Agency Helps Youth of Asian Ancestry Cope in 2 Cultures

May To, director of the Asian Youth Project in Monterey Park, is still troubled by the story of a boy and his family who had fled the turmoil of post-war Vietnam.

They settled in the San Gabriel Valley seven years ago. The Rosemead boy, now 15, chronically stole money from his friends and family. His parents told him they wanted nothing more to do with him and didn’t care whether he lived at home anymore.

“Fine,” the teen-ager said, and ran away.

A teacher who briefly allowed the boy to live with him recently sought help from the Asian Youth Project.

Begun in March, the project serves as a referral umbrella for five recreation, employment, mental health and counseling agencies assisting San Gabriel Valley and Los Angeles County residents of Asian Pacific ancestry.

The teacher who had taken the troubled boy under his wing complained that despite searching for two years, he could find nobody to help him who was both qualified and committed. The parents are ethnic Chinese and speak little English. Their principal language is Cantonese; the teen-ager’s, English.

Now, with the help of the Youth Project, the boy has returned home, and he and his family are talking about the problems.

Need Is Apparent

Such situations testify to the need for the Youth Project in a region where many of the county’s estimated 950,000 Asian Pacific-Americans live, To said. Difficulties arise, she said, because young people and their families get mired in emotional tangles between the cultures of their ancestral homes and of America.

Yet, in its fledgling year, the Asian Youth Project faces an uncertain future. “My biggest concern right now is, ‘What if we don’t get funding next year?’ ” To said. “What will we do with our 750 clients?”

The project, To said, represents the first concentrated attempt in the county to develop a network among agencies dealing with Asian-related cultural, social and employment issues of young people whose families have recently moved to America.

“They come to this country not only dealing with problems of growing up, like every other teen-ager,” Monterey Park Police Capt. Joseph Santoro said, “but they also have to deal with a totally new country, new culture.”

Santoro chairs the advisory board of the Asian Pacific Family Center, the only Asian-oriented mental health counseling center in the region, and is a member of the board of the Monterey Park Boys’ and Girls’ Club. Both are among the five agencies served by the project.

United Way of Los Angeles County provided all but $20,000 of the first year’s operating budget of $184,000, which pays for the equivalent of seven full-time staff members at the five agencies. It was the largest amount United Way has given for such a project specifically designed for Asian Pacific Americans, To said. The five agencies served by the project also made in-kind contributions, including office space.

Ways Being Sought

Besides the boys’ and girls’ club and the family center in Rosemead, the project also serves the Asian American Drug Abuse Program in Los Angeles, the Chinatown Service Center and the United Chinese Restaurant Assn., a job-training and employment service in Los Angeles.

United Way officials say they are trying to piece together ways to finance the project. “We’re trying to do our best to help this program continue,” said Norm Taylor, executive vice president of the Los Angeles County United Way.

Judy Chu, Monterey Park’s Mayor Pro Tem and head of the project’s advisory board, expressed worry last week, saying she has been meeting with United Way officials. Chu, who until recently led the regional United Way’s Asian Task Force, said everyone “realizes the importance of meeting the needs of new and emerging groups, and it’s so obvious that Asians are one of those groups.”

The project’s board of advisers, Chu said, is devising ways to generate donations to take them beyond the crucial first two years that it takes for many agencies to develop a constituency and donors.

A two-day charity tennis tournament has been planned for September, and contributors have already pledged $10,000. But board treasurer Gary Chow, a South Pasadena accountant, said the organization is coping with a cultural obstacle to fund raising.

“There are some things that are not highly emphasized in Asian countries and culture--one is giving to charitable organizations. We want to change this,” Chow said.

Besides the financial obstacle, the project is coping with another cultural stigma. “In China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, mental health counseling still is new to us,” said To, who emigrated from Hong Kong in 1977 to undertake graduate studies in education at UCLA.

To knows firsthand the difficulties of adjusting and has made a career of helping people who face the same problems.

A referral agency plays an important role in attracting clients who have recently come to America from Asia and in helping overcome misunderstandings about counseling, said Lori Chin, a counselor with the Asian American Drug Abuse Program.

“They go into denial and are hesitant about letting people know about what is going on in their families,” Chin said.

The wide range of services offered by the five agencies in the project helps to bring in clients who might not otherwise be inclined to seek counseling, To said. As an example, she said, social workers have discovered that some young people looking for jobs also have psychological problems that require the assistance of a counselor.

To and her colleagues are looking for these kinds of breakthroughs, ones that she said would be virtually impossible without an agency such as hers.

“Being bicultural, we are accepted, by both the kids and the families,” said To, who is fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin and English.

To said she has now helped to restore a tenuous bridge of communication between the boy who stole things and his family.

“This is just the beginning,” she said. “We have a long way to go. But at least we are able to work with them as a family.”