Asian-Serving Social Services in the City of Quincy

In the fall semester of 2021, Tisch College Community Research Center (TCRC) sought out community organizations for a partnership that would invite student researchers and TCRC to work on a research project with the community organization as a driving lead. Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC) demonstrated interest in collaborating for their investigation of the City of Quincy’s existing and missing social services for their Quincy site. The purpose of the study is to help BCNC understand Quincy and the services available for their Asian and Asian American residents, especially pertaining to family services and youth services. This study focuses particularly on the culturally responsive nature of services and this information may be used to inform future programming and staff professional development.

The Tisch College Community Research Center (TCRC) is a collaborative research initiative directed by Elaine Donnelly and housed within the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University.  TCRC  supports research partnerships with Tufts stakeholders (faculty and students) and community-based stakeholders from partner organizations, primarily in local communities. Guided by a steering committee made up of community members and university faculty, TCRC prioritizes research projects that place emphasis on addressing issues of social inequity. This research project, which is focused on the assessment of social services for Asian and Asian American residents of Quincy, Massachusetts, was initiated by TCRC’s partner organization, BCNC. The project follows principles of a participatory research approach, one that includes community stakeholders, partners, and researchers across the research process, recognizing the value that each individual’s perspective is able to enhance the project and increase understanding of the research question at large.

Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center ( BCNC ) is the largest nonprofit social service provider for Asians and new immigrants in the Greater Boston area. Since 1969, BCNC has established itself as a key presence in helping Asian residents of Massachusetts through childcare, family development, and economic achievement services, aiding over 13,000 youth and adults annually. In 2014, BCNC expanded its services to the City of Quincy, allowing access to social services geared towards Asian residents living outside BCNC’s main location in the Chinatown neighborhood of Boston. The City of Quincy is home to the largest Asian population in the Greater Boston area, with 30.8% of its residents being of Asian descent. The expansion of BCNC from the Boston Chinatown neighborhood to Quincy was done in order to address and better serve the rapidly growing Asian population in the suburban city.

Our working definition of cultural responsiveness in terms of social services refers to providing services and resources that meet the specific needs of a particular cultural group, especially as they relate to language, economic accessibility, social development, and proximity of the social services’ locations to the target population. The key components of a culturally responsive social service include demonstrating a clear understanding of one’s culture and embracing it as a strength, having awareness of social or political issues surrounding ethnic groups, and leveraging community resources in order to make them assets to personal growth and well-being. Examples of this include presenting cultural representation in role models at the local level, redefining or breaking stereotypes, and building a strong sense of community belonging. 

Part one of the qualitative data collection consisted of conducting a social service landscape review within Quincy. Based on BCNC’s programs and to complement a concurrent study of child care services in Quincy, this project prioritized programming related to youth development and family services. The team compiled a final list, which can be found in the Appendix, of 14 social services, youth-oriented programming, or institutions in Quincy geared towards serving members of the city’s Asian population. The social services were organized into three categories based on who their program mainly served—family, youth, or elders. 

In compiling our list of social services, we decided to cast the widest net possible, searching for any organization that serves primarily Asian and Asian American community members. This provided a comprehensive landscape of what exists in Quincy. We then interviewed the Quincy Mayor’s Asian Constituent Services staff member, Betty Yau, a community activist now working for the city. Starting with her insight, we began narrowing down the organizations we wanted to interview. 

The four social services/organizations that we interviewed were City of Quincy Constituent Services, Quincy Asian Resources, Civic Education Alliance, and the Quincy Community Action Programs.

Demographic data was collected from the U.S Census Bureau. All the data and maps are specific to Asian population living in Quincy and are displayed at the census tract level. The maps display two 5-year time frames from the American Community Survey (ACS): 2011-2015 and 2016-2020. The 2016-2020 census tract boundaries are further divided to more accurately show the differences in communities living in Quincy. The 5-year data is more reliable with larger samples collected over a 60-month period, but the downside is that they are less current. This project uses this set of data because this was the smallest geographic scale and timeframe that had the most substantial Asian specific data. 

Asian Population: This is the total population of Asian people living in Quincy in 2011-2015 and 2016-2020. There is generally a larger concentration of Asian people living in the Northern and Southern parts of Quincy. 

Chinese: Highest population of Chinese live in the northern parts of Quincy (North Quincy, Montclair, and Wollaston). Over the years, more Chinese congregated in the north with some still living in the southern parts of Quincy. 

American Indian: Highest concentration of Asian Indians live near the west of Quincy Point and they spread out to other parts of Quincy over the years

Vietnamese: Higher concentration of Vietnamese live in the southern parts of Quincy including South Quincy, Quincy Point, and West Quincy.

