Isolation, Poverty for Vietnamese

Bach Van Nguyen, 92, has reconciled himself to his loneliness. His wife is dead and the mistress who once came between them is gone. He doesn’t get along with his adult children in Florida and rarely speaks to them.

His most constant companion is a plastic yellow bird, bought for $8, that chirps at the sound of his voice in a nearly empty Garden Grove studio apartment.

“The bird likes to talk to me,” Nguyen says gleefully. “When I cough, switch on the light, cook or clean the dishes, it likes to sing along. ... I really enjoy this bird. We’ve become friends.”

This is not the existence Nguyen and other elderly Vietnamese envisioned for themselves when they left their homeland for the United States. Although many fled the Communist regime after U.S. troops pulled out in 1975, others came later, hoping to live out their years in the embrace of their expatriate families following the Vietnamese tradition of extended “roof” families.

Many have since stumbled into isolation and poverty, unable to work or speak enough English to connect with American life around them, especially when compared with their Spanish or English-speaking peers, according to a recent “Condition of Older Adults 2002” study by the Orange County Interagency Committee on Aging.

The problem is pronounced in Orange County, home to the largest Vietnamese population in the nation--about 135,500--but likely is repeated in San Jose, which also has a significant concentration of Vietnamese immigrants. Another 78,000 Vietnamese live in Los Angeles County.

For many older Vietnamese, the isolation becomes self-propelling. Cloistered by language, many aren’t aware of social programs--from meals to transportation--that can connect them with others, said Pamela M. Mokler, director of the Orange County Office on Aging.

In recent months, the agency has stepped up outreach efforts through Vietnamese-language pamphlets, a special (800) 510-2020 help line with translators, an information van that appears at Vietnamese gatherings such as the annual Tet Festival, and by drawing together community leaders for suggestions.

Agency officials intend to turn to Vietnamese-language radio to reach Vietnamese seniors, who overwhelmingly rely on radio for information.

The isolation is born of more than language barriers. There are cultural walls to scale, as well. Many Vietnamese seniors are satisfied with their living conditions--despite the poverty--because life here is easier for them than in Vietnam, Mokler said.

“A lot of them came here as political refugees who have a hard time communicating what their needs are because they are so grateful for what they have,” she said.

Yet the figures reveal deep poverty. Nearly two-thirds of Vietnamese-speaking seniors--62%--were living in poverty, compared to 37% for Spanish speakers and 4.5% for English speakers. The study, conducted by researchers at Cal State Fullerton and Chapman University, surveyed 1,035 seniors.

The study found that only 16.7% of Vietnamese-speaking seniors owned their own homes, compared with 23.8% for Spanish speakers and 80.6% for English speakers.

While 37% of the wealthier English speakers tended to live alone, 13.6% of the mostly poor Vietnamese speakers did too. Only 10% of the Spanish speakers lived alone.

But even Vietnamese seniors living with their children and other family members encounter problems of isolation as traditions fragment under the transition to American lifestyles.

“Many of them have to live with their family, but they feel a loss of pride and respect because the youths don’t follow traditions and they speak mostly English,” said Kathy T. Diep, founder of the Asian-American Senior Citizen Assn. in Westminster. “Some of the elderly are pushed away and placed in nursing homes. So they see their situations as shameful.”

The result is a loose community of isolated seniors, many of whom gather daily at markets and coffee shops along the strip malls of Little Saigon to shop and seek human connections.

“The seniors who are here often get depressed and they can’t express it.” Diep said, adding that linguistic isolation is the biggest contributor to loneliness. “It’s the sense that each time they step out of their doorstep, they don’t know the roads, they can’t easily get anywhere because everything is spread out and they can’t drive, so they’re completely dependent on others for simple activities each day.”

For Duc Thi Nguyen, there’s no family around to turn to. Nguyen, 75, who is not related to Bach Nguyen, arises each morning and prays before a small Buddhist altar she has erected in her Santa Ana kitchen, then leaves about 9 a.m. to catch a bus to Little Saigon, where she shops and has lunch. Some days she goes to a gym to exercise, or to the Chua Dieu Quang temple in Santa Ana to pray and decorate altars.

What she really seeks is a human touch, a connection to the world outside of herself.

Nguyen immigrated in 1989 at age 62--a dozen years after her husband died--to be closer to her three grown children. She moved into a Mission Viejo home with her children, but the reunion only lasted six months before the children moved on to jobs in San Jose and Chicago. Nguyen decided to stay in Southern California, moving to a Santa Ana neighborhood at the edge of Little Saigon.

“I love my children and I know they love me, but they are busy with their work far away and their families. That’s how it is here in America,” Nguyen said. “I want to live here [in Little Saigon] where there are many older people like me, and it eases the loneliness.”

Home is a one-bedroom apartment in a low-income housing project. Nguyen lives on $750 a month in Social Security, paying $200 for rent, about $200 for food and another $100 for utility, trash and phone bills.

“Half of the bills I pay go to my high electricity bill, because I turn on the television, radio and all my lights to keep the apartment from seeming dark and lonely when I get home, especially in the evenings,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen plans out her days the way she planned her immigration. When she left Vietnam, she brought sacred soil and water from the National Ancestral Temple in the northern Vinh Phu province. She hopes to be buried with them , a little bit of Vietnam to join her in American soil.

“I have my visa and passport and now I’m just on the waiting list for my turn to go to heaven,” she said.

Bach Nguyen also is philosophical over the final years of his life. At 92, he doesn’t expect to live much longer, but is grateful he’s healthy enough to live on his own.

“Living by yourself, there are chores you have to do like vacuuming, ironing your clothes, and laundry that can get to be cumbersome,” Nguyen said, adding that he has become set in his ways and enjoys his isolation despite waves of loneliness. Nguyen seldom has visitors and doesn’t know his neighbors’ names.

“I like to live by myself because I feel so much more at peace,” he said.

Nguyen receives $829 a month in Social Security. He says his needs are few and he’s able to get by. Rent is $186 a month, and he budgets $100 each for the telephone bill and food, plus expenses such as car insurance. There’s a cot by the front window where he naps, a plastic table and toy stools where he takes his meals; the table itself is covered with papers and files.

A blue tarp covers part of the floor where he parks the electric wheelchair that is his primary mode of transportation. When he needs groceries--about once a week--he drives his 1986 Toyota Corolla to a store about a mile away.

Nguyen has family, but they are estranged. When Saigon fell, Nguyen’s wife and their three children escaped. He stayed behind to be with his mistress. Nguyen reunited with his family in Florida in 1986, and cared for his diabetic wife until her death a year later, then chose to live out his own life alone.

“I didn’t live an entirely upstanding life,” he said. “There is pain in my heart from all the events that happened in my life, my family estranged, and now that I’m far from my village and country.”

Nguyen doesn’t like to think of his homeland, where nostalgia overrides memories of even more dire poverty. “Living here, I have everything I need,” he said. “But when I remember my village, my country, that’s when I start to cry.”