View socioeconomic, employment and population data on Hmong Americans from Washington, D.C.-based organization Hmong National Development, Inc.

View the Wisconsin Bureau of Migrant, Refugee and Labor Services' 2004 Wisconsin Lao-Hmong Resettlement Summary.

E-mail Karline Koehler with questions or comments on this story.

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Budget cuts jeopardize Hmong employment program

Kao Xiong, an employment and training specialist for the Eau Claire Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association, sits in his office at 423 Wisconsin St. Listen to Xiong talk about the future outlook for the program. (Photo by Karline Koehler)

Kao Xiong used to work full-time helping Hmong refugees in Eau Claire find jobs and develop marketable skills.

As an employment and training specialist at the Eau Claire Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association, Xiong would assist program participants in searching for jobs, filling out applications, writing résumés and communicating in job interviews.  He also connected Hmong job seekers with English lessons and on-the-job training that would enable them to gain marketable skills.  A perpetual stream of clients, he said, showed him his job was necessary to the community.

Xiong used to do this full-time – until the beginning of 2004.

That’s when the association’s primary source of funding, which comes from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement via Wisconsin’s Bureau of Migrant, Refugee, and Labor Services, was cut by 89 percent.  Many of the program’s clients had recently gained U.S. citizenship, which meant they were no longer considered refugees and therefore became ineligible for the association’s programs and services, he said. The association’s staff of 10 full-time employees had to be reduced to four.

“Now each of us has to wear two hats,” Xiong said. “We have to squeeze to make sure to have all the programs to serve the community.”

Xiong now coordinates both the employment and training program and the family strengthening program for the Eau Claire Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association.  Because the employment and training position is only funded for 10 hours per week, he said, his ability to help members of Eau Claire’s Hmong community develop their employability is severely limited.

Xiong’s predicament represents a severe blow to the Hmong community.  In Eau Claire and beyond, the Hmong disproportionately live in poverty.  And for Hmong refugees and their families, who may lack highly developed English skills and technical training, some of those who do acquire jobs may find themselves unable to escape the ranks working poor.

According to 2004 poverty guidelines established by the Department of Health and Human Services, a family of seven – the average size for Hmong American families, according to the U.S. Census Bureau –  must earn $28,390 or below to be classified as poor.  These guidelines are a simplified version of the Census Bureau’s poverty thresholds.

Wisconsin and Minnesota have an estimated combined Hmong population of 120,000, or 42 percent of the nation’s total, according to Washington, D.C.-based Hmong National Development, Inc.

In Eau Claire County, 24.6 percent of Hmong individuals live below the poverty level.  In Chippewa County, the number is even higher at 44.8 percent – and 71.4 percent of those over 65 live in poverty. The median income for Hmong households is $36,786 in Eau Claire County and $29,453 in Chippewa County.  For 40 percent of Hmong renters in Eau Claire County, 35 percent or more of their income goes toward rent.

Thirty-eight percent all Hmong Americans live in poverty, according to 2000 Census Bureau data.  Their median income is not much higher than the local median, at $32, 224.  Seven percent hold bachelor’s degrees.  Per capita income falls at a mere $6,613.

Contrast these figures with those for all Americans:  12 percent live in poverty, and their median income falls far above the poverty line at $50,046.  Twenty-four percent hold bachelor’s degrees.  Per capita income is more than three times higher at $21,587.

Hmong refugees have a more difficult time finding employment in Eau Claire than in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Xiong said, because there are fewer large companies offering the kinds of employment their language and technical skills allow them to compete for.  The slow economy’s push for companies to send low-skilled jobs overseas has added to the problem, he said.

A third of all Hmong American households are linguistically isolated, as opposed to only four percent for the general population.  Those less than fluent in English can find it difficult to get a well-paying job, Xiong said.

The employment and training program, he said, works to connect participants with tutors of English as a second language.  Many participants, he said, also take courses in ESL at Chippewa Valley Technical College in Eau Claire.

The job training component of the program allows participants to gain technical skills by spending a certain amount of time with an employer, learning their about the trade.  After putting in a predetermined amount of time with the employer, Xiong said, the trainee is free to seek employment anywhere.

Forty-two percent of employed Hmong Americans worked in the production and transportation industries in 2000, according to Hmong National Development, Inc.; only 17 percent held managerial or professional jobs.

“This is a pretty bad time to come to the U.S. without job skills,” said Jeremy Hein, a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire whose research has focused on the East Asian resettlement program and Hmong Americans’ views of race and ethnic relations in America.

“A hundred years ago, there were industrialized jobs that were unionized and paid pretty well,” he said.  “Now, the U.S. economy is sharply divided between jobs that pay well and jobs that don’t.

“If you come to the U.S. without those skills, there are not those middle-level jobs that there once were in industry.”

His research found that for Eau Claire, Hmong interviewees presented with an open-ended question about the best and worst things about living in the United States, the economy was the third most commonly listed “worst” factor, mentioned by 32 percent of respondents.  The top two were racism (55 percent) and cultural adjustment (36 percent).

On the “best” side, 89 percent listed educational opportunities available for children and 60 percent listed the standard of living.

