David Chan

David Chan

transcription

interview

David Chan

Teri Chan

2004-07-12

English

CPC

Q: July 13, 2004, I’m interviewing David Chen at CPC, Chinese-American Planning Council, at 150 Elizabeth Street, New York, New York, Chinatown. Mr. Chen, can you tell me, what do you do, and who do you work for?

Chen: I’m the executive director of the Chinese-American Planning Council, a human service organization in Chinatown.

Q: Which organization?

Chen: Chinese-American Planning Council.

Q: Can you give me a description of history about CPC?

Chen: Well, CPC is a forty-year-old, community-based organization started back in 1965, trying to help immigrants, and focus on service to immigrant families. Over the years, we do everything from language class and entitlement services, translations, to day care center, job training for adults, senior citizen center, meals on wheels, home care programs, low-income housing, child welfare---you name it, we do it.

Q: Why was it founded?

Chen: It was started really back in 1965, if folks remember that we had those Great Society days, this was a response to the Great Society effort by Lyndon Johnson, that we see the importance of providing service from the grassroots up, who understand the issue, know the people, and be most effective to deliver service in the very culturally competent and relevant ways, and that’s how the grassroot movement started, really back in the ‘60’s.

Q: When it was started in the ‘60s, how many clients did it serve?

Chen: Well, the community was much smaller. I wasn’t around at that time. Chinese in New York was only barely eighty thousand, so in that sense Chinatown was much smaller. The kind of service, as I understand it, was mainly people coming for language, older people needing basic services and translation. So in that sense, once you have a storefront opened up, young people start to congregate, and then become a one-stop. People come to you for information, so they know where to move next.

And over time, with funding increases, as the movement continues, there are more opportunities for money, for funding. That’s how we sort of evolved. At the beginning, it was a small number of people who dropped in every day, just need us for basic information and referrals.

Q: You mentioned funding, how was it funded before?

Chen: Well, I understand that the first funding was through a sit-down protest through a community development agency, a block grant that lower Manhattan-Chinatown-being in the low-income area in those days. It’s important that certain resources, government resources be distributed. Hence, in those days, Chinese were not into demanding for service. So it takes the pioneer of CPC at that time to realize that we pay taxes, we are entitled to certain service. So we certainly play an advocacy role in educating the community today. We’re no longer Chinese from Taiwan or Hong Kong, overseas, or foreigner. We exercise our rights. We have our needs. We go get it. So I think through organizing protests, we got our first grant.

And then, along the way, the anchoring grant that really helped CPC was the CETA, Comprehensive Employment Training Act, that provided basic job training grant. For us, it was tremendously important, because it provided the first rent check for organization. You have people coming in. CETA in those days allowed people with stipends, because you encouraged people who otherwise were working very low-paying jobs, to retrain them into potential things so they can move themselves and lift themselves up. So they provided a stipend. Minimum stipend, lunch money, carfare, so they can have an alternative. Otherwise, with immigrants, if you don’t provide a little bit of incentive, why would they want to drop that low-paying job to come for you, who have nothing? So CETA, in the early days, was really very compatible to the needs of the community at that time. To try to encourage people who otherwise would not come out to seek opportunities. And CPC was a vehicle to help that happen.

Q: Can you tell me what is CPC’s budget, and where does the current funding come from?

Chen: Well, CPC’s budget is huge now. We started with only eighty-ninety dollars once upon a time, forty years ago. But we grew, over time, policy changed, the government’s involvement in providing social service changed, so hence, we seized those opportunities, and we evolved into a very huge organization, subsidiary and other groups. We are funded by all three levels of government. Most of the contracts that we receive money are from city level, but the city is (funded) by the federal government anyway. So of the money that appears to be from city but most likely a combination of resources.

Q: And what other combinations? Can you give us a breakdown?

Chen: Well, I would say if you really talk about total funding-wise, over ninety percent of our money is government funded. Of that, direct city could well be in the seventy-percent, state twenty-percent, but really it depends on which particular funding or activities. Really it depends on which source of funding: if directly funded by the federal, or indirectly funded by the city but from the federal.

Q: Can you give me one program that is funded by an agency, and what does it do?

Chen: Okay. Childcare, say for example. Childcare money is mainly through the city, with the state subsidies, eventually the money may come from the government, but yet it---

(interruption in tape

Q: A CPC program that’s funded by a city agency?

Chen: I would say the biggest contract from the city angle are the youth and childcare program, which is basically the tax-levy money as well as federal money or city money through block grants. But childcare and youth are the most local funding, so I would say policy-wise, very much effected by the local needs and resources.

Q: And who, which, city agencies?

Chen: City agency would be Agency for Children’s Services, the Division of Youth and Community Development.

Q: And how much is the budget, and how many clients CPC in the childcare area?

Chen: In the childcare area, we have after school and preschool, depends on age group. The total budget is probably in the ballpark of six and half million dollars. Youth program is a disparate source, most under-funded and most disconnected in terms of, I would say, fragmented in terms of sources. But I think that total agency probably has slightly under a million dollars in youth programs.

Q: And what is the estimated number of clients that you served with this budget?

Chen: Well, that you’ve got a catchy number. Is it duplicated count, or unduplicated count? That’s also with the youth problem because there are youth programs that we count as on-going case management type that you deal with individual and on-going youth development issues. There are also issues that you would deal with-“play ball”- come in for tutoring, they walk in, you count one. They walk in twice, you count two. So in that sense, the irony always is, we would like to see it as unduplicated count. How many total persons do you help over time? Rather than every time they walk in, go up, play chess, play basketball, you count twice? Right? That is the old-fashioned way of saying how active we are. But we really want to impact, and CPC wants to move in the direction where we’re impacting in serving the total person in numerous ways. We’d rather count one, rather than so count many times but yet you add up the number, it doesn’t really point to the whole total person.

Q: Let me ask this question: many people confuse CPC as a government agency. Can you tell us the difference between the entity of CPC and how it’s different from a private organization or an agency?

Chen: We are a private organization doing public service. We receive our funding, like I mentioned before, ninety-percent plus are from government sources. But we went through a bidding process. The RFP, or Request for Proposal, process. Through a competitive process, through the qualifications, that’s one of the requirements on the contract. We bid and won the contract competitively, which is public funds. But we, as a private organization, filed 501(c) 3.

(interruption in tape)

Chen: CPC is a private, not-for-profit, 501(c)3, tax-exempt organization. We are pretty much a private organization doing public service. And our funds, like ninety percent of our funds came from the government, through a request for proposal RFP process, which is a competitive process meeting the needs of the department that issued the funds, and demonstrating our ability to perform what we promised to do, in terms of our plan and method and proposals. Basically we receive funding that way. But our board, of course, is a non-profit, volunteer board, which are citizens who basically have a public interest in seeing that resources are put to good use. And basically we are an organization trying to maximize whatever funds can do in the best way on the community level.

Q: Where do CPC clients come from?

Chen: Our clients, actually, come from the people who need us. And they need us based on what our mission and purpose are. Our mission, basically, points to the fact that we want to help recent immigrant, Chinese families in particular, to gain access to services, access to the mainstream, to emphasize economic self-sufficiency, so they can participate in the mainstream America. And that’s the main effort that we want to focus on. Of course, we do it through job training, helping people find childcare, helping housing, helping immigrants to know where to go for services and get answers, referrals, including other needs as they may arise.

Q: Why would they come to CPC and not elsewhere?

Chen: Well, once upon a time we were the only one and the first one, so they all come to us, and over the years, we develop a trust, we develop reputation, in the ten blocks of Chinatown. We are the household word when they need service. But of course, in the meantime, Chinatown has changed. There are so many more organizations. So much expert service has developed over time. The increasing irony is through the conduit that people come to us, we try to refer them to the best service they can receive.

Q: Would you say there is sufficient service in Chinatown right now?

Chen: No, far from it. We can say that it’s a good organized effort in trying to get the service as close to people as possible, as a one stop that we see ourselves have. But we know that nobody can do it all. The challenges of new population, diversity of issues, and where they came from, backgrounds are so different, we can only do so much. Increasingly, it’s knowing their needs and referring them out. Do as much as we can, where we can do the best, but refer them to the best available resources that are out there. So we become a bridge for people to reach the Chinatown market, and for the community itself who obviously don’t have enough access to know enough about the outside, to reach what are the good opportunities out there.

Q: What is missing right now?

Chen: What’s missing is a lot of information deficit. New People come in, they just don’t know. They came back with baggage. They came from the old way, they do things from the old country. Not realizing the norm, the rules change. And America is a free country, but unless you know the way to get around, it ain’t yours! So that’s the part we see that immigrant lack. They have an American dream, they come here, but if you don’t tell them how to do it, and help them along the way, it can easily turn into an American nightmare to many people.

But it’s not something they should easily give up, but they need to seek help and get the right source of help to overcome those obstacles.

Q: Give me a concrete example of how CPC is helping these people?

