Asian Americans in the Peace Corps

By Bert Eljera

Noel Lee still remembers the bewildered look on her father�s face when she announced she was joining the Peace Corps and going to Mongolia.

"He could not understand it," said Lee, recalling her family�s shocked reaction. "Here I was making good money working for Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, and I was kind of throwing it away by going to Mongolia."

Her father, an immigrant from China who worked hard to send her to college, wondered why she would leave a good-paying job, go to a foreign country, and work for free, Lee said.

That was back in 1992. Lee, 25 at the time, figured there was more to life than making money. "I wanted to make a difference," she said. "I wanted to help people."

So, despite her father�s misgivings, Lee spent two years in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, and worked on a United Nations loan program to help Mongolian women set up their own business.

Eventually, Lee�s family, including her father, came around. Now, she described those two years in Mongolia as the best in her life. "I�ve learned that I can do anything. If I can do it in Mongolia, I can do it anywhere."

Lee is not alone. An increasing number of young Asian Pacific Americans are joining the Peace Corps, the agency established in 1961 by then-President John F. Kennedy to "fight hunger, disease, illiteracy, poverty, and lack of opportunities around the world."

Of the more than 140,000 volunteers who have served on the program for the past 35 years, 900 were Asian Pacific Americans-more than blacks, Latinos, or Native Americans.

This year, the Peace Corps has 6,500 volunteers in 90 countries around the globe. Four percent, or 268, are Asian Pacific Americans.

But, despite the impressive numbers, there�s much debate in Asian American households, pitting young APAs eager to serve and make a difference against pragmatic parents who insist that the family comes first.

Children argue that going abroad is an adventure; parents insist it�s dangerous and the benefits are not worth the risk.

Moreover, in most Asian cultures, volunteerism is not traditional, although most communities encourage mutual help and cooperation as evidenced by the benevolent societies among the Chinese and the bayanihan spirit among Filipinos.

At the Organization of Chinese Americans national convention in San Francisco last month, the Peace Corps booth drew large crowds if only a few on-the-spot volunteers.

"I�d love to do it," said Stephen Ng, 21, a student at City College in San Francisco. "But I can�t afford it. I don�t have the time. I�m better off working and supporting myself and my family."

Emily Nye of San Jose, who also visited the Peace Corps booth, said she considered volunteering when she graduated from college 10 years ago, but her parents did not allow her.

"Maybe my children will get the chance," said Nye, a mother of two girls.

If Asian Americans tend to shy away from volunteer work, "it has nothing to do with culture," said Robert Fung, a professor of Asian American studies at San Francisco State University. It�s all about pragmatism and survival, he said.

Fung said the Peace Corps is a mixed bag for Asian Americans. While altruism is admirable, "there are enough problems at home that we have to take care of. Everyone is looking at Asian Americans as the model minority, but it�s not an accurate picture."

Stanley D. Suyat, an associate director and the highest-ranking Asian Pacific American in the Peace Corps, agrees that the Peace Corps is not for everybody. "It takes a certain type of personality and circumstance-those not ready for a career yet and want to see the world."

Suyat, 52, who was born to parents of Filipino heritage and grew up in Hawaii, served as a volunteer in the Philippines in the 1960s and said the Peace Corps offers a life of adventure, which is appealing to young people.

But he acknowledged that in most Asian Pacific American families, children are expected to find jobs and contribute to the family after finishing school. While there are obvious benefits, volunteering involves sacrifices, he said.

Liz Lee, a Korean American who volunteered to serve in Namibia in southwest Africa in 1991, said her parents were very much against her joining the Peace Corps.

"It�s not something that a lot of Asians do," Liz Lee said. "My parents thought it was very strange that I would want to go to Africa. They said I was better off going back to school."

Louie Abanilla, who came to the United States from the Philippines when he was a boy, joined the Peace Corps and volunteered to go to Poland in 1990-against his parents� wishes.

His parents virtually disowned him, but when he was invited to the White House by then-President George Bush for the send-off, his parents had a change of heart.

"His father came to the U.S. with $200 in his pocket," said Suyat, a friend of the Abanilla family. "And there they were in the White House, at the invitation of the president. It was overwhelming."

Abanilla now works as a recruiter for the Peace Corps in the East Coast, Suyat said.