Median Household Income: The Median Household Income only looks at one year data from 2015 and 2020 with households that have at least one Asian person. Households with higher median income live in the south-western parts of Quincy and there has been a general increase in median household income for most census tracts. One significant association is that the census tracts with median age of early 30s were spatially associated with a higher median income. For clarity, it should be noted that several white-colored census tracts have no data and are assigned “0”.

Median Age: In 2011-2015, the youngest median age was 31 and there were more census tracts with people in their 40s. In 2016-2020, the youngest median age was 15 and there were more census tracts with people in their 30s. The trends show that the median age of Asian population has decreased.

% of B.A +: These maps show the percentage of Asian residents over 25 years old who have a B.A. or a higher degree. There were no clear patterns in these maps.

% of Limited English: These maps show the percentage of people over 5 years old who indicated that they “Speak English Less than Very Well”. Over the years, there was a general decrease in the % of people who have limited English in the southwestern parts of Quincy and increase along the coast. The 2016-2020 map shows the available social services in yellow dots. Some social services are located in areas with higher % of people who speak limited English.

% of Foreign Born: In 2016-2020, the percentage of foreign born Asian residents decreased in the center of Quincy.

% Unemployed: The unemployment maps show the percentage of people who are 16 and older who are unemployed. The % of unemployment decreased significantly throughout the years, but there are still some clusters of unemployment in the southeastern parts of Quincy.

% Received FS: The percentage of households who received food stamps in the past 12 months in 2015 and 2020 generally decreased during this period. Germantown conveys an example of the relationship between the various demographic criteria. Germantown received the highest % of food stamps in 2020 and the unemployment rate was also in the higher range. These results align with the higher median age and lower median household income in Germantown in 2016-2020.

% No Health Insurance: The % of Asian people without health insurance is very low, but there are a few census tracts in West Quincy and Quincy Point with 7+% of Asian residents without health insurance. There is no clear spatial pattern between the two timeframes.

Spatially, higher median household income was associated with those older than the median age of 37, and lower percentage of limited English. We then proceeded to evaluate the relationships statistically too.

Limited English% is the percentage of people over 5 years old who indicated that they do not speak English well. The above table shows how at the census tract level, as the percentage of people who speak limited English increases by one percent, Median Household Income on average decreases by 1744.278 dollars. Nevertheless, it is important to note that there are other omitted variables that might affect Median Household Income (for example, there could be an upward bias), and by adding other variables (such as education level), the effect of LimitedEnglish% on median household income will most likely decrease. Here the adjusted R^2 value is 29.34%, which means 29% of the variation in Asian median household income is explained by LimitedEnglish%. 

• To summarize, between 2011-2015 and 2016-2020, there was a decrease in median age, increase in median household income, and decrease in the percentage of people who speak limited English.
• Higher median household income was spatially associated with median age of early 30’s, lower percentage of limited English, and lower % of households receiving food stampsTo summarize, between 2011-2015 and 2016-2020, there was a decrease in median age, increase in median household income, and decrease in the percentage of people who speak limited English. 
• In relation to the location of social services, central Quincy has a higher concentration of social services available compared with the city overall but a lower concentration of Asian residents. Northern Quincy also has a higher concentration of social services and these are most often located in census tracts with higher concentrations of foreign-born Asian residents with limited English. The maps show gaps in social services in Germantown, Quincy Point, and South Quincy.  
• Since the Asian population encompasses many ethnic groups, BCNC may consider where specific ethnic groups congregate and provide appropriate culturally sensitive social services.

Comparing data from 2015-2016 and 2020-2021 academic years, out of the 19 public schools, 16 schools showed an increase in asian enrollment rate, the average increase rate is 11.4%.

Pre-K to Elementary Schools (12 total)

The average Asian enrollment rate for pre-K to elementary schools in 2015-2016 was 36.88%, and the average rate for 2020-2021 was 43.5%. The average percent increase for the pre-K to elementary schools was 18%.

Middle Schools (5 total)

The average Asian enrollment rate for middle schools in 2015-2016 was 36.3% , and the average rate for 2020-2021 was 36.7%. The average increase for Asian enrollment in the middle schools is 1.04%.

Out of all the middle schools, Central Middle School had the highest percent increase (10.2%), and only Snug Harbor Community School showed a decrease in enrollment rate (23.5%).

High Schools (2 total)

Comparing the two academic years, North Quincy High had a 5.4% decrease in enrollment of Asian students while Quincy High saw a 7.5% increase. Nevertheless, in 2020-21, North Quincy High still had a 52.6% Asian enrollment rate, indicating a demonstrably larger Asian population than Quincy High (23% Asian enrollment rate).

A growing younger generation: Out of the three school categories, pre-K to elementary schools had the average highest increase in Asian enrollment compared to middle schools and high schools.

