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November 26, 2002

Immigrant Puts Heart in Love and Work

From: New York Times - 26 Nov 2002

By ARTHUR BOVINO

Jin Luo has taught without hearing the chatter of children. He has cooked without hearing the bubble of slow-boiling water or the sound of a knife blade against a chopping block. He has repaired boat engines without hearing them catch and doesn't know the ticking of passing seconds from the watches he has fixed.

Since an accident when he was a boy in China, he has lived in a world of near total silence. At the Pathmark on Farrington Street in Flushing, Queens, where he works as a baker, just about the only sound that slips past his ruined inner ears is the jarring buzzer of the oven timer.

But Mr. Luo, 42, has never let his disability keep him from pursuing love, a new home in a new land, an honest living and the dream of a better life. It has taught him how to be as self-sufficient as possible, and how to seek out agencies like the Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service, one of the seven local charities that benefit from The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, when he needs a little help.

Mr. Luo grew up in Taishan, in Guangdong Province, China. When he was 5 years old, he fell off a ledge where he was playing.

"I burst my skull," Mr. Luo said, speaking in American Sign Language through an interpreter, Emma Mio, a caseworker at the Brooklyn Bureau. "I burst my eardrums. They thought I was dead."

Mr. Luo could communicate only by writing on a pad of paper. So when he was 9, his mother enrolled him at the Taishan School for the Deaf, where he learned how to sign in Chinese. He also met a little girl, Xing, who would one day become his wife.

In 1985, Xing and her parents moved to the United States. She and Mr. Luo were in love, so they planned to marry and to reunite in America.

For seven years, Xing worked as a seamstress to save the money to bring Mr. Luo to New York. In the meantime, "We wrote letters every week," he said.

Mr. Luo worked at whatever jobs he could find in China, guided by necessity and his natural curiosity. He was a substitute math teacher for deaf children, a cafeteria cook, a rice paddy farmer, an electrician, a boat repairman and a watch repairman.

Xing made a brief visit to China in 1992, and the couple married. She returned to New York and continued saving money for her husband's trip. When Mr. Luo finally came to the United States in 1997, he had not seen his wife in five years.

"She met me at the airport at night," Mr. Luo said. "I was excited to see her."

Now he shares the 350-square-foot apartment in Astoria where his wife, her brother and their parents have lived since arriving in the United States. Mr. Luo's first job was in Queens, sewing at a textile company where his wife worked.

But Mr. Luo had higher aspirations. He wanted to earn more so he and his wife could move into an apartment of their own. Over three months, he saved $150 so he could take classes in American Sign Language and English at La Guardia Community College in Long Island City.

A counselor at the college told Mr. Luo about an office of the New York State Education Department that assists students with disabilities. There, he was referred to the Brooklyn Bureau.

"Every time he comes to my office he's well dressed," said Ms. Mio, who has been helping Mr. Luo since August. "He's very professional, very polite. He looks like he's going for a job interview."

Mr. Luo enrolled last year in a course at the bureau that teaches people with disabilities how to stock shelves and work in basic food preparation. The program is partly financed by money from the Neediest Cases Fund.

People usually take six weeks to complete the course, Ms. Mio said, but Mr. Luo finished in three.

The bureau placed him at Pathmark, where he works eight hours a day, five days a week, and earns $7 an hour. Ms. Mio sees him twice a month and receives evaluations from his supervisor.

Mr. Luo would like to be a chef eventually and cook Chinese food at a hotel. But right now, he is focusing on an apartment. Since he cannot afford brokers' fees and would be able to spend only about $300 a month, the bureau is trying to help.

Last week, the bureau used $1,000 from the Neediest fund to buy a new full-size bed and mattress, along with sheets and blankets, for Mr. Luo and his wife. Their old mattress was a twin handed down through three generations.

Mrs. Luo, 40, recently lost her job when the textile company closed, so Mr. Luo is grateful to be working. And his manager, Steven Rosario, is happy to have him on the job. His promptness and efficiency have made him a valuable asset over the past year, Mr. Rosario said.

"When Jin does the work," he said, "I don't even have to look."

"I've been trying to get him a raise for the past six months," Mr. Rosario added. "Jin Luo is the man. I always tell him that."

Mr. Luo just laughed.

Copyright The New York Times Company