The average Asian Pacific American volunteer is 27 years old and either fresh from college or has worked for about a couple of years. The majority of APA corps volunteers-59 percent-are female.

Most volunteer out of idealism and a desire to make a difference. Others volunteer because the two years spent with the Peace Corps enhance the prospects for a good career, either in international trade or in nonprofit organizations.

"I gained a wonderful experience," said J. D. Hokoyama, president of the Los Angeles-based Leadership Education For Asian Pacifics Inc., who went to Ethiopia in 1967. "Going and living outside of the country forced me to adopt a much broader view of the world."

Hokoyama said the experience opened his eyes to the need for nonprofit groups, which he has been involved with for more than two decades.

Kelvin Mow, who now manages an importing business in Mill Valley, Calif., said the years he spent in Kenya from 1993 to 1995 offered him a chance to learn a new culture and society.

He lived with a Kenyan family for nearly three months, taught at a computer school, advised women and self-help groups on starting their own business, and conducted business seminars in Kitala, Kenya.

He also set up soccer leagues, coached at a local high school, created videos for the Peace Corps, and solicited funds for various projects in Kenya. "It was a fabulous experience," said Mow, who was 24 when he volunteered. "It was hard being away from my family, but it�s amazing the knowledge you learn about yourself under difficult situations."

Mow, born in New York to a Chinese American father and a mother who is part Chinese, said his parents supported his decision to go to Africa.

"It would only improve my career," said Mow, who was two years out of graduate school when he volunteered. "I wasn�t dependent on them. We�re financially independent of each other."

Henry Der, deputy superintendent for external affairs of the California Department of Education, volunteered to serve in Kenya for the Peace Corps from 1968 to 1970.

"It was a precursor to a lot of social activism, there�s no doubt about it," said Der, who served for more than 20 years as executive director of Chinese For Affirmative Action until his appointment to the education post this year. "If I can go halfway around the world to help people, I surely can help people in my own community."

Suyat, the Peace Corps associate director, said volunteers come back with more experience and with more marketable skills.

"Knowledge of another culture and language are attractive to business," said Suyat, who points to himself as an example of how a stint with the Peace Corps can advance one�s career.

After teaching English in the Philippines, Suyat came back to the United States in 1968, and immediately landed a job with the United Parcel Service in New York.

The line on his resume-Peace Corps volunteer-was the clincher, he said. "UPS felt that I could offer a different perspective to the company, a slightly different way of making a contribution."

Suyat, who was in San Francisco for the OCA convention, spent five years with UPS, then became a partner of a law firm, and later White House liaison to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for the Clinton administration. In 1993, he was appointed Peace Corps associate director.

"It�s not a picnic," he said. "It�s a tough job. You don�t live in ideal conditions. The food is often not familiar, you don�t understand the language. But it�s the toughest job you�ll ever love."

There are practical benefits. Volunteers receive the best language and cross-cultural training by living overseas. They receive career counseling assistance once they finish their volunteer work. They get preference in federal government jobs.

Many student loans are deferred, and a percentage of the principal and interest for a Perkins Loan, a federal student loan program, may be canceled for each year of service.

In addition, volunteers receive housing, food, clothing, and a miscellaneous expenses allowance. After three months of training and two years of service, a volunteer receives a $5,400 readjustment allowance.

These practical benefits often help parents to eventually support their children�s decision, Suyat said.

But, sometimes, parents are hard to appease. Liz Lee said her mother was so worried that the two years she spent with the Peace Corps would limit her chances of meeting a good man and getting married.

"My mother said I should think of marriage," said Liz Lee, 25 and an employee at a biotech company in Emeryville when she volunteered in 1991. "She tried to match me up with a man."

Now 29, Liz Lee works as a Peace Corps recruiter in San Francisco. She is still single.

Margaret Choi, an immigrant from Hong Kong, said she was scared when her daughter, Rhonda Choi, decided to volunteer for Nicaragua in 1993.

She relented, eventually, because Rhonda was persistent, she said. "I just told her that I hope you meet a jungle prince," she said with a laugh. "Find a prince, not a bear or crocodile in the jungle."

She did not find a jungle prince, but Rhonda came back a changed woman, more mature and caring, Margaret said.

But she said she was always apprehensive of her daughter�s safety while Rhonda was in Nicaragua, which is a common concern for parents.

