The challenge

As Southeast Asian refugees settled successfully in the United States after the Vietnam War, some integrated into the mainstream. Others have remained marginalized. In particular, Hmong suffer high rates of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and health problems, with a 40 50 percent poverty rate. Young people, especially, feel trapped by economic barriers, racism and conflicting expectations from mainstream culture and their more traditional elders. KaYing Yang, Executive Director of SEARAC, considers community building and bridge-building preconditions for progress in economic and social justice. Yet, cultural conditions pose “a conflict between mainstream American and traditional Hmong conceptions of leadership,” she says. The communities also face difficult barriers to civic and political participation. As refugees, Southeast Asians are “expected to be grateful for the generosity of the American government,” Yang adds. For these reasons, traditional methods of expressing one’s opinion — and less conventional approaches such as rallies and public protests — are unlikely.


Seeds of commitment

Yang credits several mentors for helping her think in new ways, inspiring her, guiding her, supporting her and at times redirecting her. “Through the examples they set, visionary women of color in the women’s movement, race relations, and civil rights continue to spark my motivation to new levels of activism,” she says. “Such leaders have created environments that are welcoming for refugees and immigrants, and I do my best to enrich those environments in my own ways.” She also credits her parents, “whose unwavering confidence in my naive optimism has allowed me to choose my unconventional path.” Their personal sacrifices, as refugees, are the core influences on her commitment and vision. “They gave up much of the joy they could have experienced in life so that I could live more happily and productively. For the
sake of my parents and others who have had faith in me, I want to live a life that brings positive changes to the world.”


Accomplishments

SEARAC brings the voices of Southeast Asian Americans to national level policy debates on a number of critical issues, providing research, policy analysis and leadership development, fostering a new wave of Southeast Asian community leaders in the United States. SEARAC was formed in 1979 after a group of non Southeast Asian Americans heard about the plight of Cambodian refugees. The organization sought to help refugees resettle into American society. In the late 1990’s, with a decreasing number of refugees coming into the country from Southeast Asia, SEARAC was fading. But KaYing Yang, SEARAC’s, new Executive Director, believed that her community’s needs went far beyond basic resettlement. She implemented SEARAC’s mission after the board of directors shifted SEARAC’s focus from one centered on refugees and international events, to one centered on developing community empowerment in the United States through advocacy and organizing. To further this goal, she created the Southeast Asian American Advocacy Initiative together more than twenty Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese American community based organizations known as “mutual assistance associations” to bridge local and national advocacy efforts.
By publishing the first Southeast Asian American Mutual Assistance Association Directory, SEARAC brought new visibility to 137 community based organizations or mutual assistance associations. The directory educates readers about Southeast Asian American community development achievements and challenges, as well as the character and history of the communities. It is an invaluable source of information for funders, policy makers, and community members interested in reaching out to and understanding Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese American organizations and populations. SEARAC also launched the Successful New Americans Project (SNAP), which provides technical assistance and training to mutual assistance associations focused on a variety of refugee communities, including Haitian, Iraqi and pan African in addition to Southeast Asian. The group also organized a summit focusing on the higher education needs of Southeast Asian and Pacific Islanders in partnership with Robert Underwood, Guam’s delegate to congress.

Through such connections, Yang’s leadership helped prevent INS deportation of resettled refugees with criminal records to war-torn countries. Additionally, she worked in collaboration with other national organizations to implement the Hmong Naturalization Law of 2000, which helps Hmong and Laotian veterans of the U.S. Special Forces, as well as their spouses and widows, access benefits. SEARAC’s input helped shape several federal guidelines including the Department of Justice’s Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency guidelines, including recognition of Hmong as an oral community, and the ability of mutual assistance associations to serve as contractors, providing linguistically appropriate services. To amplify the voice of Southeast Asian immigrants nationally, she joined several prestigious boards and task forces that focus on such diverse issues as refugee relief, elementary and higher education, immigrant rights and the leadership of Asian American women.

Yang has repeatedly testified before federal agencies in coordination with the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. SEARAC’s work bridges boundaries in a way that would not have been possible in Southeast Asia, moving people from isolation and exclusion to connection and inclusion. At the most basic level, it brings together people from all three countries that supplied refugees to the United States after the Vietnam War: Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Historically, churches and synagogues have done most of the work of resettlement. Under Yang’s leadership, refugees continue to appreciate the work of faith-based organizations, but make their own voices heard through the mutual assistance organizations.


Leadership style

“The diversity of SEARAC’s constituency opens up opportunities for developing new kinds of leadership, opportunities that have helped me to grow as a leader,” she explains. Increasingly, SEARAC works with groups beyond the Southeast Asian American community, regardless of ethnicity. “I believe that power comes from shared leadership,” she says. “I know from personal experience that the only way to be effective is to work with talented people who have complementary skills and ideas. I also know that I need to reach out to people outside of the circle of non-profit sector leaders: to other communities, refugees’ neighbors, and people who are influential in business and government. I like to connect people with each other.” She also believes in including younger people and women in her work and discussions,
because those groups are “often excluded from circles of influence in Southeast Asian American and other communities.”

At times, effective leadership in the Southeast-Asian community requires staying behind the scenes, she says. “There are instances when, as a woman and younger person, I am not the ideal representative of my organization. In these cases, I employ the strategy of sending a messenger. As long as we reach the end goal, the promotion of my own reputation as a leader can be put aside.” She frequently speaks at conferences and colleges, and has initiated an annual leadership and advocacy training for Southeast Asian Americans. So far, more than 135 community leaders from throughout the nation have participated. Many have become leaders in SEARAC’s national network.


The future

Among SEARAC’s upcoming projects: a major SNAP report on the first 25 years of Southeast Asian settlement in the United States. This publication will describe successes and remaining challenges, provide descriptions of promising practice models for replication and list resource organizations. In coming months, a partnership between SEARAC and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus will produce a publication on the higher educational status of Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

SEARAC is also taking a lead role in coordinating a new coalition of national, nonprofit organizations that serve resettled refugees in the United States. KaYing Yang hopes that the community leaders who have completed the Advocacy Initiative’s leadership training course will continue to nurture the organization as staff members, contributors, board members, “and the eyes and ears” on the local level for decades to come. “Eventually I would like to help our communities by serving in government, as an elected or appointed official.” In the meantime, she is conscious that her cause is larger than her individual leadership. “When I feel discouraged, I take refuge in my family and I travel to places where people still value the basics of food and a roof overhead. When I see with my own eyes what I am fighting for, I renew my strength.”


More about KaYing Yang

“KaYing has the uncanny knack for bridging traditional ways of looking at leadership and utilizing these skills in a non traditional way... For Hmong women, roles have been limited, but she has utilized her experiences in a way that is providing an interesting leadership style. She is effective without being self absorbed, brash or [bringing] attention to self. She has a strong collaborative style. She is committed, passionate and she knows when to pull back.”
— Robert Underwood, U.S. Delegate to Congress (Guam)