Chen: Well, I think one easy way to do it is job re-training for many qualified young immigrants. Due to immigration purpose, other than family re-unification, increasingly we look for people who have skills to come to the U.S. But a lot of time, young people of child-rearing age, when they come to America, first they don’t speak the language, they don’t know---they have no friends. Immigrants all went through the uprooting experience that they don’t know where to go. And then the next thing is that if they want to work, somebody’s got to take care of the kids first. If you don’t have childcare, you can’t work. And childcare is expensive. They can’t afford to put kids into childcare. So chicken and the egg---which one comes first? So unless you take care of the family, you cannot adjust individual endeavors. But they came here for the sole reason of building a better life for the family. They willing to go for sacrifices, but they don’t know where to start. So that’s where, sometimes, we come in at entry-level to help them retraining. What they’re good at may not be what they can find jobs at. But they don’t have avenues to retrain the potential; they may end up washing dishes, working in the restaurant. This is what the traditional insulated Chinatown has been. They’re stuck with whatever people perceive Chinatown to be.

Everybody can wash dishes. Everybody can cook. Any Chinese who know how to eat can cook. That’s why they’re so many restaurants. But when you come down to it, they have better potential than the lowest common denominator. So what we focus on best is trying to find an area that can help them get into the mainstream job arena, entry level. We really cannot do extensive training because we don’t have the funds for it, but we help them to get to entry level positions. And we hope the work ethics, the attitude that they have, the ability to work, the basic skills they have, will climb up the ladder and move out.

And we also know too, once they move up in the ladder in the mainstream world, they will look back and they help the next wave of people to reach where they have reached. Then we will have truly infiltrated the mainstream, and bring more people into the door, and provide access as well as helping people diversify, so you don’t have to jam all in Chinatown for a limited number of jobs, but indeed the world is out there for them to conquer. We’re only giving them help.

Q: Speaking about employment training, CPC was involved with the 9/11 training. Can you give us some background information on that, and how CPC got involved with the 9/11 training, and what is the status now?

Chen: The issue arrived at 9/11 is really in some ways like déjà vu. We know it all along. Before 9/11 there is Chinatown. After 9/11 there is still Chinatown. So in a sense, we’ve been doing it before 9/11. We know the issues. The issues come back and still (in) Chinatown are jobs, language, access, public policy in the sense that are the public government people who make policy aware or listening to our issues? Maybe electoral process, we don’t have enough votes so somehow never get registered at all. That all changed temporarily with 9/11. Because 9/11, the whole world was watching. Even with the whole world watching, Chinatown in the early days doesn’t get noticed at all. They were still looking at downtown, World Trade Center, immediate area. For the longest time, through the noise that we raised, we are the neighborhood! The only neighborhood that is immediately adjacent to the World Trade Center. There is no neighborhood, just Chinatown effected- the businesses. But yet, unfortunately because of a lack of city planning, Chinatown was cut off at Canal Street, south of Canal Street. Across the street, north of Canal Street, they don’t qualify, but yet they are across the street. It’s a neighborhood. How can a neighborhood be cut up just because of boundaries? Arbitrary boundary? Anyone who lives in the neighborhood knows that Chinatown boundary is way surpassed north Canal Street for the last twenty years. Once was, but no longer. It could well reaching Houston, well past Delancy. We know that.

So in that sense there are a lot of issues at that time that were based on old preconceptions about Chinatown, and it takes a lot of noise, a lot of activities, and a lot of awareness. I think people want to do good. People know that Chinatown has been shortchanged. Try to catch up a little bit. And somehow there were improvements, but still basically not sufficient to deal with the issues that we tackle. And some of our new issues arrive by 9/11. The old issue that has always been there, it’s just opening up because people finally start looking at Chinatown, because of 9/11.

Q: So how did the 9/11 training come about?

Chen: I think the Chinatown issue, as you come down to the community, is jobs, jobs, jobs. Economy. So Chinatown is the engine of growth because we had traditionally been the garment industry and the restaurant industry. Restaurant industry is two part: one is Chinese in Chinatown eating at it. The workers who work in Chinatown need to eat in restaurants; the other part is tourism. If tourists come in, we have more business. If tourism doesn’t come in, half the business is gone. But did Chinatown close? No. Chinatown has the infrastructure, which is the workers, the people who live there. They still like to eat. They still use restaurants. They still buy Chinese groceries. But if half of the industry is gone because the garment industry is gone, then workers, several thousand people, don’t eat lunch every day in Chinatown because they’re not coming to Chinatown, then restaurants suffer. So Chinatown is very intricately related, interdependent in many industries.

So the garment industry, I don’t remember an exact number, but hundreds of garment industry in Chinatown, ninety percent shut down in the immediate two weeks afterwards. It takes three months for some of them to re-open. Some of them were gone, period. This is continuing, exacerbated, of a trend already we’re developing because jobs are going overseas. But the surprise came when 9/11 really knocked the wind out of Chinatown’s economic base. So that ripple effect happened: tourism, jewelry (industry) at that time too. Jewelry is basically cheaper and better, so a lot of tourists like to come and shop. When no more tourists are coming, immediately the repercussions happened.

Another area of repercussions is to immigrant families. Immigrant families are basically living on a cash-based economy. Immediately when the jobs and income suffer, the cash-base ripples into mortgages, home payment and others. And all these things become quite interrelated that somehow you’ve got to start somewhere. So we know job is the one. That’s why we focus on job training as a key issue. You give them jobs, they get active, and there is hope. But if you take away jobs, all kind of social problems happen too. So we know, that’s why we focus on that. We can’t do everything, but we know we can base on our strength and job training and try to focus on that area.

Q: Was the job training successful from a client’s perspective?

Chen: From a client’s perspective, yes. Even though 9/11 from the response to job training had been city-wide. That’s not only Chinatown being suffering, there are other people that are effected in 9/11. So when the funding became available, it was really city-wide. But the mechanism is really that you have to go outside of Chinatown and dedicate back to Chinatown to do a number of services. Which is not too efficient. But that’s the price that community-based organizations have to pay. But we have been effective in our experience in talking to students and the employers afterward. Basically, we know a lot of displaced garment workers identify with Chinatown. So when they seek services, they of course have language deficiency, they have a certain profile. The reason why they are stuck in garment shops is because of language, they have other reasons they didn’t go elsewhere. So when they seek services, they’re not going to city-wide to get service, they still come back to Chinatown.

And for job training-wise, we found out that there were people who signed up for job training Uptown. Since they don’t have the peer support, the team support, soon enough they drop out, they ended up coming to us. I don’t know, maybe there was easier lunch here, but some sort of thing that gives you the support. So when you are vulnerable, when you feel you’re weak, tendency is to look for support. So I think CPC or the community is able to provide that kind of feeling of support. They feel comfortable, and they last longer. Otherwise, when you trying to get job training, they’re too many competition in life for them to be distracted on. So, by giving that support, they stay through the training program, and they get to the end.

Q: Is that true of the other 9/11 youth program? Is that why the CPC program in Chinatown was so much more successful? Chinese people from elsewhere come to Chinatown for the relief program and not elsewhere? Is it because of the language barrier, or they find----

Chen: Absolutely, absolutely. First relieve them, when you give them resource of helping people, everybody will come. But then you find out other obstacle. It’s not so easy. “This is easier, this is harder, this is so difficult, I have to go back three more times, explain, talk until my tongue, my mouth gets dry, and still don’t get understood.” So soon enough, when the immediate urgency got relief a little bit, people start to look for the best comfort zone. So people go for service wherever it is at that time, but once the immediate move over, then they start to realize “where can I get the best service?” So hence, Chinatown start inundated with those services, which is on the, I won’t say residual, it’s a secondary wave. The first wave goes to all kind of resource, because they’re urgent, emergency. Once that space is over, they immediately come to where they can get the best service. Then Chinatown, like CPC, really got hit by the largest wave, this second wave, because they know they can get better service.

Q: What’s your personal evaluation of 9/11 relief program in Chinatown? From your personal perspective?

Chen: I think a lot of good intentions, a lot of lessons to be learned, alot of frustration. A lot of frustration really points to the fact that there’s never enough of an infrastructure in Chinatown to handle those emergencies. And there’s never enough trust by the mainstream organizations to realize there are capable people in the organizing community to do the work. Even though, in the end, they rely on us because they have no access to the people and people don’t access them. They still come through us. So why the inefficiency going through conduits, coming back and forth? Why not do one-stop? That’s the part that we argue, that community-based organizations is the best emergency treatment, from one-stop community based. One-stop from functional area---you can be in the Bronx, specializing in one area, but it’s not convenient in the eyes of the people receiving the service. So we’re strong advocate of one-stop service in the neighborhood, for the convenience of the recipient, not necessarily for the convenience of the funding or bureaucracy. So that is important to learn in preventing future disaster. It’s important to address the capacity level for the community-based organization, to address service hands-on, up-front, in the front line.

Q: Has Chinatown recovered from 9/11 yet?