Suyat said the Peace Corps is vigilant about the safety of its volunteers and would not put them in harm�s way. But because they go to all corners of the world, safety problems sometimes crop up. He could not provide figures, but some volunteers have died on assignments, most often due to accidents.

In 1990, a Peace Corps volunteer was kidnapped in the Philippines, Suyat said. The volunteer was unharmed, but it forced the cancellation of the program there for two years, he said.

"The safety of our volunteers is foremost," Suyat said. "We go to some extreme measures, such as stopping a program completely, until we ensure that our volunteers are completely safe."

Suyat himself volunteered to serve in the Philippines back in 1966. He worked as an English teacher in the southern Philippines. A third-generation Filipino American, Suyat said he wanted to learn his roots.

"It was a wonderful education about my culture," Suyat said. "There is no better way to learn about your culture than live in the community."

At the end of his two-year stint in the Philippines, Suyat married his first wife, Victoria, who also was a Peace Corps volunteer. They had two children but are now divorced. Suyat is married to Linda Suyat, a Japanese American.

It may seem a contradiction, but Asian Pacific Americans say becoming a Peace Corps volunteer makes them more American and conscious of their ethnic heritage at the same time.

J.D. Hokoyama, a third-generation Japanese American, said he became more aware of his heritage when he volunteered to go to Africa. "People were always surprised when I said I was an American," Hokoyama said. "They figured I was from the Orient. They were surprised that an American would have an Asian face."

Der, who worked in an agricultural project in Kenya, said the Kenyans thought he was black because he did not have the European features of most Americans.

But Der, born in Stockton, Calif., to Chinese immigrant parents, said he was accepted for who he was, and built lifelong friendships with some Kenyans and volunteers from other countries that he met in Africa.

"You learn to respect other cultures and gain better appreciation of your own," Der said.

That was the most rewarding part of her Mongolian experience, said Noel Lee, whose mother is German.

Lee said the Mongolians told her that she looked more Mongolian than American, with her high cheekbones, porcelain skin, and Asian features.

"They thought all Americans have blond hair and blue eyes," said Lee, who was born in New Mexico and raised in Oklahoma. "I became closer to them because I looked like them."

Lee said the Peace Corps is recruiting more minorities to reflect the changing face of the United States. "We want to tell the world there are Asians in this country, too."

Lee, who moved to San Francisco in 1994, now works at a natural foods store and is learning yoga, hoping to someday open her own holistic health business.

A graduate from Baylor University with a degree in marketing, Lee said she now wants to pursue her own dream. "I was raised to make money, but life is too short to not do what you�re really interested in doing. I want to help people with stressful lives."
Peace Corps at a Glance

Since 1961, 900 Asian Pacific Americans have served on the Peace Corps. Last year, the 268 Asian Pacific American volunteers accounted for 4 percent of worldwide volunteers. Nearly a third of all current minority volunteers (31 percent) are APAs.

Among Asian American volunteers and trainees, 59 percent are women and 41 percent men. Worldwide, 55 percent of volunteers are women and 45 percent men.

Asian Pacific American volunteers tend to be younger than other volunteers. The average age for APAs is 27, compared with the overall average age of 31 for volunteers. Only 4 percent of Asian Pacific American volunteers are over 40, compared to 11 percent for the total group. The oldest Asian Pacific American volunteer is 68.

Asian Pacific Americans have served in every Peace Corps region. Forty-two percent, or 381 volunteers, have been in Africa; 24 percent, or 223 volunteers, in the Americas; 17 percent, or 193 volunteers, in Asia and the Pacific; and 17 percent, or 103 volunteers, in Europe, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean.

Asian Pacific Americans currently serve in 70 of the 94 Peace Corps countries. The countries with the highest number of Asian Pacific American volunteers are Thailand (13); Malawi (11); Nepal (10); and Cameroon (10).

In terms of skill sectors, 28 percent of Asian Pacific American volunteers serve in education; 25 percent in health; 15 percent in environment; 14 percent in business; 10 percent in agriculture; and 5 percent in special projects/urban.

Eighty-nine percent of Asian Pacific Americans have previous language training and 16 percent have nine years or more foreign language experience, which may reflect those who are native speakers of Asian languages.