Intimate Partner Violence Against Asian American Women: Moving From Theory to Strategy

III. Structural Factors and External Impediments Examining IPV against Asian American women through a structural lens contextualizes the preceding discussion of individual and situational factors. (139) Broader societal forces and institutional failures profoundly limit the range of options available to Asian American survivors. For example, although one's sense of family primacy may derive from cultural norms, the dearth of language-accessible, culturally appropriate social, legal, and criminal justice services obviously hinders help-seeking. Similarly, an immigration system predicated on marriage creates vulnerability to abuse, amplifying the impact of patrilocality. Culturally specific norms may pull Asian American women towards abusive families and unsympathetic ethnic communities, but indifferent or hostile social and legal service providers push hard in the same direction. Societal racism and racialized responses to community-based organizations that focus on minority groups exacerbate the problem. Given that more than half of Asian Americans are immigrants, familiarity with the system for achieving legal status and citizenship is critical. Family-based immigration law generally gives the U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident spouse control over the citizenship process. (140) In the context of IPV, privileging the marital sponsor fosters an immigrant beneficiary's dependency and facilitates the development of an abusive relationship. (141) A batterer can harm an intimate partner by failing to initiate the necessary administrative process. (142) Manipulation of employment-based immigration law is another form of abuse. Those who enter the United States on work visas are dependent on their sponsoring employers, and [b]atterers have been reported to disrupt and threaten immigrant women's jobs. (143) Additionally, deportation provisions based on relatively minor crimes, such as shoplifting, can fuel victimization: [A] batterer ... who successfully involves his partner in criminal activity can use this criminal history to threaten or to have deported any noncitizen immigrant partner, even legal permanent residents. (144) The difficulty that Asian American women experience in trying to gain access to language-specific, culturally appropriate legal services compounds the problem. As a practical matter, survivors who do not speak English or have limited English proficiency cannot access immigration or other legal remedies absent adequate interpretation services. Despite explicit funding provisions in VAWA 2005 that seek to target underserved communities, (145) the capacity of organizations serving non-English speaking populations falls short of the need. State governments have also recognized the imperative to serve racial, ethnic, and religious minority groups, (146) but this recognition has yet to yield sufficient programmatic capacity to serve these minority populations. A. State Courts' Continuing Failure to Provide Necessary Interpretation Services State court systems generally handle not only requests for orders of protection, but also issues related to child custody, visitation, and support that critically affect the lives of IPV survivors. Nevertheless, these systems routinely fail to provide the interpretation services necessary for equal access to the courts. The lack of interpretation has diminished public confidence in the courts; for example, [i]n California, two-thirds of Asians and Hispanics believe that the courts treat English speakers better than LEP individuals. (147) A 2006 National Center for State Courts report examined nationwide access to interpreter services for individuals seeking civil orders of protection. (148) It documented systemic failures that impede non- and limited English speaking women's access to legal remedies such as orders of protection. (149) Non-English speaking persons seeking orders of protection most commonly spoke Spanish, according to 84% of responding state courts; however, Vietnamese was the next highest response (47%), followed by Russian (41%), and Korean (37%). …