Hmong families affected by Helene are seeking Asian food products and language access services

In the more than 30 years Duabhav Lee has lived in Morganton, she said she has never seen a storm hit her hometown as heavily as Helene did.

“It’s heartbreaking,” she said on October 8. “There are still people without power.”

Lee, co-founder and board member of the NC Hmong Women Association, was able to regain power in her home just a few days after the storm. But she knows many relatives and friends, especially in Burke County, who have been displaced and are staying with other relatives.

“A lot of older people say, ‘Oh, this is a flashback to our lives in Laos, so we were made for this,’” said Nancy Xiong, director of culture and education for the nonprofit Hmong Southeast Puavpheej.

North Carolina has the fourth largest Hmong population in the country: more than 13,000 according to the 2020 U.S. Census. Many live in Catawba and Burke counties.

Like other residents of Western North Carolina, many Hmong families in the area are dealing with extended power outages and problems accessing food, clean water and medicine. Community leaders say Hmong residents, especially older people who arrived as refugees after the Vietnam War, face additional challenges: Asian food items, such as rice and noodles, have become difficult to obtain, and people with limited English language skills need help needed when applying for federal assistance.

The NC Hmong Women Association is working with volunteers and groups across the state to organize Asian food donations, specifically asking for rice, noodles, canned vegetables, sauces and other Asian grocery items that are difficult to obtain at most donation distribution sites. Based on attendance at their distribution locations during the first few days after Helene, association co-founder and president Sendra Yang estimated that Helene may have impacted 300 Hmong families.

“At the end of the day, it’s so important to get through this disaster and have comfort food,” Yang said.

Rice, noodles and other Asian foods are in high demand

Helene destroyed farms in her path, including those of Hmong residents.

“A lot of older people have farms that feed about 60% of their diet, and they supplement the rest with what they get from the Asian grocery store,” said Thea Yang, a Hickory resident.

Yang added that her parents have a farm and the storm decimated about half of their rice crop.

A number of Hmong farmers also regularly sell produce and other goods at a Thursday market at the Hickory American Legion Fairgrounds. That market has been closed since Helene.

“That farmers market is very essential to the Hmong community in North Carolina,” said Duabhav Lee.

Thanks to Sendra Yang, NC Hmong Women Association

Interpretation needs for federal disaster response programs

Community leaders are also looking for volunteers who are fluent in Hmong and English to serve as interpreters for families who need help applying for FEMA assistance. They noted that older Hmong people with limited English rely heavily on younger generations to inform them about post-storm recovery. Many people are unaware that FEMA assistance is available to them, Xiong said.

“We as younger generations are on social media, watch the news and understand English. We can only spread awareness through word of mouth,” Xiong said.

Translating from English to Hmong can be quite a challenge, says Thea Yang. There are many words in English that do not exist in the Hmong language, a problem that families have long been familiar with.

“You need not only skilled interpreters, but also people with a lot of patience and people who can describe a word that doesn’t exist in the Hmong language,” Yang said. “It’s almost like reading a Shakespeare play. I know it’s in English, but you have to translate what it means and that difficulty is similar to what it’s like to translate from English to Hmong.”

The Hmong Women Association organized it various FEMA assistance events this month at the Hildebran Library to help members of their community fill out forms. They have also organized themselves a town hall meeting at the Foothills Higher Education Center in Morganton on Saturday, Oct. 12 to help educate people about the Small Business Administration and FEMA programs.

In the two weeks since Helene devastated the western part of the state, FEMA officials say the agency has distributed more than $60 million in individual aid to North Carolina residents.

North Carolina’s Latino population also faces similar language barrier issues. Latino-focused community organizations are also working to spread awareness and establish resources to help families apply for federal disaster assistance.

“This is one of the first times I’ve seen such targeted outreach to our immigrant communities,” said Thea Yang, commenting on efforts to help Latino and Hmong residents in western NC.

Mee Moua, a former Minnesota state senator who lives in Cleveland County, said she would like to see state and local governments provide better language access resources to the region’s growing Hmong community.

“It’s not enough to say the community will get through it,” Moua said. “Federal, state and provincial resources have been allocated resources for moments like these and we want to ensure that our people have access to those resources for the long term. How do we ensure that barriers are removed so that our communities are not left behind?”