N.Y. Creates Model for Battered Women

Asian Women's Center celebrates 15 years of service

Make a Wish: Mai Quan, a battered wife and mother, hangs her paper wish on a bamboo branch in a ceremony at New York City Hall commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Asian Women's Center. Looking on are Quan's son, Matthew, and daughter, Maryann.

by Heather Harlan

Last December, Wen Zhen Guo, a young Chinese immigrant woman who worked at a hair salon in Chinatown, was brutally stabbed to death by her husband in Brooklyn. Although her husband had beaten her repeatedly in the past, she suffered in silence, never daring to report his violence to the police or anyone else who could have helped her.

"She never told anyone because she was afraid people would laugh at her," her brother, Jian Min Guo, said. Guo's death went unnoticed by most New Yorkers. But not by Pat Eng, executive director of the New York Asian Women's Center, which she founded 15 years ago to help battered women break the cycle of abuse and prevent such tragedies. "Wen Zhen is just one of the many battered immigrant women who have died. We must remember their lives and bring meaning to their deaths," Eng said. "The spirit of those who have died and those who continue to suffer must be reborn through our own fire and passion to end violence in the lives of women." Staff from the New York Asian Women's Center, along with former battered women and their children, celebrated the center's 15th anniversary on May 15 at City Hall. Survivors of domestic abuse recounted their own personal tales and Mr. Guo spoke about the death of his sister. In a tearful ceremony, members of the audience hung anti-violence messages on a wishing tree, while origami cranes symbolizing peace at home were passed out to participants. "We wanted to hear the voices of the survivors of domestic violence to remind us of why the center exists," Eng told the audience. Eng was first inspired to start the center back in 1982, while she was studying social work as a graduate student. For her field study, she wanted to investigate violence in the lives of Asian women, but soon discovered that there were no programs specifically geared toward them. So she decided to start her own. "Back then there were no services like this at all for Asian women, but clearly within the community there were women being abused," Eng said.

Today the center offers extensive free and confidential services for battered women and their children, including an emergency shelter program, counseling, health services, support groups, and assistance in navigating the complexities of the court system. The center also operates New York's only 24-hour Asian multilingual hotline for victims of domestic violence. "The idea was to be a women's center dealing with domestic violence," Eng explained. "But as we dealt with domestic violence, we realized that we are really talking about all issues that cover women. Domestic violence affects a woman's employment, housing, health and child care, too."

Eng said that although violence against women can be found in every culture, it's important to have an organization that addresses the needs of Asian women in particular because the problem of domestic battering is often compounded by language barriers and cultural differences. "If someone has little knowledge of English, then that person doesn't have access to information about her rights and what resources are available," Eng said.

"Many Asian cultures have rooted in them that women are the second sex, are not equal, and are subservient to their husbands," she added. The sense of strong family ties in Asian homes can also be another impediment which prevents women seeking help. "Asian women who face domestic abuse may feel that their lives are not theirs to control, that they are part of a network of family and they are the matriarchs who hold the family together," she said. "There's a lot of shame around divorce. That puts a lot of pressure on a woman to stay."

The center works with about 300 women domestic-abuse victims per year, providing desperately needed services such as counseling, translating, and walking them through the court procedures that are often necessary to end the abuse in their lives.

The center does not give out its address to the general public. Out of concern for safety and confidentiality, women who request help from the center meet their counselors in a mutually agreed upon location.

"We have a traveling office," Eng said. "We work with women from all over New York City. Usually we arrange to meet with them in a place that is safe and convenient for everyone. Some women have never been beyond a three-block radius of their homes."

The center's hotline fields about 700 calls per year. Although there are no statistics available on how many women of Asian descent become victims of domestic abuse, Eng estimates the numbers who call or come to the center for help are only the tip of the iceberg

"There are statistics that one out of two women--not just Asian women--have experienced domestic violence," she said. "There isn't any evidence to suggest the Asian community is any different from any other community."

Most of the women the center aids are of Chinese descent, followed by those of Korean descent and those from other Asian ethnic groups. Eng said that proportion is reflective of the population of the city as well as the fact that other Asian ethnic communities are smaller, more close-knit, and therefore less inclined to seek out help. At the City Hall celebration, Eng announced the creation of the center's new logo, a phoenix reborn from fire and ashes, an apt symbol, she said, for survivors of domestic violence.

"The phoenix symbolizes rebirth from fire," she said. "And that's what we feel these women go through every day."

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