Chen: Well, it recovered in many ways. There are pockets, and pockets. Some recovered really fast. I myself, actually a month after 9/11, I was walking around Canal Street when the economy was not so good. I found that I was dumbfounded. I said that everybody is so busy. So many people in Chinatown, how come they said that Chinatown’s economy is not working? I found out that the people were mainly Chinese. They were shopping in Chinese grocery stores. They come here rain or shine. They still come here because they need it. But when you really look at the diversity, Chinatown on the average basis, Chinatown is more busy on weekends than on a weekday, right? Where did they come from? The traffic would prevent those people from coming. So even though you see enough people because Chinatown is a high-density population area, you always see people, you always see activity, but are they really engaging the right kind of economic activity that Chinatown requires to sustain it? Then we find out there’s a big difference. The suffering for Chinatown now is still due to the transportation issue, less than air quality or economy. Economy has re-bounded: tourism has started coming back, people are spending money. But there are certain industries, certain trades are terrible when Chinatown can’t park. It’s exacerbated by, say, Park Row closed off. Convenient-inconvenient, where did the tourists go? They can’t park the buses anymore, they got to park elsewhere. They don’t come because of inconvenience. There are industries that are effected by it. Garment industry never rebounded because of the general trend is hurting anyway, but there are pockets that may be better than others. So it really is sector by sector.

Q: Is CPC trying to retrain people in new fields to replace a displaced garment worker or people working in restaurants?

Chen: Well, CPC looks at job training as really looking at a community development model. Job training means you’ve got to find jobs. If you have no jobs, why train them? It’s no success if you get people trained, and end up no job. So where are the jobs? We realize Chinatown’s limited profile garment workers: middle-aged, fifty-five, forty-five, fifty years old and up, don’t speak too much language, from a certain setting. With fifteen weeks, twenty weeks of training, you’re not going to transfer someone in a very short period of time. But if our goal is place them in gainful employment, then you’ve got to look at what’s fitting. We identified a growing trend in the home care industry, which could be very well fit into the profile for easier transition. Why? Because home care does not need fluent language. All you do is fluent in the patient’s home language. You’re sufficient to be a home attendant, home language.

We know that America is getting older. The fastest growing sub sector of a growing population, the Asian community itself, is that of the Asian population. And we know it’s also cheaper for people to convalesce at home than in a hospital. So from all angles, it’s much more cost-saving and suiting for a person to recover in a home-bound situation. So yes, they need cultural language proficiency to find a worker to fill those things. It’s not the glamour kind of position, it’s not exactly high-paid, but we also see them fitting to Chinatown, because there’s a union involved. Garment industry is UNITE, Local 23-25, provides health care benefits for the family. We realized that in New York City, home care industry is unionized by 1199. They have good benefits for the family also. Knowing that Chinatown garment workers usually have husbands working somewhere in restaurants and they have no benefits, the kids have no benefits, buying insurance is expensive these days. If we can channel them into that (industry), that will help the entire family overall. So by leveraging a job and being organized with union benefits, you leverage the entire family into it. If the entire family is leveraged into it, then they don’t have to get on Child Health Plus. There’s another source the government has to pay. So we’re trying to piece the information and the resources together, one stop. So people get longitudinal help, rather than pieces, fragmented.

Q: Let’s backtrack a little bit. For the 9/11 training, I’ve heard it was thirteen weeks, and there was a cash incentive. Do you think the clients came for the cash incentive or for the training?

Chen: Why not? They need money. As the unemployment benefits run out, where you going to get money? They are good workers. Why should you go on welfare? Chinese are very proud people, they are reluctant to get on welfare. Why not? Why shouldn’t they get it? The question is, from the training perspective, like CETA that I mentioned before, if you can get them an opportunity that they don’t have to worry about living, and yet get training, that’s the best it can be. If the money is an incentive for them, they don’t have to compete with the attention of worrying about feeding the children, paying rent. They had eased their minds. They get paid and get training to seek new opportunity because we know the economy will change. They’ve got to get new skills, get retrained.

So, the 9/11 Fund provides a wonderful opportunity. So for the short period of time, they don’t have to worry about it. And yet, they’re getting something new.

Q: But, was that successful? Were you worried that people came to the training, took the money and then gone?

Chen: Unfortunately, there are that type too, that they only want the money because they’re not interested in training. That’s where the part, that sometime we try to look at ways to use the window of opportunity, to plant some ideas in them, that they can get by asking for service, by seeking help, they don’t have to stop with what we have. We are not always successful in that. But I think so far we’ve been successful in, for those who just want the money, when they leave, they’ve got more than money. And that’s what we’re aiming at. They may only be interested when they walk in, by the time they get out of the door, we know they’ve got more than money.

Q: What do you elaborate on the “more” part?

Chen: They make friends. They see that there’s organizing in the community, that people can help people, and we do referrals. And CPC has other services, other than the job that they come for or the money they come for. They see that, “Gee, my kids have a problem” and then there’s resources available to answer some of the questions that otherwise they don’t know where to ask.

So in some way, for us it’s been good too, because we have been publicizing to people who otherwise we won’t reach to the people who only care about money, and we don’t have money to give. Normally they may not come to us, but they have needs. But through that process, a lot of people get to know us a little bit more, in terms of we can do. They walk in the door for reason A, but ending up they find that there’s a whole other cart that they can pick, a lot of services.

Q: How do clients come to CPC?

Chen: A lot of it is word of mouth, a lot of it is through---I think it’s basically word of mouth because we have a good track record. People get services, they talk about it, and then they said, “Where can I get services, I have this problem….” I say, “Well, check CPC out,” and then they come to us. Again, we become the conduit to many services beyond us. We can’t do them all, but knowing what’s available in the community, and people come to us. The worst is that they don’t tell anybody. You can’t force people to get services. It has to be awareness by themselves that they need to get help. This is what we say, empowering people, make people aware, open up, then you can help them. If you don’t tell them the truth, doctors can’t even diagnose the right problem. You can tell them all kinds of reason, and you won’t get any help.

Q: How about the funding for 9/11? What that government funding, or private fund? And if they were private funds, how did they hear about CPC?

Chen: Well, it’s an interesting thing. 9/11 is a terrible disaster, but there was a tremendous good response from the American public. So there is a lot of money donated, no question asked, as long as you’re doing 9/11, and we are obviously one of the people on the front line doing that. We don’t get a lot of money, but we do get more than we otherwise got. So in the end, I know total funding, the most we got was focused on job training, that was more by the 9/11 private fund, not the LMDC (Lower Manhattan Development Corporation), but the private fund that was conduited through the United Way and Community Trust. And our focus is mainly through Employment and Training Grant. They have money for other components of service. But the other services, we do the small grant. We try to focus them back on job training and support services to workers. We ended up with small pocket of money to do with childcare, to impact the family, scholarships. We try to help people get short-term cash need basis, buying food in the early days, paying rent because they are disrupted. So they need immediate cash to address some of the immediate issues that they had, we did that, too. So it was the combination of private funds, different private funds.

Unfortunately, there is not too much government fund during that time because the government undergo the budget, economics problem. The only potential was LMDC, which receives a lot of federal money, but that is so slow because all eyes are only on the ground zero. They never really look past downtown. And only in Phase Two were they talking downtown, but they were talking infrastructure, renovating parks, building expressway to JFK, to facilitate the economic development, building a bus station of Fulton Street, so the rest of the city can access downtown for revival. Building 9/11 Memorial Plaza, all this stuff. It’s great, wonderful stuff to rebuild New York, but not enough addressed to the particular Chinatown needs from the government’s 9/11 federal money, as of yet. That’s the biggest frustration we have in this community.

Q: What can you do to get the money from LMDC to rebuild Chinatown?

Chen: Well, right now, most of the money is gone already. There are a few infrastructure monies left, so we are not giving up. We’re still going to meetings, raise a lot of issues. If we’ve got to get crumbs, we want to get some crumbs too, we never want to give them up. The lingering issue we’re still continues with is parking. Parking is one that historically strangled with Chinatown. Chinatown paid a price of traffic congestion, because we are between two bridges. Every truck that comes through New York City, lower Manhattan, comes through Holland Tunnel. Every truck tries to short-cut without paying the toll for Verrazano Bridge, comes from Brooklyn, Fourth Avenue, and comes through Manhattan Bridge, and pours into Chinatown, then they go into downtown, there is no bridge. Battery Tunnel doesn’t have trucks going into Battery Tunnel. Brooklyn Bridge doesn’t take commercial traffic. So where do the trucks come from? They all come through Canal Street, they all pass through Chinatown.

Chinatown has paid a price, but when the problem hit, Chinatown don’t get paid attention in terms of resources to deal with traffic congestion. Traffic congestion immediately lead to parking issue, they’re related. Unless the issue gets addressed, the perennial problem that Chinatown has for the last thirty years will not be addressed. But this is an issue that, because of 9/11, when you deal with traffic issues in lower Manhattan, maybe we can rub some shine off, that maybe someone will finally have some residual money to address that issue.

The cultural issue, of course, is the tourist attraction. We want to make Chinatown an item on the map for out of town tourists. New York people already know, they come to Chinatown to eat and shop. But then, we’ve got to reach to the out of town people, who see Chinatown as a place, a must-stop location. Or, stop by downtown museum, but come by to Chinatown for meals, and when they come up for meals, you’ve got to find a place to park, otherwise, say “Well, I bypass, I skip it, too much, take two hours parking, I move on”. That’s why one of the comprehensive issues we’ve got to address.

Q: Okay, let’s pull back a little bit about all these macro issues, and focus on you for a minute. Tell me how did you end up working at CPC, and how long you’ve been working, and how you started? All these stuff.

