration and into the court system. Let me see, I’ll let you talk last. Peter’s going to be on the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.
Audience Member:
Good afternoon. My name is [Bee Sung] and I’m running a business school. Right now I’m at [Meadowlands]. Before that I was in Chinatown and I had been running a language program in Chinatown for almost 20 years. I wanted to follow up on the comments of our community leaders because I feel that the way to help the Chinese community really go to the mainstream and get jobs is language. Language is the most important. We have a special technique to teach English in a very short period of time. For example, a lot of our students in three months, they can already take jobs as a waiter or waitress in a restaurant. They finish in six months.
As a matter of fact, in Chinatown teaching English, we were almost preparing students for Chinatown Manpower. The reason why I want to mention that is because right now I’m running training programs and I also run one that helps people to get jobs. In the last two years, I already place 200 people and right now, recently I got a program from CUNY.
The problem is the no matter what money I get from the government, I still cannot utilize my specialty to teach English as a second language to help my people. I really am very concerned. I think we should find a way to utilize my skill to teach English to old and new immigrants and then get government fundings. Because all the money I get, it does not include ESL.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
This conference is what it’s all about. We’re bringing together people who have the funding – the government and the private industry – and the people who provide the services. Frank, you have a question.
Audience Member (Frank):
Yeah, a question to the panel. On the subject of those who provide training, what’s the situation with regard to the groups that you represent that provide training, and other training entities like the Consortium for Worker Education or like the City University Campus Adult and Continuing Education Programs. They I know, unlike some unions, are not discriminatory and they also do training. Do they do training and are they doing training of the workers who have been displaced since 9/11? And what’s the nature of the competition between any one of them and any one of the organizations the panel?
Angelica Tang:
Frank, to respond to you, one of the groups you mentioned, the Consortium for Worker Education, is targeted to receive about $32 million from the U.S. Department of Labor, in legislation is targeted to receive that. They just submitted a proposal. We would need to review what sorts of training programs they’re going to offer, but it’s going to be quite comprehensive.
Another word on training programs, I will be the first one to say that training is not enough, as I mentioned this morning. In my conversations with more than 2,000 dislocated workers, when I was helping at the Community Center, we hear first hand that most of the dislocated workers tell us, they want jobs. They don’t want training. Or if there is training, they want to know that there is a job after training. That has my concern about community empowerment and the necessity to have these efforts coming from the federal government so that we can help smaller groups help themselves.
The federal government is far removed. We’re based in Washington and we have less of the knowledge of specific needs of community. That’s why we fund states and that’s why we fund cities. And internally, the cities divert the funds to community groups, like CWE, who have a much better knowledge and clarification of what regulations are within the unions. Those would be the more effective ways to help, but not withstanding the necessity for grants, the community also needs to be much more knowledgeable and have that resource to tap into and say, we know these grants are coming up. Why can’t we have one of these? If we are not qualified to apply for it, like the language program you mentioned, we tap someone else to apply with us so that ESL can be in the program. I think it’s about working resourcefully. Asian Americans are very resourceful.
I did a study on economic impact of immigrants. Immigrants are traditionally very street smart about using the resources. That’s why I think Asians eat everything for feed. We take advantage of what we have in front of us. In this situation, we can’t always rely on what there is coming from the government sector, because yes, we have regulations because we’re mandated by Congress. We’re mandated by people who vote and these people who represent us to adhere to the taxpayer’s money, to adhere to certain regulations. It takes time to undo them. What it is smarter to do is not to tell government look we need to undo your regulations. It’s to find a way to work with government to level the playing field, to come midway, so that we can have something accomplished. It’s about results and it’s about performance.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
For the sake of time, we’re supposed finish at 3:45, and I promised Peter a quick question.
Audience Member (Peter):
I want to echo what Don said about training for the construction industry because that’s what’s going to be happening downtown. Now I happen to know that both the Department of Labor and the Governor’s Office are offering job training funds in Chinatown. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is also going to put out $10 million for job training efforts. Any business that is below 14th Street is eligible for that funding. One of the things about September 11th is that the relief efforts seem not to be coordinated. So if there’s a chance that I can get to know the kinds of funding that are being offered, then perhaps I can be in a better position to help…
Panel:
We will actually be coming to you for funding…
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Can you make it fast?
Don Lee:
I’ll be very brief. I think the key here is not so much to challenge the government, but government has the responsibility to understand what are the requirements of the community. The bottom line is this, if I go down to Florida, I would pack different clothes than if I went to Europe today. Why are we pushing the same programs as if the Chinatown community, or immigrant communities in general, are the same as Wall Street? There is a difference and we need to think out of the box for the community.
Also the funding agencies need to think out of the box to say, what can we do to make this happen? Ten million dollars and I’ve got ten guys on Wall Street who bring in a lot more money than ten people in Chinatown, but my expenses is the same. The bottom line is they have different needs and we have to look at them differently.
Oliver Tan:
Can I just respond to that?
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Very quickly. Other people are coming in for the next session to use this room.
Oliver Tan:
Angie’s going to have to forgive me because I’m about to steal a little thunder here from the federal government, but one of the announcements that Secretary Chao made when she came down here on September 11th was she made a joint announcement with the governor that $1 million in job retraining grants would be directly funded into Chinatown. That’s not Lower Manhattan, that’s just directly to purely Chinatown. I would stress that people do realize that Chinatown is not Wall Street and we make all efforts necessary to try to make sure that Chinatown receives the funding, with the help of the Federal Department of Labor so they can actually get this work done.
Dr. Betty Lee Sung:
Thank you all for coming. It was a very lively session. I’m sure that all of us have learned a lot. Thank you.
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