Macaroni vs. Kimchi

Members of the Korean Senior Citizen’s Assn. clear out before lunch. The men hustling over homemade chang-gi boards and the coiffed grandmas taking English classes must go home.

Their lively chatter is food for the soul, but the center’s cupboards offer nothing to eat.

Despite the demand, the center lacks money to buy lunches and the know-how to access public meal programs for Asian seniors in the San Fernando Valley.

Language barriers make it difficult for center officials to connect with social services, which, in turn, have been slow to evolve with the cultural needs of the Valley’s burgeoning Asian American and Pacific Islander population, community leaders said. Government meal programs for seniors dish up fare such as macaroni and beef, Salisbury steak and chicken divan, not the rice and noodles that are Asian staples.

Today a town hall meeting in Reseda will convene Asian seniors, representatives of cultural groups, elected officials and social services to address the needs of the elderly, with nutrition a major concern.

“We are not complaining, just asking. But we don’t know how to ask,” said Sok Hong, 73, a thin, talkative man from Granada Hills who goes to the Korean center every day and would like a meal program. “We don’t have the power or the right to complain.”

Like the Koreans, other Valley organizations of Asian seniors are struggling to create a safety net woven with cultural strands. Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai and Filipino are among the groups trying to start or expand lunch programs that would ensure the elderly get at least one nutritious meal a day and draw them out of isolation.

Although the Valley Asian American community is complex--encompassing a diversity of ethnicities, languages and degrees of assimilation--all are united in the strong value they place on their elders.

In contrast to established downtown Asian settlements that have programs in place, the Valley has few services for older immigrants. That need has grown in the last decade, along with the Asian and Pacific Islander population--130,000 in the last census.

“Unlike Koreatown or Chinatown, services [for the Valley’s Asian seniors] aren’t within walking distance,” said Susan Ng, of the Asian and Pacific Islander Council of the San Fernando Valley. “And, even if their children wanted to drop them off at local [mainstream] centers, language is a major barrier.”

Scattered throughout the Valley, Asians often aren’t recognized as a constituency and many new to the area remain invisible to the system since they weren’t counted in the last census.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, who said she has talked to leaders in the Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese American communities, acknowledged progress has been slow.

“We need to ask them, ‘Are we already offering a service you can partake of? And if not, why not?’ ”

The city’s Department of Aging administers a federally funded, low-cost senior lunch program that serves more than 6 million meals a year. The agency--which bases its fund allocation and menu planning on census figures--has made ethnic meals available downtown.

Some Asian seniors do participate in mainstream lunch programs, but they say they are drawn not for the food, but the camaraderie.

At one Reseda program, where conversation in Taiwanese, Cantonese and Mandarin hums amid games of mah-jongg and strains of Chinese fiddles, meals are served five days a week, although the menu is American.

The program started seven years ago when an area Chinese organization asked a Valley-based service provider for a place where their aged parents could feel comfortable. On a recent weekday, about 30 people sat down to a meal of turkey and stuffing, served by volunteers fluent in several Chinese dialects.

Policy researchers said that serving only American meals in the Valley unfairly forces Asians to eat foods foreign to their diets.

“Think of it this way: It’s like telling American-born elderly, who have grown up eating turkey and sandwiches, to suddenly switch to rice and kimchi. They’d die,” said Ailee Moon, a UCLA social welfare professor.

Ann Smith, general manager at the Department of Aging, said she was unaware of cultural petitions from Valley Asians and added that the agency could only act on request.

For those hampered by language and cultural barriers, asking for government help can be daunting.

Ten seniors who gathered recently at the Korean senior center in Northridge were hesitant to ask for special treatment, trying not to appear unpatriotic or ungrateful. “We are in America; we will eat American food,” one bespectacled man said.

Yet when asked what they enjoyed eating, voices fired out: “kimchi,” “bulgogi” and “be bim bap” (respectively, pickled vegetables, barbecued beef, and rice, eggs and hot sauce). The room erupted with nods and chuckles.

Some Asian organizations, such as Thai, Vietnamese and other Chinese--unwilling or unable to participate in existing programs--plan to or already cook their own meals in church halls and community centers.

One such group of primarily Cantonese-speaking seniors cooks once a week at the Evergreen Senior Center in Northridge. On a recent Thursday, many chefs added to the spirited mix in the spacious kitchen as they prepared a celebratory feast for a local church pastor.

Lum Wong, 76, of Northridge, stirred rice dumplings in a large wok. Moments later, Lisa Kwan, 74, of Simi Valley, poked at them with wooden chopsticks. Others moved in chaotic precision, ladling out tea eggs, frying pot stickers and chopping up sweet red pork to make enough food for about 35 people.