Chen: Oh, sounds like ancient history, sometimes when you think about it. Well, I’ve been with CPC, let’s see now, this is my twenty-third year. I started out at CPC as being a tourist, coming to visit New York and then people told me that, “If you want to work in Chinatown, there are actually jobs, so in that sense, check it out”, and find out there’s an opportunity that CPC was hiring for youth director. So I applied, and they interviewed me on the phone, and they hired me. So the next thing I know, I’m driving a moving truck and move all my stuff out here, and I run the youth program. And from then on---

Q: ---backtrack.

Chen: Yes.

Q: Which youth program and where was it?

Chen: Project Reach, which is an at-risk prevention program, for at-risk young people. It was once upon a time known as a gang program. It’s not really a gang, but it’s a lot of troubled kids. So in that sense, I find it challenging, I thought that New York, that if you can beat New York, you can do it anywhere. So I’m one of those people, I want to take my chances. And I tell myself, “If things don’t work, I put on my resume that I traveled for a year, I’m back to the good old days. Go back to my life”. But one thing lead to another. It’s a good lesson for other people who want to check out Chinatown, to realize that once you get into the community, you find there is so much you can do. It’s very frustrating, it’s very challenging, and there was a reason why I lasted twenty-three years.

And once you get into youth, you realize that you help youth through family, through family you understand the community, you understand that unless it’s a better environment, it does take a village to help a young person. So in that sense, that’s why eventually, get broader and broader, and becoming executive director of CPC, and (in charge of) the comprehensive service, and no longer youth. And I said that, “hen you’re young you talk about youth, when you’re old, you put on reading glasses, you talk about senior citizens”. But it’s all the same issue, giving access to people who need the service.

Q: So you came to Chinatown in the ‘80s. What was Chinatown like back then?

Chen: Chinatown was much smaller. I think it was smaller in the ‘70s, ’80 was really blossoming, changing. Access is opening up. Chinatown is no longer Chinatown, Chinese immigrant population got spread out to Queens. It was spreading in the ‘70s already, in the ‘80s on the verge of getting to Brooklyn. Brooklyn hasn’t really appeared that much. It’s a bedroom community for people who can’t afford Queens. But it was happening, but not exactly surfaced. But as we know, in the late ‘80s, ’90s, Sunset Park, Avenue U, established community popped up with streets of stores, business, institutions, banks opening, hospitals start going there. But Chinatown finally realized that Chinatown is a cultural center, not a residential, it’s not a garment shop, it’s not restaurant, it’s not laundry. I can’t even find laundry anymore. Once upon a time, you have laundry, right? But where’s the laundry, right? Chinatown changed. But then the service industry started spreading out, because where people lived, the needs, the job base, the opportunities, shift. So you see Chinatown being the cultural center, more and more than just one residential or job, atypical job. But they’re diversified, diversity tremendously going into Chinatown neighborhood.

Q: What was the demographic before the ‘80s, and what was the demographic after the ‘80s? You said there was a tremendous change.

Chen: Tremendous changes. When people saw demographic Asian, Chinese in New York, grows, is not in Chinatown region, the neighborhoods, it’s a city-wide population growing, double every ten years. But Chinatown population, the census figure is still few zip codes, 10012, 002, whatever, but you put it together, the demographic didn’t change that much, remained at the same amount of number. But however, there is a turnover of people. I think I read some statistics that about two in five Chinese walking on the street in Chinatown arrived in the last five years. That means this is a transient neighborhood. There are older timers who stayed, but transient people keep on churning, keep on coming, keep on coming and going. What you say five years ago, the guy you are talking to now may not be heard because it’s not the same guy. Mainstream may tend to say, “It’s the same Chinese, they’re all the same”, but reality you know, that diversity also come in wave upon wave of new immigrant, and how to move on and move up and move out. And maybe we’re so successful, we try to keep moving out. New people come in because Chinatown is an incubator for people, they feel secure, there are roots. But what we do is give them wings so they fly. Hopefully they come back and help the next wave. In that fact, the demographic in Chinatown didn’t change, but the turnaround. You know they may have come through and recycled in different neighborhoods. Chinatown is an ethnic center, people come back, identify with it, they shop here. The bank opened seven days here, right? And this is not a Chinese bank, this is Chase, they’re opened seven days here because they realize the potential, the market is even bigger. But when you look at how many people live here, not many people live here. That’s the dynamics, the unique thing that Chinatown played, in the sense that it influenced much broader than Chinatown, but the number of people who live here have remained pretty much the same throughout the period.

Q: We’re going to backtrack a little back to your personal experience. Before coming to New York’s Chinatown, what led you to want to work in Chinatown?

Chen: Well, I guess when I wandered into graduated at that time, I majored in social work school, in community organizing. And being a community organizing major, you felt frustrated, the ivory tower doesn’t do enough, so you start volunteering for work. And then I found the Chicago Chinatown, Iwent to the University of Chicago at that time, and I found that the nearest Chinatown was Chicago’s Chinatown. And Chicago’s Chinatown was mainly two streets, the stores and neighborhood. It was really like Sunset Park in many ways. And there are no jobs. You only volunteered. So a few graduate students pooled our resources together. I remember we got City College to pay us eight dollars an hour. We all promised to teach four hours in Chinatown, two hours on Saturday, two on Sunday. And there were eight of us, and we pooled together, we made enough money to rent a storefront. We started doing stuff.

But unfortunately, a student’s a student. When we graduated, we left. Nothing stayed. So when I graduated social work school, I went looking for a job. And there was no more playing around, I needed a job. There was no job. So I landed a job at the mayor’s office in Chicago at that time as a planner, evaluator for the employment and training part. And that opened me up to a lot of diversity issues, of other minority youth, but yet how come there is no Chinese funding? And the obstacles, you realize how they just don’t write proposals, you don’t know where the issues are, but there is no job in Chinatown. So that’s when I mentioned that on vacation I came to Chinatown New York, and they told me there are jobs here. And you got to do what you want. So I said check it out, and I sign up, and that’s how I started, and how I get into it.

But of course, deep inside, through school days, I recognized the fact that there are communities to be helped, there are people in the community that need to be helped. And I understand the needs of immigrant, when really they have no language capability, or they have no support, that the less fortunate ones have nowhere to turn. So in that sense, there needs to be some kind of access provided from within that would be tremendously useful. And that, somehow, my leading from school awareness that brought up this young person, and tied up to the opportunity, and then bump my head on the wall in Chinatown, New York, and then you realize there is so much more that can be done.

Q: You want to help the community, is that because of your family background? Is your family a typical immigrant family, or did you come from a totally different background? Give me a little bit of information about your background.

Chen: I came from a pretty different background, in the sense that I would say we were from the relatively privileged background. Father was an engineer, middle class. I would say middle class, upper middle class background. And all middle class families want their Chinese sons and daughters to be engineers or doctors. So I’m one of those guys who don’t like chemistry. So take out chemistry, you’re not into any of these fields, engineer or doctor. So I tried to straddle between fulfilling a family obligation and my own inclination.

So soon enough, I find out that I’m very interested in social studies issues. And then, of course, as a typical Chinese, I confronted issues, social studies don’t make a living. So soon enough I find out that in social studies, in liberal arts training as undergraduate, it’s good to be in economics for the foothold in rational thinking, and business. But I have an educated dad, and he asked me a question. “In economics, you get a PhD, you teach. You get a BA, you become a bank cashier. So which one do you want to be?”

So that was always one of the questions. The funny part was that, as I get more into economics, I realize that economics had a macro issue about monetary economics. And in macro economics, we deal with infrastructure issue, community. And then I evolve an interest to want to work for underdeveloped communities, like Third World, IMF (International Monetary Fund) banking, United Nations type of thing. But those are wishes, never really had the hope to. But interesting thing was, opportunity arise, I bump into community, Chinatown, and I realize that you don’t need to look for a Third World community elsewhere, there’s a Third World community right in our back yard. So in that sense, that’s when I volunteer in Chinatown, and try to bridge and actually end up bridging in terms of my personal inclination of searching, to land in something that I thought I can find. My skills and my inclination incubated for twenty-some years, it becomes part of me.

Q: Final questions: where were you born, where did you grow up?

Chen: Well, for a very short period of time, I was in China. I was born in Shanghai. Few months old, maybe less than a few months old, carried as a baby by my parents, typical of refugees, went to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was the upbringing years of mine, went to school there, brought into the environment until I was in high school. And I spent my last high school year, twelfth grade, in the U.S. Prior to that, my teenager (years), getting lost, peers, are all in Hong Kong.

Q: How did you come to the U.S.A.? What motivated you to come?

Chen: Well, motivate me---

Q: You came by yourself?

Chen: Yes, pretty much so. In those days my parents are very smart, educated parents. They realize that if I come as young person, young boy, I would end up signing up for the draft and go to Vietnam. They don’t want me to be drafted. If I don’t become a resident and citizen right away, and come as a student first because everybody got a student deferment. So I came as a student. In the meantime, my father pretty much is a traveling businessman. So in essence, we do that, and then once the draft is over, we change the status so become citizen. So pretty much my background is one of immigrants. I would say lucky immigrant, have choices, know how to maneuver the system, so to speak.

