Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘Hmong’ Category

Immigrant and refugee families helping to save small farming in U.S.

Posted by Christopher Coen on May 14, 2012

Some refugee population groups entering the US come from a long tradition of farming and may wish to continue farming as a way to earn a living. Refugees from Myanmar and Hmong refugees, mainly from Cambodia, are two groups that come to mind. The National Immigrant Farming Initiative is helping immigrants and refugees with a penchant for farming to apply those skills in the US by teaching them about our growing season, crops, prices, regulations, where and how to sell, how to connect with markets and government farm support programs. This is apparently not only a way for refugees to help them keep up their agrarian practices, but is also a way of avoiding the poverty trap for those with little English and a lack of American workplace skills. An article in Twin Cities Daily Planet has more:

He was born in mountainous Cambodia and dreamed of owning a farm. She was born to the far-reaching plains of the Midwest and flourished in an urban setting of coffee shops and poetry readings.

Now, immigrant Proeun and Amy Doeun are married, have four children, a herd of goats and 85 chickens as well as their own 40-acre farm in Rush City. That’s thanks in large part to the Minnesota Food Association, a farm entrepreneurship program she calls “our alma mater.’’

That program is but one of many to be highlighted at an upcoming national conference with a title as long and as self-explanatory as many a non-fiction book.

“Grassroots and Groundwork: Working Together to Reduce Poverty and Build Prosperity”…

…The need for such agricultural training appeared as Minnesota experienced a “huge and steady influx of immigrants from other countries, many of them from agrarian societies and they would like to know how can I farm in Minnesota,’’ Hill explains. The program teaches about the growing season here, crops, prices, regulations, where and how to sell, how to connect with markets and government farm support programs, he says.

The state group is a member of the National Immigrant Farming Initiative, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., supporting immigrants who don’t have the capital or knowhow or don’t understand the American agricultural system or have limited English, explains the group’s Executive Director Rigoberto Delgado. He will also speak at the conference.

Delgado says immigrants are replacing the disappearing American family farmer, pointing out that the number of Latino farmers in the United States grew 14 percent between 2002 and 2007.

“They come with the American dream and a penchant for farming. We are like the doorway for immigrants and refugees to find their way,’’ says Delgado… Read more here

Posted in Burma/Myanmar, community farms, Hmong, Minnesota | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Subscribing to the Language Line — and not using it

Posted by Christopher Coen on July 24, 2011

The tricky part of miscommunication is that people don’t realize they’re having it. They think they’re talking to another person,
understanding that person and being understood, but in fact they
aren’t. The miscommunication is invisible. Such is the case with a
recent AMBER alert in Alaska.  A Hmong mother arrived at the police station with her 13-year-old daughter to report that her 16-year-old daughter had run away to elope. Police were certain they understood the two to say that someone abducted the 16-year-old, so they didn’t even think to use Language Line Services that the department pays a fee to subscribe to. In retrospect the use of a 13-year-old as an interpreter should probably have been a red flag (by the way, people should not use minors as translators. Not only does it result in miscommunications but it also places unhealthy pressure on the minor). KTUU-TV in Anchorage has the details:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — …[an] AMBER alert last week, [prompted] a search for a 16-year-old girl across the state.

The alert didn’t turn out to be an emergency afterall — only a boyfriend and girlfriend looking to elope. But a communication barrier with the Hmong mother who called into police got in the way.

The mother didn’t speak English, and her 13-year-old daughter translated the mother’s words to the police.

Because of that communication barrier, police say they weren’t able to pin down the girl’s age right away…

“In the same way we’ve learned to provide interpreting for someone who is deaf, we need to get used to the logistics that are needed in order to help somebody who doesn’t speak English,” said Karen Ferguson, a state refugee coordinator.

In some instances, police are able to use an Outside phone service called “Language Line” to get instant access to interpreters when they need it. APD has a contract with the service, which bills the department each time they use one of the service’s interpreters. Read more here

Posted in Alaska, Hmong, language, police, teenagers | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Hmong exploited in non-market contract-farming

Posted by Christopher Coen on July 2, 2011

An article at the The American Prospect explains the plight of former Hmong refugees who tried to make a go of it in poultry production in the Ozarks. Despite the farming skills and family values many Hmong brought from Laos — and hoped to use to achieve the American dream — American business markets set the Hmong up for failure. 

Shane Tawr doesn’t remember exactly why he first decided to try his hand at chicken farming. Tawr had a government job in Milwaukee but wanted relief from the city’s bustle. He decided in 2004 to head down to the Ozarks, buy a chicken farm, and work for himself, just as many of his Hmong ancestors had done in Laos.

The Hmong, who came to the United States in large numbers as political refugees after the Vietnam War, settled mostly in urban communities in California, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Some raised chickens and tended small vegetable gardens, but many worked jobs that kept them near the poverty line. In the early 2000s, chicken producers such as Tyson, which is based in northwest Arkansas, began courting the Hmong, and advertisements about chicken-farming opportunities appeared in Hmong-language newspapers. Roughly 500 Hmong now live in communities throughout Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma and raise breeder or broiler chickens for a handful of companies that operate in the Ozarks… Read more here

Apparently the highly exploitative contract-farming arrangements are not confined solely to Tysons, but practiced by other poultry processors such as Simmons, Peterson, George, etc. Other factors
involved in American businesses exploitation of the Hmong and other immigrants – a long tradition in American business – seem to include greedy realtors and inflated assessments of poultry farms, and “safe for the bank” loans guaranteed by the USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA). Read more here in a blog written by Daniel Krotz, a former Senior Consultant for the Washington DC based Institute for Social and Economic Development (ISED) explains these other factors on a blog at Carroll County News.

…the Hmong began arriving in the United States from Laos following the US exit from Vietnam. The Hmong, valiant allies with the US against communism, became refugees and were settled in the United States to avoid extinction at the hands of our North Vietnamese enemies as punishment for their service to the United States.

and

…Hmong operated farms were destined to fail from the onset or, to be fairly marginal business investments over any period of time, short or long term…

The underlying problem was that the Hmong had purchased farms that were overvalued and with equipment and buildings that were nearly or fully depreciated. The critical information missing from the Pott’s article was that appraisals of farms were too high at the time of purchase, and that area banks made loans even though it should have been fairly apparent to the banks that the Hmong purchasers were entering into fairly risky ventures that had limited potential to ever be
profitable.

Why would banks make loans for potentially high risk business ventures? Probably because, in most cases, the loans were guaranteed by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), which substantially reduced the risk for lenders…

In very general terms, what appears to have happened is that Realtors found a crowd of eager buyers fo farming operations the buyers were not adequately prepared to operate, and passed the buyers along to banks–accompanied by inflated appraisals–who made “safe for the bank” loans because they were guaranteed by USDA FSA. The only losers were the Hmong.

Again, while I cannot characterize how equitable the business relationships between Tyson and the Hmong farmers are, I can say that many of the farmers had similar if not identical contracts with other poultry processors such as Simmons, Peterson, George, etc. Financial outcomes for Hmong farmers was predictably poor regardless of the processing company they worked with… Read more here

Posted in Arkansas, California, Hmong, Hmong, Hmong, Minnesota, ORR, poultry production, US Department of Agriculture, Wisconsin | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
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