Asian American Women - Ford Foundation

Part 1
Chapter 1
Welfare Reform’s Impact on
Asian American Women
An Attack On Immigrant Women and Women With Children
At age 49, Mai lives with her 58-year-old husband and four children in a crowded
apartment in San Jose, California. She is the sole breadwinner, as her husband is disabled
from arthritis compounded by the beatings he received in a Vietnamese concentration
camp. Her job assembling electronics parts only yields about $200 per
month on piece rates. Over half of Mai’s income goes to pay the rent. To supplement
her wages, Mai must rely on food stamps, Medi-Cal, cash assistance, and, as a last
resort, a local church for free food. Mai wants a higher paying job, but she cannot
read or write English and she has received only a few months of job training, ESL
classes and job search assistance through Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
(TANF). Mai says, “The five-year TANF limit is very rough. We’ve only been here a
bit more than two years, and our lives are not stable. The fifth year will come and I’m
afraid we won’t be ready.” 1
As enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, every
person has the right to be free from hunger, and to have clothing, housing and
medical services. In passing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act of August 22, 1996 (hereinafter welfare reform), the US violated
these fundamental human rights. Paraphrasing Franklin D. Roosevelt, necessitous
women are not free because “true individual freedom cannot exist without
economic security and independence.”
Welfare reform’s most vicious effects were on immigrant women, who suffer
twofold. First, welfare reform ended Aid to Families with Dependent Children
(AFDC), an entitlement program primarily for single mothers, and replaced it
1
From War on Poverty to War on Welfare: The Impact of Welfare Reform on the Lives of
Immigrant Women, Equal Rights Advocates, April 1999.
25 Part 1, Economic Justice