Q: Perfect. We’re done. That’s good.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

<p> 問﹕2004年7月13日，我現在於華策會訪問陳受權，地點在紐約州紐約市華埠伊利沙白街150號，陳先生，請你告訴我，你的工作，跟誰做工？<br>
<br>
陳﹕我是華策會的行政總監，華策會是華埠的社區服務機構。</p>
<p>問﹕那一個機構？</p>
<p>陳﹕華策會。</p>
<p>問﹕可否描述一下華策會(CPC)的歷史？</p>
<p>陳﹕好，華策會已有40年歷史，是一個以社區為本的組織，在1965年已開展工作，協助新移民，多年來，我們做很多工作，由語言班到各類申請、翻譯、日間托兒所、成人職業訓練、老人中心、輪椅送餐、家庭護理、廉租屋、及兒童福利，應有盡有。</p>
<p>問﹕華策會是何時成立的？</p>
<p>陳﹕在1965年已經成立，如你們熟悉大社會時代，這是林頓．詹森總統的努力成果。我們看見基層工作的重要，以熟悉他們需求及合適他們文化的方式，有效地將服務帶給他們，<br>

於是在六十年代就開展了草根階層運動。</p>
<p>問﹕當在60年代開始時，華策會服務了多少名求助者？</p>
<p>陳﹕雖然當時我不在紐約華埠，但當時的社區比現在小很多，人口只有八千，只是很小的社區。那類服務，依我看來，求助者主要學英文、老人需要的基本服務及翻譯，在這情況下，只要一開門，少年人就始聚集，好像有個落腳地，人們問你問題，他們才知道下一步怎麼辦。</p>
<p>草根運動繼續進行，漸漸地，經費多了，有機會獲得更多金錢撥款，我們像是演進了，起初時，只有少數人疏疏落落地來，他們只需基本資料及轉介。</p>
<p>問﹕你提及經費，那時是如何取得的？</p>
<p>陳﹕我知道那時第一筆經費是社區發展機構發動靜坐示威得來的，那是給收入偏低的下城華埠的一次過贈款，讓某些資源及政府資源分配出去，所以，那時候，華人對服務的要求也不高。華策會領先體驗到華人既然納稅，就應該得到某些服務，所以我們帶頭倡議教育今日的社區，不再標榜是從台灣、香港、海外來的或是外人，要是運用我們的權力，我們有需要爭取服務，所以要組織示威，就得到第一筆贈款。
<br>
　　與此同時，最主力給予華策會的贈款是CETA--全面職業培訓法案—所提供的基本工作訓練贈款，<br>

對於我們來說極為重要，因為它支付了華策會第一筆租金，讓人們前來，全面職業培訓法案那時給他們津貼，鼓勵他們脫離低收入的工作，提供再培訓，發展他們的潛質，以致他們可以提升自己，該計劃給學員提供少量的津貼、午餐錢、車費，令他們有所選擇。否則，對移民在說，如果你不提供一些獎勵，他們怎會放下原來低收入的工作，前來接受訓練？所以早期的CETA能因應社區的需要，鼓勵一些原本不會前來的人肯來到，華策會是實現這目標的工具。<br>

問﹕你可告訴我華策會現在的預算案是多少？撥款又從何而來？

陳﹕那，華策會現在的預算案龐大，我們在40年前開始時只有89元，但本會發展大了，政策改變了，政府參與社區服務的情況改變了，所以，我們抓緊這個機會，演進成為龐大的機構、分會及其他的組織。我們獲聯邦、州及市三級的撥款，大部份合約的款項來自市府，但市府亦包含聯邦的撥款，所以，看似來自城市的款項其實是從多處合成而來的資源。</p>
<p>問﹕其他的合成是什麼？你可否給我們一個細節？

陳﹕好的，如你結算總款項，超過九成來自政府撥款，其中，直接來自市府的約有70個百分點，州府有20個百分點，視乎個別的經費及活動而定，其實是視乎經費的來源，是直接由聯邦撥出，抑或是透過市府撥出但間接由聯邦撥出。<br>

問﹕你可以給我一個計劃作為例子，是由機構撥款，該計劃又是做什麼的？</p>

<p> 陳﹕好的，舉例說，兒童托兒。托兒經費主要由市府而來，州府又津貼，最後，錢可能由政府而來，但它……</p>
<p>(錄音帶中斷)</p>
<p>問﹕華策會的計劃是由市機構贊助的嗎？</p>
<p>陳﹕我會說從市府的角度，最大的計劃是青少年及托兒計劃，主要是課稅錢、聯邦錢，或一次過贈與的市府錢，但托兒及青少年大部份來自地區撥款，所以我說政策而言，撥款受到地區的需要及資源的影響。</p>
<p>問﹕那些市府機構是什麼？</p>
<p>陳﹕那些市府機構是兒童服務機構、青少年及社區發展部。</p>
<p>問﹕預算案是多少，華策會托兒受惠的兒童又有多少？

陳﹕托兒服務方面，我們有課後補習及幼兒班，視乎年齡而定，總預算大概在650萬。青少年計劃資源短缺，撥款短缺，服務時時因資源分散而中斷，因我想所有機構的青少年計劃預算總和約在一百萬元以下。<br>

問﹕這經費估計可令多少人受惠？ </p>
<p>陳﹕你說到一些可伸可縮的數字，數字是否重算或不要重算？也是以青少年問題為例，<br>

因為計算青少年服務是以繼續個案的處理性質及個人及青少年發展事項而算，也有按遊戲的次數來算，例如一少年進來補習一次算一次服務，入來兩次算兩次服務，所以諷刺的是，我們喜歡不重算，只算一次，你一共幫了多少人？但是如果一名青少年進來，下棋又打籃球，我們會算兩次，是不是？這是計算我們服務的舊說法，形容我們的活躍程度，但華策會需要的是路向，是要為不同的人提供不同的服務，發揮影響力，則需要按人計，而不是按人次計，按人次計不能反映所服務的人口數目。</p>
<p>問﹕讓我再問，多少人以為華策會是政府機構，你認為華策會這機構和私人組織或機構有什麼分別？</p>
<p>陳﹕我們是提供公眾服務的私人組織，像我以前所說，我們獲得撥款，90多百分點源自政府，但我們按合約的要求，通過投標步驟(RFP)，提交建議書，通過競爭，審查資歷，在競爭中投標，又贏得合約，取得公共經費，我們像私人機構，但我們是遞交501(c)的非牟利機構。</p>
<p>(錄音帶中斷)</p>
<p>陳﹕華策會是私人的非牟利機構，屬於501(c)的免稅組織，我們差不多是從事公共服務的私人機構，我們的經費，百分之90是從政府而來，透過建議的RFP步驟，那是一個競爭激烈的步驟，需要符合各部門撥出款項的要求，在步署、方法及建議上均要展示我們可以成事的能力。基本上，我們這樣取得經費，但我們的董事──當然那是非牟利，志願性質的董事會──基本上是有公眾興趣的公民，<br>

監察我們的款項是否運用得宜。基本上，我們的組織竭盡所能在社區層面將撥款運用得最好。</p>
<p>問﹕華策會的服務對象從那裡來？

陳﹕我們的服務對象，其實是來自需要我們的人，他們亦視乎我們的使命及目的而來，我們的使命基本上指幫助新移民──尤其是華人家庭──獲得服務，和主流人士接觸，強調經濟上自給自足，以致他們能在主流社會生活，這是我們致力的方針。當然，我們透職業訓練、托兒轉介、屋房、移民等服務達成這些目標，讓他們知道到那裡尋求服務，獲得答案、轉介。</p>
<p>問﹕為什麼他們要到華策會而不是到其他機構？

陳﹕很久以前，我們是唯一一個也是第一個，所以他們都來找我們。漸漸地來，我們在華埠的十條街內變成一個聲譽良好，值得信靠的機構。但與此同時，華埠亦發生轉變，機構增多了，所提供的專家服務亦多了。諷刺的是，透過我們的轉介，我們把求助者轉到別的合適機構，讓他們取得最好的服務。</p>
<p>問﹕你認為現在華埠所提供的的服務足夠嗎？</p>
<p>陳﹕沒有，距離目標尚遠呢。我可以說，我們盡努力給人們更體貼的服務，在人們看來是一站式服務，但沒有機構能做所有的事情，新人口的挑戰是，他們的需要不同事項，他們的來自地方不同、背景不同，而我們只能做這麼多。漸漸地，我們明白他們的需要，提供轉介，我們盡量做，但只能作出轉介，<br>

我們成為人們需要及華埠市場之間的橋樑，為本身不知道如何在外面取得服務的社區人士，獲得良好的機會。</p>
<p>問﹕現在缺乏什麼服務？</p>
<p>陳﹕他們缺乏資訊，新人前來，十分無知，拿著行李到來，用老國家的老方法做事，不明白在美國的風俗及法例已改變。美國是一個自由國家，但你也得知道如何獲取權利，否則這權益也不屬於你的，這就是移民所缺乏的。很多人空有美國夢，到來這裡，但如果不知道如何實踐，甚至可能變成美國夢魘。</p>
<p>但他們不應輕易放棄，他們應尋求協助，獲得合適的資源，克服那些障礙。</p>
<p>問﹕華策會如何幫助這些人？請給我一個具體的例子。</p>
<p>陳﹕一個現成的例子，是給有資格的年青移民工作再培訓，由於移民除了家庭團聚外，漸漸多了因技能而來的移民，但很多時，他們同時是年青的父母親，來到美國，未通曉英文，又沒有朋友，他們有被連根拔起的感受，不知道何去何從，但隨即就要工作養活家庭。如沒有托兒服務，他們根本就不能工作，但托兒費用不便宜，他們又沒有足夠的錢將孩子送往托兒，所以魚與熊掌，難以取捨，你要照顧家庭，就不能實踐你的個人理想。但他們來的唯一目的是找尋更好的生活，他們願意犧牲，但不知道如何開始，所以在這個時候，我們給他們工作再培訓，<br>

