Immigrants and Refugees with Physical Disabilities

"In 1975, after the fall of Saigon, about 125,000 Vietnamese refugees fled to the United States." (Leung, Cheung, & Cheung, 2010) If this was the number of Vietnamese in the USA in 1975, imagine how many more Vietnamese have immigrated to the USA in the past 35 years. Assuming the number of Vietnamese refugees that are living in the USA, we must think of how many of these people have a physical or a mental disability.

Imagine if you were an immigrant. Imaging immigrating just from Canada to the USA. It would seem easy, right? Everyone speaks your language, and you might even be happy about it considering all the great shopping down there! (Ha ha) Now imagine if you didn't speak any English what-so-ever. Imagine not knowing a single thing about the English language, or knowing our customs, traditions, and way of life. This is the life of an immigrant from any foreign country. "Vietnamese refugees resettled in the United States have suffered war-related trauma or separations from family members, torture in refugee camps, and/or immigration adjustment difficulties." (Leung, Cheung, & Cheung, 2010) This just proves my point further about the difficulties that Vietnamese immigrants / refugees go through.

This article also talks about a study that was done. This study showed that 5.5% of Vietnamese immigrants who had just immigrated to the USA had severe depression. The study also showed that after two months of living in the USA, this statistic was raised from 5.5% to 20%. "Without exception, Chinese American children reported being victims of harassment and assaults such as theft, vandalism, or physical attack. Such experiences, proposed in their developmental competence model, play a significant role in ethnic minority children’s developmental outcomes including behavioral problems." (Deng, Kim, Vaughan, & Li, 2009) This proves that going through the immigration process as well as adjusting to the culture in the USA played a big part in these peoples' depression. Also, that in school, many immigrant children are picked on for being "different" or for not speaking the same language.

Now, all of this being said, depression may not seem as though it could be classified as a physical disability. (See my previous post, Depression Among Older Adults.) But imagine for one minute that you are an immigrant, but you also happen to have a disability. As if immigrants and refugees aren't discriminated against enough as it is, if someone has a disability, that would just make it even worse to be in their position. Many people don't realize how difficult it could be to immigrate to a different country. Not only the legal aspect of it, but also the emotional and cultural aspect of it. Reading these articles opened my eyes to the fact that many of these people leave their families behind, move to a country where they don't know the language, and not to mention move to a place where they don't know a single person or how to live the way the people in that country do!

- Amanda P.

Citations:

Leung, P., Cheung, M., & Cheung, A. (2010) Vietnamese Americans and Depression: A Health and Mental Health Concern. Social Work in Mental Health, 8(6), 526-542. Retrieved from http://pdfserve.informaworld.com.proxy2.lib.umanitoba.ca/631419_770885140_927929140.pdf

Deng, S., Kim, S., Vaughan, P., & Li, J. (2010) Cultural Orientation as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Chinese American Adolescents’ Discrimination Experiences and Delinquent Behaviors. J Youth Adolescence, 39(9), 1027-1040. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com.proxy2.lib.umanitoba.ca/content/7l57007258x28246/fulltext.pdf