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1. Von Wesson (middle, in blue cap) and her fellow workers are paid by the pound of crab meat they clean from the shells. With fewer crabs coming in, theyre earning less money. With large sections of the Gulf of Mexico still closed to fishing due to the massive oil leak, workers in the seafood industry have been hurt all along the southern coast of the United States. A large portion of workers in Alabamas seafood capital originally hail from Southeast Asia, and they face cultural barriers that make coping with the disaster even more difficult. Long process Its 6:45 a.m., and hundreds of people are lined up in front of BPs compensation office in the small Alabama town of Bayou La Batre. They are filing claims of lost income so they can get $5,000 from the giant oil company to pay their bills. The air is humid and a breeze rolls in from the sea. Sue Athanasay brought her grandkids and some plastic chairs to sit in while they wait. Its a long wait. They got in line at four in the morning and the office wont open until seven. Athanasay, originally from Laos, plans to file paperwork for her pregnant daughter, who works in a crab processing plant. A one-third of residents in Bayou La Batre is from Southeast Asia. Many of them work processing seafood caught in the Gulf of Mexico. In a refrigerated workshop, employees from Laos and Thailand in blue aprons crack crab shells over and over for up to 12 hours a day. Lost income Von Wessen, who came to Alabama from Laos when she was three years old, explains that processing the seafood is a skill. You have to learn it because if you dont do it right youll have a lot of bones and a lot of broken pieces. She and the other workers are paid by the pound of crab meat they clean from the shells, not by the hour. With fewer crabs coming in, it means less money for them. This is like our peak season, she says, so usually well be working a full day. And were only working a few hours, like five or six hours. So its cut our income down si