他們現在所從事的工作未必是他們擅長的，但如果他們沒有接受再培訓的機會，他們最終只能一直洗盤碗，在餐館工作，這是傳統被與世隔絕的華埠人士一直從事的工作，逃不過對別人對華人社區的一貫看法。</p>
<p>每個人都可以洗盤碗，每個人都可以煮菜，任何懂得吃的人都可以煮菜，所以有這麼多餐館，但實際上，他們具有比這些基本技能更多的潛質，最能發揮的方法是讓他們參與主流的工作市場，從基本開始，我們並不能做大量的培訓，因為沒有這麼多的經費。我們可給他們找初階的職位，希望他們學得工作操守，工作態度、工作能力，及基本技巧，使他們會離開原本的工作，爬上工作的階梯。
<br>
我們也知道，如他們能夠到主流世界爬上工作的階梯，回頭時也會幫助下一波移民走他們曾經走過的路，才能真正滲入主流，為更多人打開門路，幫助他們更多樣化，便不需擠在華埠爭做同樣的工作。但他們要自己征服世界，我們只能從旁協助。</p>
<p>問﹕提及職業訓練，華策會也舉辦9/11訓練計劃，你可否告訴我們一些有關背景資料，華策會怎樣參與9/11的訓練，現在的訓練情況又如何？</p>
<p>陳﹕講到9/11，華埠又如後備，我們知道9/11慘劇之前也有華埠，9/11之後仍然有華埠，我在9/11前從事同樣工作，我們明白華埠的需要，華埠的需要事前事後到現在也一樣﹕工作、語言、爭取權益、公眾政策，即是說，要使公職人員制訂政策時聆聽我們的需要。可能選舉過程中，我們沒有足夠的選票，所以有時我們沒有被注意到，但由於9/11，情況有暫時的改變，因為全世界都在注視9/11事件，<br>

但初時華埠都未有獲得注意，他們只注意下城部份，世貿中心及它的周邊，大部份的時間，我們縱使大聲疾呼我們是鄰區，但他們認為鄰區只是連接著世貿中心的高樓大廈，華埠不算鄰區，只是生意受影響而已。而且，不幸地，在城市規劃不周的情況下，他們將受影響的華埠範圍一分為二，以堅尼路為界，堅尼路以南是影響區，在對面街的堅尼路以北就沒有資格了，他們怎麼可以以街為界將一個鄰舍強行分開，而這條界是模稜兩可的。任何住在地區的人老早都知道華埠的範圍在近廿年已超過堅尼路，很早期曾經是界，但早已不是，華埠可遠達曉士頓街，超過地蘭西，我們早就知道。</p>
<p>所以在此情況下，那時很多事項是按著老舊既有的觀念看華埠，我們要發出很大的抗議聲、舉辦很多的活動、作出很多的提醒。我知道人們本來想把事情做好，人們知道華埠被忽略，就要趕緊補償一點點，所以作了一點改善的動作，改善是好，但基本上不足以解決我們所應付的難題，及一些因9/11而來的新問題。舊問題仍然存在，但只是新開始，因為人們因9/11終於注意華埠了。<br>

問﹕所以9/11培訓計劃如何得來的？</p>
<p>陳﹕我認為華埠的問題，如你走到社區找答題，是工作、工作、工作，經濟，華埠仍然是發展的動力，因為傳統的行業是車衣及餐館業。餐館的客源有兩類：一類是在華埠的華人食客，華埠的工人本身需要在餐館吃東西，第二部份是遊客，如遊客前來，就有更多生意，如遊客不來，一半的生意就告吹。但華埠會否倒閉呢，不，因為華埠有基本建設，它就是住在這裡的工人，他們仍然要食，仍然要用這裡的餐館，仍然要買菜，但如因為衣廠已倒閉，令一半的行業倒閉，<br>

則數以千計的工人不能工作，就不能在華埠吃午餐，那餐館行業就大受打擊，所以華埠各行業是息息相關，互相依賴的。<br>

所以在製衣業，我記不起準確數字，華埠起碼有數百間衣廠，百分之九十在9/11後兩星期內關閉了，有些要三星期才重開，有些就此永遠倒閉，這趨勢是繼續原有的弱勢，因為美國的工作本來就流失海外，但9/11突如其來地將華埠的經濟根基動搖，一如漣漪般效應，旅遊業、珠寶業也相應受影響，華埠珠寶價廉物美，所以很多遊客喜歡來購物，當遊客止步時，經濟立時受牽連。

其他受牽連的是移民家庭，移民家庭基本使用是現金為主，當工作及收入受到打擊時，現金的根本通通用作房貸、家用及其他用途上，這些事情是大有牽連的，工作是首要因素。所以我們要集中職業培訓，你給他們工作，他們就會活躍起來，希望就來了﹔相反，你拿走工作，所有的社會問題就來了。我們明白這點，就集中這計劃，不能做所有事，但可以利用固有的優勢及工作培訓，嘗試做好這一點。</p>
<p>問﹕從受助者的角度來看，職業培訓是否成功？

陳﹕從受助者的角度來看，是成功的，就算9/11，全市都有就業訓練的需要，不單止華埠受到損害，其他人也受到9/11的影響，所以當有經費時，其實是給全市的。但真正的動力，是要走出華埠以外，然後回饋到華埠，從事數項服務，這不是很有效率的做法，但這是以社區為本的機構所付出的代價。在其後我們與學生和僱主的對話中明白，證明這經驗行之有效。基本上，<br>

我們認識很多以華埠為家的熟手車衣工人，當他們尋求服務時固然有語言障礙，他們特徵很明顯，因為言語不通，及其他因素而被困在車衣廠，所以當他們要尋求服務時，不去全市尋求服務，仍然到華埠找援手。</p>
<p>對於職業培訓而言，我們發覺有一些人在上城報讀職業培訓，是因為他們沒有同輩或團隊的支援，很快他們就退學，又走回到我們中間，我不明白箇中原因，可能這裡的午餐較容易得到，但這裡他們找到一些支援。當你是容易受傷，軟弱時，你傾向於尋求支持，我認為華策會或社區能給他們支持的感覺，如他們感覺自然，他們會持久一些，否則，他們在嘗試接受職業訓練期間，生活上會有太多競爭令人分心，如獲得支持，他們在訓練中可堅持到底。<br>

問﹕是否其他9/11青少年計劃也一樣道理？是否因為同樣原因，華策會的計劃在華埠得以成功？來自其他地方的華人在尋求援助時要來華埠，而不是去其他地方，是因為語言障礙，或他們發覺……？</p>
<p>陳﹕絕對是，絕對是。首先是叫他們寬心，當你提供的服務可幫助他們，他們就會來，但那時候，你又面對其他障礙了，事情並不容易，「這個容易點，這個難一點，這個很困難，我要反覆向他們再三解釋到口舌都乾了，他們仍然不明白，」所以，當即時緊急需要得到了舒緩時，人們又要求另一些更舒服的享受了。所以人們在不同時候有不同的需要，當急需過了時，他們開始想到﹕「在那裡可找到更佳的服務？」所以，華埠就湧現這些服務，是餘波服務，或是第二波服務。第一波是取得各方面的資源，因為那是緊急及即時的，當那些服務完滿了，他們馬上想到其他地方接受更好服務。<br>

所以，華埠──如華策會──是受到最大沖擊的第二波，因為他們知道他們可以取得更好服務。</p>
<p>問﹕你個人如何評論華埠9/11救災計劃？

陳﹕我認為很多原意的是好的事情也有很多值得反省，令人沮喪的地方，令人沮喪的事情指華埠從來沒有足夠的建設來處理這些緊急事項，也沒有足夠的信心依賴主流組織有能有足夠人才來組織社區，處理這些緊急事項。雖然到最後，他們依賴我們做，因為他們未能自己接觸人群，或人們不會到他們那裡尋求服務，他們仍然來到我們這裡。所以，這些服務要透過我們這中間人，翻來覆去，好像減低了效率。為什麼沒有一站式服務？</p>
<p>這是我們爭論的一環，即是以社區為本的組織可提供最好的緊急服務，是一站式以社區為本的。如果在功能角度是一站式的，你可以在布朗士區專注一種服務，但在接受服務者來說並不方便。所以我們極力主張在社區角度一站式服務，方便受助者，而不是方便撥款或繁文縟節，所以，我們要學習防患未然， 要在以社區為本的組織中衡量能力，到前線送出服務。</p>
<p>問﹕華埠在9/11後，恢復了元氣嗎？

陳﹕是，在很多方面恢復了元氣，但這是分批、分階段的。有些很快恢復過來，其實在9/11後一個月，我在堅尼路散步，當時經濟仍然好不過來，但我驚覺行人仍然熙來攘往，華埠有這麼多人，怎麼還說經濟不好呢？我發現當中主要是中國人，他們到華埠雜貨店購物，風雨不改，他們之所以來，是因為他們有需要，但你如要看民族的多元化，<br>

