By Gerald Korson
Voice correspondent

Vuong arrived in the East Bay with very little money, few job skills, an elementary-level education, and no understanding of the English language and life in the United States.

This group of refugees is among the nearly 500 per year who receive employment training at Catholic Charities of the East Bay at either its Oakland or Fremont site. CCEB PHOTO

He had fled his home country as a refugee, leaving behind his wife and children in hopes that he could find gainful employment and eventually save enough to bring them to join him in America.

Catholic Charities of the East Bay (CCEB) is helping to make that dream come true. Its Refugee Employment Program (REP) has helped Vuong (not his real name) and other refugees in Alameda County acquire the basic cultural and communication skills needed to survive. The program has trained him and helped him find work as a security guard in San Francisco.

CCEB has also assisted him with the immigration paperwork necessary to allow him to reunite with his family. If all goes well, Vuong’s wife and children may arrive by the end of the year.
 

Quick facts on REP • The U.S. government sets annual admissions ceilings to control the flow of refugees. The annual total usually runs between 50,000 and 75,000 admitted. • As defined by the United Nations, refugees generally must have left their home country due to a “well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Several voluntary not-for-profit agencies help in the resettlement process. Among these is the U.S. bishops’ Department of Migration and Refugee Services, which handles about 30 percent of refugees to the United States each year and funnels them to more than 100 dioceses that provide the necessary assistance at the local level.

REP has been matching refugees with employers since 1975, the same year that Congress first allocated federal funds to the various states for the resettlement of refugees. What began as a channel for receiving Southeast Asians in the aftermath of the Vietnam War became a conduit of support for refugees and asylum seekers from dozens of nations who are looking for a fresh start on American soil.

Dominican Sister Elisabeth Lang, director of CCEB’s refugee programs, has been part of it all from the beginning. She left her native Vietnam before the fall of Saigon and came to Oakland for what originally was to be a short-term stint to help resettle refugees arriving from her homeland. She’s been here ever since.

“Once we resettled the first refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, we kept going because then we had refugees arriving from other places like Cuba,” said Sister Lang.

Over the years, refugees have come to the East Bay from Bosnia, Russia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Burma, Nepal, and dozens of other countries.

Arriving refugees are eligible to receive need-based federal cash and medical assistance for up to eight months, during which time they must actively seek employment or participate in job-training programs. That’s where the CCEB Refugee Employment Program steps in.

“We make sure that the refugees have basic English so that they have enough knowledge to understand and be able to communicate,” said Sister Lang. “Some of the refugees coming out of countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Burma, and the Thai refugee camps have low education levels, and their English skills are almost nonexistent. So it’s a challenge.”

Then comes cultural orientation to help refugees adapt to the U.S. employment market. Refugees are taught how to apply for a job, interview skills, how paychecks work, telephone etiquette, and the use of public transportation.

“It’s a very different world,” said Sister Lang. “To get a job in this country, you have to ‘sell yourself,’ but they haven’t had to do that if they come from Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.

“For refugees from cultures where they don’t look a person in the face, even job interviews can be very intimidating. So we go through mock interviews so that they are familiar with the process.”

Over the years, REP has found jobs for “thousands and thousands” of refugees, she said.

Soonkuay Tzeo, who came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1979, is a REP business employment specialist. He does intake interviews with new refugees, including background checks and assessing their education and job skills. Once that is completed, he told The Voice, it’s all about marketing.

“My success with my clients is based in personal relationships that I build with employers — the owner, or the human-resources director, or the department manager,” Soonkuay said.

It also has a lot to do with the determination of the workers themselves.

“Our refugee clients are the hardest workers,” he said. “They are not lazy, they are not playing hooky, they are very productive, period. It’s because of their background, what they’ve been through, how much they have suffered. Minimum wage in the United States is far better than what they earned back home.”

Most are placed in entry-level positions in customer service, security, restaurant cook, manufacturing and manual labor, but some with professional experience, such as nurses and lab technicians, have found jobs that fit their advanced training.

CCEB also contributes generously to help refugees obtain credentials for jobs such as certified nursing assistant and security guard.

“Everything we do is so intense during those eight months [of the refugees’ federal assistance] because they have to get a job before they are cut from the benefits,” said Soonkuay.

The economic crisis has made job placements more difficult, but even so the program last year helped about 80 percent of its 500 or so clients locate jobs.

One of them was a woman who came to REP two months before her federal benefits were to be severed. Her husband and child had stayed in her home country. She had a bachelor’s degree and expressed an interest in becoming a nurse. REP quickly enrolled her in a five-week certified nurse assistant training program. Before her benefits expired, she had not only her nursing certification but also two well-paying nursing jobs.

“She was making $3,000 a month. She is renting a nice house, and her whole family is here,” Soonkuay said.

“She had to quit one job because it was too much work. Her daughter now is attending high school, and her husband is now going through the same process that she did. We’ll help him and find him a job and they’ll be a happy family.”

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