The Veto of Asian American and Pacific Islanders in New York State
When Hassan Minhaj, had a show about the lack of AAPI engagement in the American discourse, he pulled at a thread that many first generation and immigrant children of Asian origin can identify with. When I lived in Queens (the world’s borough), I barely heard from politicians who wanted to address the issues that AAPI communities had been facing. I never heard a politician leave a message on my answering machine and until Adrienne Adams -who was running for City Council in 2017- did I see campaign volunteers at my front door, asking for my support. Even through successive presidential campaigns, I never heard Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton or anyone else running on my phone. I knew they wanted my vote, but they weren’t convincing me for it.
The problem isn’t relegated to just Clinton and Sanders but to a wider political discourse that doesn’t take the AAPI community into too much of a serious consideration, even as the Asian American electorate is increasing and growing in size and influence. In addressing the care of our seniors, Hasan Minhaj also addressed the issues faced by an ageing America and how that would buckle young people into dipping into their savings to look after mom and dad and the lack of future planning by the government in addressing the needs of seniors in particular. Bernie Sanders has since improved his outreach to the AAPI community and Senator Elizabeth Warren has an active plan to combat hate crimes that impact the Asian American and Middle Eastern communities in the U.S. (which is a seperate post).
Governor Andrew Cuomo Vetos on Collection of Data by Ethnicity Triggers Backlash from Community Advocates
On December 13th, it was reported that a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Yuline Niou was vetoed by the Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, which would have helped us understand the needs of Asian and Pacific Islander groups in addition to Native Hawaiian ethnicities. Groups like Vietnamese and Indian could’ve stood to benefit from this personalized approach to understanding the very specific needs of the communities that are composed of New York State. In an article written by Journalist Kimmy Yang in discussing the veto writes:
While the “model minority myth” suggests that the community is financially well off, research shows that those from the Cambodian and Laotian communities, among others, are more economically vulnerable compared to those from the Chinese or Indian communities, a 2018 report on Asian American wealth disparity points out. Disaggregated data on Asian American and Pacific Islander median household income shows while Bangladeshi Americans make a median of $46,950, Indian Americans make $95,000.
She goes on to further note that:
The bill would have not only prevented exclusion, but more precise data would also uncover hidden challenges the AAPI communities face and aid legislators in figuring out how and where to allocate resources, Niou said. Existing services including poverty relief, health outcome improvement programs, and language access within the programs could be made more effective.
Cuomo’s rationale in vetoing this legislation is:
Cuomo also wrote that he was concerned the bill’s requirement to collect data on “an individual’s place of birth and national origin will have unintended consequences” given the “overly aggressive” approach the Trump administration has taken to immigration enforcement. In Trump’s first fiscal year in office, deportations in New York City increased by 150 percent, from the final full fiscal year of the Obama administration, according to a report from Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office. The removal of those with no criminal records rose by more than 265 percent in the same period.
But the unintended consequences of inaccurate data to meet the needs of AAPI and immigrant communities pose a greater threat, Carlyn Cowen, CPC’s chief policy and public affairs officer said.
“If the state is concerned about ICE aggressions, then increasing funding for the Liberty Defense Program and other immigrant services, rather than cutting these services, and ensuring that ICE stays out of our courts, schools and public buildings, would be more effective measures than blocking the collection of key community data,” she said.
New York is currently home to 300,000 South Asians who reside in the borough of Queens, according to the NYU Center for the Study of Asian American Health. India Home is one such non-profit organization that could benefit from knowing more about the needs of South Asian seniors, of which very little data exists to understand how the state of new york can better support them. In a report they released earlier this month, they found many factors that limited the potential of seniors to live their golden years in comfort and that there was a disconnect between services offered by the state of New York and how our elders in particular couldn’t access them.
The Response from Community Groups about this veto:
Kimmy Yang reports the pushback from the community advocates who say this bill would help their communities and urge the New York State legislature to pass this bill.
However, advocates point out that cost analyses on data disaggregation have been run in other states and localities and that there are “precedents for this legislation that NY State can pull from and doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel or start at the drawing board,” Anita Gundanna, co-executive director of the nonprofit Coalition for Asian American Children + Families, which leads the campaign on the legislation, told NBC News. Furthermore, the governor’s solution doesn’t include a concrete plan or timeline to collect more accurate data on the Asian American communities.