華埠平時在周末比在周日繁忙，是不是？他們從那裡來呢？交通會妨礙他們來。所以就算你見到行人夠多了，主要是因為華埠本來是人口稠密的地方，你時時看到人與事，但那是否華埠賴以為生的經濟活動呢？然後我們發覺距離事實還差得遠呢。</p>
<p>華埠所受的打擊主要仍然在交通事項、次品質的空氣，經濟問題上。經濟在某方面已恢復﹕遊客開始回來，人們捨得花錢，但有某些行業及貿易活動仍然很差，因為華埠不能泊車，尤是是柏路被關閉，令情況更嚴重。旅客會去方便的地點，或是不方便的地點呢？巴士不能在華埠停泊，總要到別處泊，因為不方便，他們就不會來，有些行業特別受影響。車衣業一蹶不振，因為大勢本來就不利，但也有一些行業比其他的行業好，所以其實是，個別行業際遇不同。</p>
<br>
<p>問﹕華策會是否嘗試為失業的車衣工人或餐館工人提供職業再培訓？<br>

陳﹕這樣的，華策會視職業培訓為社區發展模式，職業培訓意思是說你要找尋工作，如你沒有提供工作，為什麼要訓練他們呢？如訓練了人，最後沒有給他們工作就等於不成功。所以工作在那裡呢？我們知道華埠的車衣工人的剪影是怎樣的？中年，55歲，45歲，55歲或以上，不會說英語，來自背景差不多。透過短短15個星期至20個星期的訓練，你不能將他們轉職，但如我們的目標是要他們在行業賺得更多，你就要看什麼是合適，我們發覺從事護理行業的人漸增，適合這些背景的人轉職，為什麼？因為護理不需要流利的語言，你只需在病人的家中說流利語言，只需說該家庭所講的語言即可。</p>

<p> 我們知道美國人口漸趨老化，在亞裔社區而言，最快增長的人口群是亞裔人口，我們知道家庭護理的費用比醫院護理較便宜，所以從多個角度看，在家庭復康比較省錢及更舒適，所以，是的，他們需要一些熟悉文化及操流利語言的工人來做事，這不是光芒耀眼的工作，也不是非常高薪工作，但他們適合華埠人士，因為那是工會工作，我們明白在紐約市，家庭護理行業屬於1199工會，他們可以給工人全家好福利，我們知道華埠車衣工人的丈夫通常都在餐館工作，沒有什麼福利，孩子也沒有福利，近年買醫療保險又十分昂貴，如我們將他們轉到該行業，可以幫助他們全家，所以在工會提供福利的前提下，全家也獲得福利，如全家都有福利，他們就不需要兒童加健，這是政府需要負擔的資源，所以我們嘗試將資訊及資源合併一起，提供一站或服務，給人們長遠的服務，而不是零散的服務。</p>
<p>問﹕讓我們再回頭講9/11訓練計劃，我聽說是13個星期，又有現金獎勵，你認為受助人前來是因為有現金，抑或因為有訓練？</p>
<p>陳﹕這又有何不可？他們需要錢，當失業金短缺時，你到那裡找到錢？他們是好工人，為什麼要領救濟？這又有何不可？為什麼他們不能領？問題是，從訓練的角度，像我以前提及的CETA，如你給他們機會，讓他們不需擔心生活，又可接受訓練是最好的方法，如錢是一種獎勵，他們就不需擔心子女的食物及租金，安心取得款項，接受訓練，找尋新機會。因為經濟情況可能改變，他們要學得新技巧，接受職業再培訓。<br>
<br>

所以，9/11撥款是一個很好的機會，所以短期內，他們不需要擔心，同時學到一些新事物。</p>
<p>問﹕但計劃算成功嗎？你不擔心人們來你處接受訓練，拿取金錢後，然後走了。</p>
<p>陳﹕是的，不幸地，也有這類人，他們只志在錢，並不志在培訓，有時我們需要以機會的角度來看這個部份，給他們一些選擇，他們只要肯尋找就可獲得服務，不會滿足現狀。雖然我們不是常常成功，但我認為至少到現在是成功的，因為那些一心志在錢的學員，當離開時，他們獲得比金錢更重要的東西，而這正是我們的目的，當他們前來時，他們可能只感到興趣，當他們踏出校門時，我們知道他們獲得的比金錢更重要。</p>
<p>問﹕你所謂的「更重要」指什麼？</p>
<p>陳﹕他們結交了朋友，知道社區有組織，人們可以互相幫忙，及獲得轉介，及華策會有其他服務，不僅是他們需要的工作或金錢，他們明白到一旦「我的孩子有問題」時，可獲得資源，或回答一些他們不知道那裡尋求答案等問題。<br>

所以在某些情況下，對我們是好的，因為我們向人宣傳，如果沒有金錢攻勢他們就不會來，但我們平日沒有錢派，他們可能不會來，但他們其實有需要。透過這課程，很多人知道多了。我們按所能去做，他們走進來是因為原因甲，但最後他們發現另有一籃子的東西可以用，有很多服務。</p>

<p> 問﹕受助者如何到華策會來？</p>
<p>陳﹕很多人是靠口耳相傳前來的，或是其他，我認為基本上是靠口碑，因為我們已經做過很多好事，人們獲得服務，會討論，然後他們說：「我們在那裡可取得服務，我們有這難題……」我就會說：「好吧！到華策會談一談吧！」然後他們就來了。再者，我們成為他們獲得其他服務的導引者。我們不能每事都做，但知道社區裡有什麼，人們又來我們這裡問。他們要自己意識到要來尋求協助，就是我們說的，給他們資訊，讓他們知道，打開門，你就可以幫助他們。如你不將事實告訴他們，醫生也不能正確地斷症，你可以告訴他們所有原因，但他們自己不會得到任何幫助。</p>
<p>問﹕那9/11的經費怎樣了？那是政府撥款，還是私人撥款？他們怎樣聽到有關華策會的事？</p>
<p>陳﹕那是有趣的事情，9/11是恐怖的災難，美國公眾反應很大，所以捐獻很多金錢，不會留難，只要你做9/11工作。我們顯然是前線的人物，雖然沒有得到很多撥款，但總比平時多了一些，所以最後我們獲得的總撥款，最多在於職業培訓，因為很多9/11私人撥款，不來自LMDC(曼哈頓下城發展公司)，那些私人撥款是透過國際聯合勸募協會及社區信託會捐出，焦點是職業及訓練贈款，他們有錢作其他的服務，但我們已獲小贈款在其他服務上，我們嘗試回到工作訓練，為工人提供支援服務，我們最後得到小量撥款從事托兒服務、家庭服務及獎學金，我們幫助災民獲得短期現金、在災難初期購買食物、及租金。他們需要應急錢應付需要，所以是各種私人撥款拼合在一起，或不同的私人撥款。</p>

<p> 不幸地，我們沒有很多的政府撥款，因為政府財政短缺及經濟等問題，唯一有可能的撥款是聯邦撥款的LMDC，但來得很慢，因為所有的注意力都集中在零點，只在第二階段中討論到下城，但他們講的是基本建設、翻新公園、興建機場快線、協助經濟拓展、興建富頓街巴士站令人們從市內其他地方到來、復興下城，興建9/11紀念廣場等設施，這是重建紐約極好的的事項，但政府的9/11聯邦撥款沒有足夠地回應華埠的特殊需要，那是令社區最沮喪的事。<br>

問﹕如要拿到LMDC重建華埠的款項，要做些什麼呢？</p>
<p>陳﹕現在，大部份的錢已沒有了，只剩下一點點建設費，我們沒有放棄，仍然去開會，提出很多問題，就算麵包碎塊，我們亦想拿，不想放棄。現時仍在拖延的項目是泊車，泊車問題一直干擾著華埠，華埠因為交通阻塞付出很大的代價，因為我們位在兩橋之間，每天經過紐約市、曼哈頓下城、荷蘭隧道的卡車，因為不付華維山路橋費而繞路走，從布碌崙、四大道及曼哈頓橋，都湧來華埠走到下城，這裡沒有橋，炮台隧道不能走卡車，布碌崙又不能過商用車，所以卡車那裡走？他們都經堅尼路，全經過華埠。</p>
<p>華埠要付出代價，但當問題發生時，華埠卻沒有獲得注意，沒有獲得足夠的資源去解決交通阻塞的問題。交通阻塞連帶引起泊車問題，兩者息息相關，除非問題得以關注，這難題困擾華埠已30年，<br>