Spatial Analysis

Clusters of public schools with higher percentages of Asian enrollment were located in census tracts that have higher popluations of Asian residents, but the social services in Central Quincy are not as close to the public schools around it.

FTE (Full Time Equivalent. Note: Each part-time employee counts as a fraction of one FTE based on the average number of hours worked.)

The ratio of Asian student enrollment to Asian staff FTE did not increase between the 2015-16 academic year and the 2020-21 academic year. The average ratio remained approximately 1:8. During the 2015-16 academic year, there were 4 out of 19 Quincy public schools that had no Asian staff. By  2020-21, however, there was only one public school (South West Middle School) that had no Asian staff.

Comparing the two academic years, there was a 86.6% decrease in the amount of Asian students disciplined.

For Asian graduates in both high schools, there was an overall decrease in the percentage attending college from 2016 to 2020. Potential reasons for the decrease may include challenges of the coronavirus pandemic (since spring 2020) for AAPI workers and entrepreneurs. This includes 16% of Asian-owned businesses that witnessed steep revenue declines during the pandemic. Economic losses may have particularly impacted  many AAPI employees who have jobs (assemblers, fabricators, and manicures) that cannot be performed at home. This job loss might lead to less financial ability to provide children with higher education opportunities and children entering the job force right upon graduation. Furthermore, due to many schools switching to online teaching, students might have suffered from a lack of motivation or insufficient preparatory resources for college entrance exams. Both North Quincy High and Quincy High’s college readiness index on U.S. News is respectively 23.5/100 and 31.1/100, below the national average. This data and the decreasing trend of Asian graduates attending college indicates a need for services to better prepare students for college counseling and advanced placement exams. BCNC may expand into directly providing these resources or indirectly helping students find those college preparatory resources.

In terms of types of college, comparing the two academic years, both North Quincy High and Quincy High had an increase in Asain graduates enrollment in Public Four-Year colleges with North Quincy High (187.5% increase) having a more significant increase than Quincy High (22.1% increase ). Both high schools also showed a decrease in Asian graduates enrollment in Public Two-Year and Private Four-Year colleges. Asian graduates’ increased preference for Public Four-Year colleges are potentially due to lower tuition and more campus diversity. For both highschools, there was an increase in students attending University of Massachusetts in the 2020 academic year (over 50 percent of the Asian graduates who chose to attend college chose to attend), while there was a decrease in students attending Massachusetts Community Colleges. 

We conducted in-depth interviews with five community leaders in Quincy. These interviews lasted approximately 45 minutes to an hour and were composed of open-ended questions. The questions can be viewed in the Appendix.

The goal of these interviews was to gather community leaders’ perceptions of culturally responsive services for Asian Americans in Quincy and where their organizations fit into that definition. We were also interested in hearing their organizational successes and challenges, and recruiting methods. In addition, their narratives give a more in-depth perspective of Quincy and its needs that they see play out within their own programming. By interviewing, we hope that BCNC can use community leaders’ insights to improve the areas where social services lack.

Throughout our interviews, key recurring challenges in social services included expanding services to meet the needs of second generation Asian Americans, while focusing on the long-term outcomes of immigrants, and subsequent generations of families in Quincy. Later generations may experience different needs than the new immigrants and face different obstacles that also require attention. For example, Yau from the City of Quincy’s Constituent Services referenced issues such as legal aid for complex home ownership cases.

Regarding other trends among the interviews, three organizational staff members specifically named a growing need for mental health services. There seem to be advances in this area, however, as Quincy is home to Elephant in the Room, one of the only all-Asian serving counseling centers in the Greater Boston area. It was founded by a group of Asian American clinical social workers who provide multilingual services. Despite this asset in mental health services for Quincy’s Asian Americans, Elephant in the Room currently has a waiting period of at least one year for a virtual session ( Elephant in the Room ). This waitlist demonstrates that Elephant in the Room’s niche of linguistically-competent mental health  social workers is highly sought after and that Asian residents are likely being underserved by targeted and culturally responsive counseling services.

Moreover, there is a demand for family support related to older youth as stated by Yeung and Bleakney from QCAP, potentially associated with the lack of mental health services. When children are young, they are sent to daycare or after school programs, however, parents may have less of a grasp on older children’s after school activities and high school students have less knowledge of after-school enrichment programs if not prompted by their parents, teachers or peers. This could be an opportunity for BCNC to engage more high school students in youth mentorship programs, or increase youth leadership curriculums that invite parents to the conversation. 

