According to this article, "Vietnamese have the lowest rates of English language proficiency, according to a recent report by the Asian Pacific American Legal Center..." Being illiterate in English results in minimum communication and high misunderstandings between government officials, programs, laws, officers, lawyers, etc...With that in mind, the city of San Jose, CA has the biggest concentration of Vietnamese Americans, but only 2% of sworn officers are fluent in the Vietnamese language.
Poverty Amongst Vietnamese
C.N. Le is a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts and states, "We have a small subgroup among Vietnamese refugees who are in the professional class -- I don't want to minimize that -- but mostly Vietnamese tend to be less well educated and less fluent in English. Refugee groups, because of their experiences, they have very little time to prepare (before they emigrate). You either get out or stay and risk being killed... For a lot of first generation Vietnamese immigrants, they came here with a lot of disadvantages." Many Vietnamese immigrants were already living in poverty before moving to the United States...