“There appears to be no accountability measures here,” Gundanna said.
Wayne Ho, president of the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), noted that in some cases, the state has rendered the entire group of Asian Americans completely invisible. A portion of census funding is allocated based on a formula that builds on the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s At-Risk Community Index. The index takes into account 10 categories of people who have been undercounted in the past or are likely to be undercounted. Black and Hispanic communities are among the groups. Asian Americans, who are the racial group least likely to fill out the census form, are not included at all.
There have been several versions of this bill that have been proposed over the years:
2011–2012: A9792
2013–2014: A1186
2015–2016: A2430
2017–2018: A7352
India Home
At a report release event at India Home in Jamaica, Queens, on December 6th, 2019, there were several issues that were highlighted to discuss the disparities between South Asian elders and the services that they needed to live their golden years with the support they needed. The report was conducted in the 5 boroughs of New York City, reached out to respondents at shopping centers, houses of worship, and street fairs. The total number of participants from which data was taken was 681 people. Priyanka Verma, a student from Hunter College — City University of New York and Professor Harlem Gunness of St. John’s University wrote this report. The focus group of this study were Bangladeshi American Community Development & Youth Services (BACDYS), Chaya CDC, Hindu Center of Flushing, Shri Trimurti Bhavan, and Council of Peoples Organization (COPO).
Some of the findings of the report were that:
1. There was a lack of access for South Asian elders to healthcare and medication. With this in mind, seniors that are otherwise eligible for Medicaid and other government services are not signing up to use their benefits.
2. When respondents were asked about mental health care and the conditions they felt they needed more assistance in managing, there was a limited response to this question. In conducting this study in particular the researchers found that there was a still a mental health stigma that was impacting the ability to accurately asses the needs of the community and the mental health care that needed to be provided.
3. India Home was working closely with professors and students from nearby St. Johns University to understand this issue around adequate senior care. Professor Gunness was the lead on this.
4. After 2000, there was a wave of migration from South Asia in which individuals who were limited in their english proficiency made up a healthy component of those who settled in the United States.
5. There are about 3% of undocumented seniors who fear that their status can lock them out of jobs, opportunities to socialize with other seniors and put them in a vulnerable spot that would otherwise jeopardize their abilities to remain in the United States.
6. Gender disparity in use of trains and automobile usage because women relied on their husbands to get around. They were the most concerned about how they would get around without the help of their spouses once they passed on. If they want to come to India Home to spend time with other seniors it would be more of a struggle since India Home can’t fiscally afford a chartered bus to pick up and drop off seniors. A proposed solution was a potential partnership with ride-sharing services.
7. A staggering 65% of South Asians in the 5 boroughs were renting their accommodation instead of being property owners.There were a large share of inter-generational homes.
8. Some of the common struggles faced by elders is the high rate of hypertension and other chronic health issues and food insecurity/access to transportation to and from grocery shops and being able to afford nutritious food.
9. Elders are facing isolation when they live in intergenerational homes. They tend to live with their adult children and look after grandchildren. This can leave elders vulnerable to mental health issues, dependence on adult children to transport them around to take care of them physically (helping them climb stairs, bathing them, making sure they have human contact, etc).
10. They also depend heavily on translation. This can be an issue if languages such as Punjabi aren’t translated by the local government municipalities and can serve to exclude communities from critical information.
11. Due to differences in cultural contexts and diet, the many variances in the South Asian population can lead them to feel foreign and uncomfortable to fitting in with mainstream American culture.
The findings of this report make it clear that there is much more work to be done. The founder of India Home Dr.Vasundhara Kalasapudi (or Dr. K as she is commonly known), envisioned a center where seniors could bond over art classes, yoga and workshops catered towards building community with each other and making sure that seniors didn’t spend their time living in isolation. It was interesting to attend this report release on December 6th, 2019 and then read about the Governor’s veto of this crucial legislation that could help South Asian non-profits understand where they need to invest more resources and time. Hopefully in the upcoming legislative session we will have more action from lawmakers on this issue. But it highlights the divide of politicians who claim to celebrate ‘New York’s diversity’ and when it comes time to enact legislation that would help communities of color, they completely falter.