Another large and perhaps more overt factor in an entity being culturally responsive is capacity. Repeatedly during interviews, staff members name language capacity as their major challenge to be culturally-responsive. Another related issue is staff capacity. One staff member expressed being one of the only Chinese-speaking staff in her department. although she had colleagues who shared backgrounds working in multicultural family services even if they were not bilingual. Having this shared professional experience contributes to being a culturally-responsive service since it necessitates knowledge of working with people from different backgrounds. Other staff members described their concerns of being the only staff on-site serving the constituents in their department and having too many responsibilities on their plate. Being under-staffed may pose a barrier in maximizing services and therefore reducing the quality of service delivery. 

Lastly, as per our working definition of a culturally responsive approach, we believe that establishing rapport with the community is a critical component to effective social services. As Poon from CEA mentioned, a potential factor for services that are culturally responsive is reciprocity. Clients and constituents are much more inclined to return and give back to the organization when there is a sense of trust established with the staff or when they feel that the organization meets their needs. Once families and youth feel content with the services they have received, those who feel connected to the mission and who want to share the service will give back by volunteering or spreading organizational information to their friends and neighbors. In this way, a service can build their credibility of being culturally responsive by having local volunteers and advocates who hold language and cultural knowledge.

While our team has spent the Spring 2022 semester looking into the landscape of Quincy and its existing social services, we find that there are limits to the scope of our research. One limitation was the fact that we did not interview any BCNC staff. While two team members, Nicole and Abi, provided significant contextual information, interviewing BCNC Quincy staff would supplement their knowledge of the political climate and specifically, family, youth and elder services. We were intentional in choosing not to interview these members while first conducting our research in an effort to stay unbiased. However, interviewing BCNC members after completing our initial research would have allowed us to make important connections in our work and draw helpful conclusions. 

We also felt that evaluating the effectiveness of an organization’s culturally responsive service was incomplete as we could not do a thorough interviewing of their constituents. Constituents who directly receive these services would be a good source of information. Another method would be conducting participant observation of programs and comparing the work to our definition of a culturally responsive approach. However, due to the constraints of time, the team was unable to accomplish this. 

If given the opportunity to continue this research, we would move forward with interviewing BCNC Quincy staff. We believe their perspective would offer valuable insight on how they themselves believe BCNC is doing as an organization and what more they could improve on. Furthermore, being self-reflective about their own practices can reveal more about where issues or challenges lie. At times, organizational leadership or city politics can impact the effectiveness of the social services. That being said, an additional place for research is into the relationships between community organizations and municipal authority. While receiving direct feedback from Quincy social workers provide insightful material for the research, their programming and its capacity exists within higher-level contexts such as the city’s political climate and policies. These are factors that can play a role in how a social service performs its culturally-responsive nature and require further investigation that are beyond the scope of this report. 

I am a product of BCNC Boston’s YouLead programming and after learning more about other leadership organizations, I felt that my experience was unique in its mission. I believe that the Asian-American diaspora and our struggle to become leaders in this world is inherently political and thus calls for some form of activism. While my time in YouLead was not overtly protesting or rallying, the work called for a reflection of systems of oppression in our community, such as the United Way Youth Venture social entrepreneurship projects. But this was not common for all leadership programs. I noticed that others seem to aim for quantity over impact such as offering quick, short term volunteer opportunities for the purpose of completing the high school graduation community service requirement. Other long term, high commitment opportunities are selective and not offered to all who are interested. In addition, the projects in the curriculum need to do more than celebrate Chinese/Asian culture. Do the youth who volunteer and lead understand the importance of these projects and is there an emphasis on racial identity formation and community building? 

Given Quincy’s sizable Asian population, there is a lack of engagement from the youth to participate in leadership programs. With so many youth, volunteer programs and high school sports are a narrow way for eager high school students to meaningfully engage with their peers and community outside of the classroom. Overall, there seems to be less of a grasp on youth participation in Quincy’s after-school scene. 

As a Quincy local, the findings of this project validated many of the informal and personal experiences I have had growing up in Quincy. It encouraged me to think deeper about some of the systemic challenges that many first and second generation immigrants face while residing in our city. 

Having lived in Quincy for 20 years, I have been witness to the city’s developmental changes as well as its prominent and growing Asian population. Being able to apply my resident knowledge in answering team inquiries and interpret GIS mapping was useful throughout the research process. Conducting interviews with community stakeholders of Quincy who are doing work to help support Asian Americans in the city has been an enriching experience that has allowed me to develop more knowledge about organizational work. Gathering insight from community members who access these services could have provided more insight on what it means for social services to be culturally responsive, but there is promise for future research to delve into this concept. This research project, one that is expected to branch out into further studies to improve Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center’s programming and practices, has increased my interest in evaluation research. 

Quincy Social Services Landscape Review: For the list of organization information, click  here . Survey/Interview Questions: For the full list of interview questions, click  here . Link to recorded student presentation:  Tisch Community Research Conference .