There is almost no formal education for Hmong children in Laos, Hein said, because many live in isolated rural areas and the schools, which are controlled by the dominant Lao ethnic group, often discriminate against Hmong children.

Cultural factors also play a strong role in what kind of education and employment Hmong Americans will seek.  In Laos, he said, it is expected that a young woman will be married by age 18.  Even for Hmong women in the United States there is still extreme pressure to marry earlier, contrary to the general trend of Americans marrying later and later in life, he said.

Further, he said, considering these pressures, parents may be wary of letting their daughter go off to college unsupervised.  They are likely to prefer her to marry, establish a home and then think about going to college if circumstances allow it.

Hein noted that Hmong women are not overrepresented at college, contrary to the general trend.  This has not been true for other ethnic minorities such as African-Americans, he said.  The difference, he said, must be a cultural factor rather than an economic one.

While the number of refugees has technically decreased as immigrants have become U.S. citizens, a new wave of refugees has meant that the actual number of Hmong in Eau Claire has grown, said Linda Litka, program manager for the Eau Claire Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association.  The cut has had a severe impact on Eau Claire’s Hmong community.

“We’re not able to spend the time with the clients that we normally would have been able to, to put the effort in to the extent they did with each individual program,” she said.

Money from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement is disbursed to each state according to its number of refugees.  Wisconsin’s Bureau of Migrant, Refugee and Labor Services in turn distributes that money to 17 associations throughout the state based on their local refugee populations, she said.

Despite having newly gained citizenship, people continue to have many of the same needs as when they were counted as refugees.  Funding for 2004 was cut prior to the announcement that the last refugee camp in Thailand would be closed, Litka said.

The closing of the camp means a new wave of refugees has been arriving in the area since August.  Since the camp closed, 17 new refugee families have arrived in Eau Claire County and three new families have arrived in Chippewa County, she said.  The association is expecting 10 more families to arrive soon.

In 2003, Litka said, the employment and training program received about $33,000 from the Office of Refugee Resettlement through the Bureau of Migrant, Refugee and Labor Services.  In 2005, it received only $5,000.  The Eau Claire Area Hmong Mutual Assistance Association’s overall funding dropped from $136,000 in 2003 to $49,000 in 2004, she said.

“The money on the federal level is strictly for refugees, so there’s no chance that would be changed,” she said.  While the association receives some supplemental funding from sources such as United Way, the Department of Public Instruction and a private foundation for smoking cessation, she said, the backbone of its funding comes from the government.

Hardest hit was the youth program, called “Keeping Education Among Youth for Success.”  The program, funded at $63,000 for 2003, was cut completely for 2004, she said.

“The youth program that we had here, to continue it is crucial,” Litka said, adding that it addressed such problems as truancy and gangs.  The program worked cooperatively with other programs to benefit youth.

“I think that was a valuable resource to other youth service agencies that is no longer here,” she said.

Litka said she regrets that  the employment and training program was so drastically reduced because it helped people become more self-sustaining.  The association is not able to spend as much time individually with people to help them find employment, she said.

Despite this setback to the community, however, some Hmong Eau Claire residents manage to succeed.

Peter Hang is one.  Hang works full-time making customized countertops for Menards.  When he started four years ago at Menards, he said, he performed basic tasks such as cleaning and preparing countertops for shipping.  Two years after being hired, he said, he took a new position and began to learn the specialized skills necessary for the job.

“I didn’t know how to do it when I started,” he said. “But I worked for two years in countertops and I figured I wanted to do something better-skilled. … I decided I wanted to learn.”  He has had no schooling in working with countertops, he said; he learned all the necessary skills on the job.

“There’s a lot of things hard about doing special countertops,” he said, adding that the job requires knowing how to measure, file and sand very carefully.

“It’s not very easy to get to,” he said. “It can take time to learn how to do it.”

Hang said he enjoys his job even though the second-shift hours mean he gets home around midnight.

“I think it’s okay for me now,” he said. “It’s very good now.”

Hang moved to Eau Claire from Fresno, Calif. to be with his wife’s family about six years ago, he said.  California is another major area of population concentration for Hmong Americans.

Hein emphasized that on the average, Hmong Americans are economically better off in the Midwest than in California.  More than twice as many Hmong Americans in California live in poverty than those in the Midwest, according to 2000 Census Bureau data.

Most encouraging, Hein said, is the trend of increased home ownership. In Wisconsin, 47.12 percent of Hmong families owned their own homes in 2000; in Minnesota, the number was 53.94 percent, according to Census Bureau data.  In California, however, only 16.44 percent of Hmong families own their own homes.  What is significant, Hein said, is that high home ownership rates mean that many families are economically well-established enough to qualify for a mortgage.

Another seemingly optimistic sign is that fewer Hmong are on public assistance, he said.  Recent changes to the program have caused more people to join the workforce.  However, Hein said, it is not clear whether the increased employment rates will result in permanent jobs that allow people to survive economically.

Xiong said he is deeply concerned about what will happen to Eau Claire’s Hmong community in coming years.

“It’s very stressful,” he said. “I'm not sure what will go on in the future.”