Extra Help Is Relief for Refugee Center : * 3 Counselors at Garden Grove Facility Will Aid Amerasians in Adjusting to U.S. Life

The assignment of three full-time Amerasian staffers to St. Anselm’s Immigrant and Refugee Community Center in Garden Grove is wonderful news. A single social service administrator previously has been the sole extent of resources in Orange County to help about 2,500 Amerasians here adjust to life in the United States. That’s an overwhelming ratio, to say the least.

Now, the federally funded Volunteers in Service to America program, or VISTA, has been persuaded that more help is needed and it is providing three new counselors to the center. VISTA pays each volunteer a small salary, $668 per month, and $95 monthly in a savings account. But the one year of service given by each worker will be a great help. Not only is badly needed help coming on line, but the new counselors were once clients at the center themselves. They were already working part time at the center when Mary Nguyen, American Asian Services coordinator, convinced VISTA of the need for more help.

So experience is best. The “volunteers” know the problems firsthand. One, Joseph Lam, 23, says, for example, that he is familiar with the outcast status of Amerasians in Vietnam, which should have been their homeland. Many ought to do better in America, and can do so if given proper guidance.

The shift represents a change for VISTA, which has adjusted its approach to its work as community needs changed over the years.

The only VISTA volunteers assigned to Orange County will be at this center.

And just in time. About 17,000 Amerasians came last year to these shores. It is believed that the 2,500 registered with the office constitute only about two-thirds of those living in Orange County. So that’s quite a client base. The relief is welcome, coming as it does when tight budgets could mean reduced funding next year for the refugee service agency.