但這問題可能因為9/11而獲得關注，可能會有一些餘錢解決部份問題。<br>

文化的議題當然是吸引遊客，我們想令華埠成為遊客打開地圖之必遊景點，紐約市民已知道來華埠享用美食及購物，但我們仍要告知紐約市以外人士，令他們覺得華埠是一個必到之地，或遊下城博物院時要到華埠用餐，當他們前來用餐時，可得找泊車位，否則你會說﹕「好了，不要去了，兩小時泊車費太貴了，繼續開車走吧！」所以這是急待應付的全面問題。</p>
<p>問﹕好了，我們暫且放下大問題不談，集中講一講你自己，你為什麼會在華策會工作？你工作了多久？如何開始？這等問題。</p>
<p>陳﹕噢！當回想時，好像是很久以前的事了，讓我看看，我在華策會已23年，我開始到華策會是遊客，遊覽紐約，然後有人告訴我﹕「如你想在華埠工作，其實那裡也有工作，你可查考一下，」那我發現華策會真的正聘請青少年部主任，所以我就申請，他們在電話中面談我，就聘請了我。以後，我就駕駛搬屋卡車，將我的家當運過來，負責青少年計劃，從那時起，……。</p>
<p>問﹕──我們回來講到，</p>
<p>陳﹕是什麼？</p>
<p>問﹕那一個青少年計劃？在那裡？</p>

<p> 陳﹕外展計劃，那是一個為邊緣青少年而設防止青少年出軌的計劃，以前叫幫派計劃，但不真是幫派，只是很多問題青年，所以我覺得有挑戰，我認為如你能克服紐約，你在那裡都能做，我就是有此想法，想試試看，告訴自己﹕「如辦不到，就拿起我的履歷又走一年，再返回以前的好日子，追尋自己的生活。」但事情一件接著一件，對一個要探討華埠的人是一個好課程，才明白一旦你到了社區，你發覺你可也做很多事，這是令人沮喪，但有挑戰性的事情。我在這裡工作了23年是有原因的。<br>

一旦你從事青少年工作，你明白你可以透過家庭幫助青少年，又透過家庭明白社區，你明白到要為青少年提供良好的環境，甚至要動員整條村才能栽培一個年青人，所以，到最後，漸漸地，我成為華策會的行政總監，負責全盤服務，不再限於青少年。我常說﹕「年青時，你講青少年，年紀大時，你戴上老花眼睛，討論年長者。」但兩者都處理同樣問題，你給需要的人提供服務。</p>
<p>問﹕你在80年代來到華埠，華埠當時是怎樣的？

陳﹕當時華埠很小，我想在70年代更小，80年代迅速發展，服務越來越多，華埠再不是限於華埠，華人移民人口在70年代已開始擴展到皇后區， 80年代開始擴展到布碌崙區，布碌崙本來並不顯眼，那是人們不能負擔皇后區所入住的地方，默默地發生，但不立即浮現起來，但我們知道，在80年代尾、90年代的日落公園及U大道華人社區開始顯現，一條條街的店舖、商業、機構、銀行紛紛開業，醫院開始服務華人，但人們仍然以華埠為文化中心，而不是住宅區、不是車衣廠區、不是餐館區，不是洗衣店區，現在幾乎找不到洗衣店，以前我們有洗衣店，是不是？現在洗衣店那裡去了？華埠轉變了，但那時服務行業開始擴展，<br>

因為人們居住那裡，就需要服務，但工作、機會都轉移了，所以你看華埠是文化中心，不單是居住區或多種非主流職業，而人口多樣化，這些多樣化很快向華埠的鄰舍迅速擴展。</p>
<p>問﹕在80年代前的人口特徵是什麼？在80年代後人口又如何？你剛才說有很大的轉變。</p>
<p>陳﹕轉變很大，當人們看見紐約的華裔人口增多，那不限於華埠及鄰近地區，而是整個城市的華人人口增長了，十年翻一翻，但華埠的人口在人口普查中仍然是幾個郵區號碼，10013及10002，或之類，但你將他們放在一起時，人口特徵不會轉變太多，數字仍然是一樣，但人口流轉很大，我記得我讀過一些統計，在華埠活動的華人，五份之二在近五年移民來美，意思是說，華埠是讓人過渡的鄰舍，也有一些人留下長居，但過渡的人不斷搬入搬出，五年前你在華埠一個地點談過話的人，五年後未必在華埠，主流人士或者會說﹕「他們是同一個中國人，他們長得一個樣子。」但事實你知道，新移民一波又一波，變得多樣化，不斷向上，搬入又搬出，新移民搬進來因為華埠是培養人的地方，他們覺得安全，有根，我們做的是給他們羽翼讓他們起飛，希望他們歸來時可協助下一波移民。其實華埠的人口組成沒有改變，但人口轉動大，你知道他們經過了，又搬到別的鄰舍居住，華埠是一個族群中心，人們回來、認同及在這裡購物，這裡的銀行一星期營業七天，是不是？但這不是華人銀行，那是大通銀行，他們也要七天營業，因為他們認識到那潛質，拓大市場。但當你要知道有多少人住在這裡，才知道人數不算多，這活力是華埠所獨有的，因為他的影響力遠超過華埠本身，<br>

但居住人口數字在多年幾乎一樣。<br>

問﹕我們且回去你的個人經驗，你來紐約華埠前，是什麼東西引領你來華埠？</p>
<p>陳﹕那時我畢業，主修社會工作及組織社區，作為一個專修社區組織人，我覺得沮喪，象牙塔並不足夠，所以我要義務工作，然後我發現芝加哥華埠，那時我就讀芝加哥大學，最近的華埠就是芝加哥華埠，芝加哥華埠主要是兩條街，一些店舖及鄰舍，在很多方面真的很像日落公園。我沒有找到工作，只能義務工作，所以幾個研究生將資源集合在一起，我記得我們得到市立大學給我們八元時薪，在華埠教書四小時，星期六兩小時，星期日兩小時，我們共八人湊錢租一個舖面，開始工作。<br>

但不幸地，學生終歸是學生，畢業後要四散，沒有留下什麼。所以當我社會工作畢業後，便開始找工作，不再玩了，我需要真正工作，華埠沒有工作，所以我在市長辦公室找到一份就業培訓的策劃及估量的工作，他們讓我接觸多樣化的事務及很多少數民族的青少年，但仍然沒有為華人而設的撥款，障礙是，你不是寫計劃書的人，你不知道問題在那裡，而且那裡的華埠仍然沒有工作機會。以致我在紐約華埠度假時提及這事，他們告訴我紐約華埠有工作，你就要做你想做的事了，所以我說要看看，然後就出任。這是我如何開始，及我如何入行的經過。<br>

但是當然，在求學時，我心內明白到社區人士需要幫助，<br>

明白移民的需要，他們真的沒有語言的能力，沒有支援，較為不幸的一群不知道在那裡尋求協助，所以需要一些從裡面而來的有力協助，學校的栽培引導我這年青人，同時給我機會遇上紐約華埠，然後我明白有很多事情可以做。</p>
<p>問﹕你想幫助社區，是否因為你的家庭背景？你是家庭是否一個典型的移民家庭？或你來自一個完全不同的背景？請告訴我一些你背景的資料。</p>
<p>陳﹕我來自很不同的背景，可以說我來自較優勢的背景，爸爸是工程師，中產，我會說是中產，中上背景，所有華裔中產家庭都希望子女成為工程師或醫生，但我是那些不喜歡化學的人，如果不唸化學，不能有太多職業選擇，不能當工程師或醫生，所以我在實踐家人寄望及實現自己的興趣兩者之間猶豫不決。</p>
<p>不久，我發現對社會科學有濃厚興趣，然後，當然，作為典型華人，我得考慮，從事社會科學不能生活，後來，我在大學唸社會科學及文科，又唸經濟培養理性及商業頭腦。爸爸是一個受過高等教育的人，他問我﹕「唸經濟科如得博士學位，你出來教書﹔如有學士學位，你到銀行當出納員，你想做那一個？」</p>
<p>我時時心存這問題，有趣的是，我越多讀經濟學，就明白到經濟有宏觀的金融，在宏觀經濟，我們處理基本建設──社區，然後我對未開發的社區產生興趣，如第三世界，世界銀行、聯合國之類，<br>

但那是不能實現的願望。有趣的是，機會來了，我撞入華埠的社區，我明白到我不需要看見別處的第三世界社區，在我家的後園就有一個第三世界社區，所以我在華埠當義工，嘗試替人搭橋舖路，最後替了自己的興趣搭了橋，在自己可發揮的地方著了陸，我的技考及興趣已磨練了廿多年，成為我的一部份。</p>
<p>問﹕最後一個問題，你在那裡出生？在那裡成長？</p>
<p>陳﹕非常小時候，我在中國，在上海出生，幾個月大時，我的爸媽抱了我到香港。香港是我的成長地，我在香港讀書，直到高中，到美國時讀十二年級，高中的最後一年。在這以前，我的青少年期、失落期、朋輩等，都在香港。</p>
<p>問﹕你如何到美國？有什麼驅動你到來？</p>
<p>陳﹕嗯，驅動力。</p>
<p>問﹕你自己來的？</p>
<p>陳﹕是的，大概是。那時，我的爸媽是非常聰明的、高教育水平的人，他們明白我來時如果是年青小夥子，就要入伍到越南打仗，他們不想我服役，如我不馬上成為永久居民或公民，而先當學生讀書，就可以延遲服役，所以我以學生身份來，同時，我爸爸因商務可以時時來美。所以我先留學，當徵役期完畢，我就轉換身份成為公民，所以我的背景是從移民開始，我認為我是較幸運的移民，有權選擇，也可以說，懂得如何操縱這制度。</p>
<p>問﹕棒極了，錄音完畢，很好。</p>
<p>[訪問完畢]</p>