By Shirley Lin
Special to AsianWeek
Winnie Chen is a merchant whose unmarked hat and handbag stall faces the pedestrian traffic of Canal Street. Rent is $6,300 a month; but Chen says since Sept. 11, she has been unable to break even. “I’m lucky if I even get two customers an hour,” she says. But government assistance is elusive for Chen, who arrived from Hong Kong two years ago, keeps no receipts and speaks only Chinese.
Despite some indications of recovery, numbers assessing the impact of the World Trade Center attacks on the city’s Asian Pacific American communities over a year later remain sobering. Community groups fear that barriers to emergency and long-term relief have left New York City’s most vulnerable residents struggling in isolation.
That residential, business and health care relief programs might be available to Chinatown residents like Chen was news to her. “How am I supposed to apply?” she asked. “I don’t speak English. I only live by counting my sales from day to day.”
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