(Boston) Globe Staff
May 2, 2006
LOWELL -- Traffic was gridlocked at lunchtime yesterday in the parking lot at Pai Lin Plaza, a bustling, red-roofed shopping center in the heart of this city's Cambodian neighborhood, just as it is on any other weekday.
There was no sign here, as customers streamed in and out of small businesses, of the mass walkout being staged by immigrants elsewhere around the state and country. As thousands of immigrants stayed home to make a point about their vital role in American life, some immigrant communities, especially in Asian strongholds in and around Boston, did not participate in the national Day Without Immigrants.
In Lowell, the day was like any other for many Cambodian transplants; in Dorchester, the protest caused barely a ripple in Vietnamese neighborhoods. Few immigrants in Boston's Chinatown even knew the event was happening, one activist said.
In those places, students filed into classrooms, and workers punched the clock as always, some unaware of the walkout, others citing financial pressure or disagreement with the form of the protest.
"I am going to work today, not staying home, because I think coming to school is important, and work is important for me," said Sophany Em, 53, a recent legal immigrant from Cambodia who went to her job at a home healthcare agency and attended her English language class as usual.
The English class, at St. Julie Asian Center in Lowell, was one of a half dozen in session at the converted firehouse yesterday morning.
The center's director, Sister Janet Deaett, said that she asked the students, most of whom are Cambodian, if they wanted her to cancel school, and that they told her it was "a bad idea."
In the Asian center's computer lab yesterday, another Cambodian immigrant, Khansan Ny, said he couldn't afford to take the day off from his job in a high-tech machine shop.
"It's very hard," said Ny, 47 . "When I'm out from work one day, it's like one year, because of the living costs here."
Some immigrant outreach workers attributed the low levels of participation to scant coverage of the immigration debate in the Asian press, while others said the relatively recent arrival of many immigrants from southeast Asia means they haven't had time to establish an organized structure for activism.
The idea of a boycott also might be unfamiliar to some newer Asian immigrants, said Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "How some of these tactics might influence the public policy process is not as well understood," he said.
For some immigrants, the thought of protesting is scary, said Sister Jennifer Pierce, who teaches citizenship classes at the center.
"A lot of them come from places where standing up to authority is dangerous, with very serious consequences," she said of her students, who include Egyptians, Mexicans, and Salvadorans, along with Cambodians.
Underscoring the distance that southeastern Asians feel from the new surge of immigrant activism, most came here legally, as refugees after the Vietnam War. That experience has left them with mixed feelings about illegal immigrants.
Hiep Chu said he would have a hard time convincing Vietnamese immigrants in Dorchester to risk jobs and forgo business to stand in solidarity with undocumented immigrants.
"Some of us waited in refugee camps, some of us had to wait 10 or 15 years," said Chu, executive director of the VietAID agency. "Yes, we are immigrants too, and some of us will go down to support the rally, but not to the degree that we have to shut everything down."
Vong Ros, director of the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association in Lowell described the Cambodian community as "an arm's-length supporter" of current immigrant concerns.
Bunrith Lach, who built the thriving Pai Lin Plaza on a vacant lot in Lowell after immigrating from Cambodia 25 years ago, had a quintessentially American reason for keeping the shopping complex open yesterday.
"I'd rather keep business and politics separate," he said, smiling broadly.
Yvonne Abraham of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
There was no sign here, as customers streamed in and out of small businesses, of the mass walkout being staged by immigrants elsewhere around the state and country. As thousands of immigrants stayed home to make a point about their vital role in American life, some immigrant communities, especially in Asian strongholds in and around Boston, did not participate in the national Day Without Immigrants.
In Lowell, the day was like any other for many Cambodian transplants; in Dorchester, the protest caused barely a ripple in Vietnamese neighborhoods. Few immigrants in Boston's Chinatown even knew the event was happening, one activist said.
In those places, students filed into classrooms, and workers punched the clock as always, some unaware of the walkout, others citing financial pressure or disagreement with the form of the protest.
"I am going to work today, not staying home, because I think coming to school is important, and work is important for me," said Sophany Em, 53, a recent legal immigrant from Cambodia who went to her job at a home healthcare agency and attended her English language class as usual.
The English class, at St. Julie Asian Center in Lowell, was one of a half dozen in session at the converted firehouse yesterday morning.
The center's director, Sister Janet Deaett, said that she asked the students, most of whom are Cambodian, if they wanted her to cancel school, and that they told her it was "a bad idea."
In the Asian center's computer lab yesterday, another Cambodian immigrant, Khansan Ny, said he couldn't afford to take the day off from his job in a high-tech machine shop.
"It's very hard," said Ny, 47 . "When I'm out from work one day, it's like one year, because of the living costs here."
Some immigrant outreach workers attributed the low levels of participation to scant coverage of the immigration debate in the Asian press, while others said the relatively recent arrival of many immigrants from southeast Asia means they haven't had time to establish an organized structure for activism.
The idea of a boycott also might be unfamiliar to some newer Asian immigrants, said Paul Watanabe, director of the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. "How some of these tactics might influence the public policy process is not as well understood," he said.
For some immigrants, the thought of protesting is scary, said Sister Jennifer Pierce, who teaches citizenship classes at the center.
"A lot of them come from places where standing up to authority is dangerous, with very serious consequences," she said of her students, who include Egyptians, Mexicans, and Salvadorans, along with Cambodians.
Underscoring the distance that southeastern Asians feel from the new surge of immigrant activism, most came here legally, as refugees after the Vietnam War. That experience has left them with mixed feelings about illegal immigrants.
Hiep Chu said he would have a hard time convincing Vietnamese immigrants in Dorchester to risk jobs and forgo business to stand in solidarity with undocumented immigrants.
"Some of us waited in refugee camps, some of us had to wait 10 or 15 years," said Chu, executive director of the VietAID agency. "Yes, we are immigrants too, and some of us will go down to support the rally, but not to the degree that we have to shut everything down."
Vong Ros, director of the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association in Lowell described the Cambodian community as "an arm's-length supporter" of current immigrant concerns.
Bunrith Lach, who built the thriving Pai Lin Plaza on a vacant lot in Lowell after immigrating from Cambodia 25 years ago, had a quintessentially American reason for keeping the shopping complex open yesterday.
"I'd rather keep business and politics separate," he said, smiling broadly.
Yvonne Abraham of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
1 comment:
Keeping business and Politics separate?? I think it's more of a "I don't care as it doesn't affect me" approach.
Post a Comment