Hard Hit

Large-scale acts of violence are by no means limited to poor or immigrant communities, but Friday's shooting rampage in Binghamton, N.Y., raises questions about how overlooked populations are coping with the effects of the recession. Jiverly Wong, a 41-year-old Vietnamese immigrant who had recently lost his job at a local Shop-Vac factory, killed 13 students and employees and injured four others at the American Civic Association, an immigrant aid center, before taking his own life. Authorities say that Wong, who came to the United States as a child and had been a U.S. citizen since 1995, felt frustrated and "degraded" after becoming unemployed and being mocked for his poor English-speaking skills. NEWSWEEK's Aku Ammah-Tagoe spoke with Audrey Singer, an immigration and demographics expert at the Brookings Institution, about how the economic downturn could impact immigrant communities. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: As the current economic crisis has shown us, recessions disproportionately hurt the middle- and working-class, as manufacturing and other low-skill jobs disappear. Immigrant communities, in particular, are often populated by low-wage workers with limited English-speaking skills. How are they affected?
Audrey Singer: Immigrants do tend to cluster in certain occupations and industries. We saw a decline in construction, for example, and a lot of immigrant workers are in that field. To the extent that immigrants are overrepresented in a specific industry, they are hit harder. You can see it in hospitality, in the service sector and in manufacturing overall.

Conventional wisdom tells us that during hard times, minority groups and immigrants tend to band together and take care of their members. How realistic is that idea?
The majority of immigrants in this country have made a calculation, and come here because of the economic opportunities they see for their families. So we've got a group that is resourceful, that will try to stay employed no matter what. They have several options when a recession hits. We don't have enough evidence yet to know how many people are leaving, but one option is for people to go back home. Another is to move within the United States. So in local communities where jobs are drying up, people may find themselves wanting to move to find better job opportunities elsewhere. But there are social reasons for people to stay. There is a sense that people who are part of a community, whether they're communities at work or communities at school or local communities, tend to develop positive, supportive responses to crises like this.

Can we predict how a drastic economic reversal like this one is going to affect a specific community?
There are a couple of ways it can affect a community. Certainly [it has an impact] in terms of overall morale, and households will be affected economically. If people are having trouble making ends meet they may be unable to send remittances--some people have obligations to family members back home. There is more stress on workers who can't continue to support family, whether they are here or abroad. Additionally, workers who lose their jobs may lose access to health care, and we may see adverse health effects, including mental-health issues.

Wouldn't those obligations to support family members back home, combined with a worsening global economy, attract people to the U.S. instead of turning them away?
In general, the calculation is: which place has the most opportunities? But migrants also have to have the resources to travel. Those migrating as legal permanent residents are less likely to postpone a move. Among undocumented migrants, the situation is likely to be different. Those who may have been planning a move, who have good information about jobs or the lack thereof, are possibly postponing the move. And those who are thinking about returning home may postpone that move based on how they perceive the economic situation at home.

So it slows down movement in either direction?
Absolutely. Migration follows economic cycles and slows during recessions. We saw that during the Great Depression, when worldwide immigration came to a halt.

Is the Binghamton shooting a random occurrence, or a red flag? As the economy worsens, can we expect to see more acts of stress-related violence?
I'm not a mental-health expert, but I'd say that this is an exceptional case. This is definitely a moment where we are going to see social and economic stress. There are responses we're seeing already that don't apply exclusively to immigrants. We see people doubling up in houses [to save money]. We see people moving internally within the United States for better jobs. And we're going to see people reach out for help in places they have not before, whether it's religious organizations or community organizations.

By all appearances, Wong did reach out in some ways. His family lived in the area. He was taking English classes at the American Civic Association, and a former co-worker reported seeing him several times at the local gym. Why and how does the community support system fail?
[Wong] obviously was in despair, which led him to an extreme point. I don't think most people would be likely to go there. But sometimes people respond differently. The hard part is that the safety net doesn't necessarily extend to some of the poorest immigrants who are here--those who are unauthorized or those who just recently arrived. They are the most vulnerable because some of the programs we have don't reach them. That is the group that's most likely to leave, or to move home.

Are there any stress points we should watch out for in our communities?
One thing people are talking about is that we're seeing a slowing of immigration to this country overall [which can slow down community growth]. I think that what this current economic situation means is that we may see even more slowing as people get more information about the lack of jobs. There has also been a shift within the U.S., where hot economies such as home construction have cooled off. Those [industries] were heavily dependent on immigrant labor. They are going to be hit hard in terms of unemployment, and so those are areas to watch, as tension between immigrants and natives can run high in areas and industries where the loss is great.

Are immigrants, especially those outside of the safety net, more likely to crack under economic pressure than anyone else?
What I can say is that migration is one of the most stressful things that a person can do. People might move [in] one day, but the effects of that process are felt over a long period of time. And I think that stress, anxiety, depression and confusion can weigh down on immigrants in a way that they don't on people who haven't made a move.

© 2009