NCVA eREPORTER
- November 22, 2005
The National
Congress of Vietnamese Americans' NCVA eReporter is a regular email
newsletter containing information on
grant/funding
opportunities, events/forums/conferences, available
internships
and news items pertinent to the Vietnamese American and Asian
Pacific American communities.
In this NCVA eReporter:
EVENTS
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
TIPS/RESOURCES
NEWS
******************
EVENTS
THE
FIRST ANNUAL COLLEGE PREPARATION SEMINAR
Hosted by the George Washington University Vietnamese Student
Association & the National Congress of Vietnamese Americans
Who are we?
The George Washington University’s (GWU) Vietnamese Student
Association (VSA) is comprised of Vietnamese American Students
whose main goal is to make a difference in the Vietnamese
Community. The members of the GW VSA has partnered with the
National Congress of Vietnamese Americans (NCVA) to put together
a one-day seminar. Our goal is to help High School students in
the DC/MD/VA area to be familiar, comfortable, and confident
with the transition from High School to College.
What is the College Preparation Seminar?
This is the first free College Preparation Seminar targeting
Asian American and Vietnamese students. With this seminar, we
hope to develop and help high school students in several
aspects. The Seminar is comprised of three sessions with several
sub-group workshops.
Session I- Identity: Two workshops
1) What does it mean to be Vietnamese American?
2) The Model Minority Workshop
Session II -Leadership: Three Workshops
1) Empowerment of Vietnamese Americans
2) What Kind of Leader Are You?
3) Career Leadership in the Real World
Session
III- College: Four workshops
1) How to Get Into College
2) How to Study in College
3) How to Pay for College
4) Social Aspects of College
Upon attending the Seminar, we hope students become more
confident in applying and transitioning into the next chapter of
their lives. In addition, we hope students will use the skills
acquired from this Seminar and apply them to their future. In
attending the Seminar, we promote a stronger Vietnamese American
community and help those in need of academic guidance and
advice.
Date: Saturday, January 21st 2005.
Check-in will begin at 9:00 am and the Seminar will end at 4:00
pm.
Location: The George Washington University
Marvin Center
800 21st Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20052
Details on transportation and directions provided upon
admittance into Seminar.
How To Apply
To apply for the free Seminar, application/registration packets
can be found online at
http://www.gwu.edu/~vietclub or
http://www.NCVAonline.org. There are two parts to the
packet; Application & Registration.
Complete BOTH, the Application & Registration forms, and submit
via email or regular mail.
APPLICATIONS ARE DUE BY DECEMBER 9, 2005
1. ONLINE VIA INTERNET: To apply as an attendee for the College
Preparation Seminar, go to
http://www.gwu.edu/~vietclub and fill out both forms. It is
available as a WORD or PDF format. Send completed packets to
gwu_vsa@gwu.edu
2. BY MAIL: For mail in applications, print and complete the
packet. Mail to:
Vietnamese Student Association College Preparation Seminar
C/O Margaret Vo
510 21st Street NW #713
Washington DC, 20006
Please postmark by DECEMBER 5th
For more information, please visit
http://www.gwu.edu/~vietclub or
http://www.NCVAonline.org. Or email us at:
gwu_vsa@gwu.edu, or call Dave Nguyen at 703-864-6558.
(http://www.ncvaonline.org/regform_prjHS06.htm)
******************
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
YOUTH
SERVICE AMERICA: DISNEY MINNIE GRANTS
Disney Minnie Grants, administered by Youth Service America,
provide support for young people (ages 5-14) to plan and carry
out service projects for National and Global Youth Service Day
on April 21-23, 2006. Grants of up to $500USD each are available
for youth-designed service projects that respond to a community
need. Projects should be branded as National and Global Youth
Service Day projects, but they may take place as part of a
school or local service event. Applicants must be children or
youth between the ages of 5-14, or schools and organizations
that work with youth (ages 5-14). Both U.S. and international
applicants are invited to apply. The application deadline is
January 13, 2006. Visit the website for more information or
email (mailto:MinnieGrant@ysa.org).
(http://www.ysa.org/awards)
******************
FUNDING FOR SCHOOL
LIBRARIES
The goal of the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries is
to provide print books to the school libraries and students that
most need them. Grants of up to $5,000 are made to update,
extend, and diversify the book collections of school libraries.
Preference is given to elementary, middle, or high schools in
which 90% or more of the school population receives free or
reduced lunch. All Foundation grants are made to individual
schools rather than to school districts, foundations, or other
entities. The application deadline is December 30, 2005.
(http://www.laurabushfoundation.org)
******************
ABELARD FOUNDATION SUPPORTS SOCIAL CHANGE PROGRAMS
The Abelard Foundation, a member of the Common Counsel
consortium of foundations, is committed to social change
activities that expand community control over economic, social
and environmental decisions affecting the communities’
well-being. The nonprofit organizations that the Foundation
supports use a broad range of tools, including grassroots
organizing and advocacy, to accomplish social change as they
work toward the goal of a more democratic, just, and equitable
society. Common Counsel reviews proposals to the Abelard
Foundation West from groups located in the Northern Rockies, the
Great Basin, the Northwest, the Southwest and California. The
deadlines for letters of inquiry are January 15 and June 15,
annually. Organizations based east of the Mississippi should
contact the Foundation's Eastern office for application
information.
(http://www.commoncounsel.org/pages/foundation.html#abelard)
******************
ENVIRONMENTAL FELLOWSHIPS FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS
The National Wildlife Federation's Campus Ecology Fellowship
Program offers an opportunity for undergraduate and graduate
students to pursue their vision of an ecologically sustainable
future. Through tangible projects to green their campuses and
communities, environmental research, and organizing on key
conservation issues, fellows gain experience in the conservation
field and first-hand knowledge of the challenges inherent in
successful conservation efforts. Fellows receive grants of up to
$2,000 per project period. All applicants must identify and work
with an advisor for the duration of the grant period.
Undergraduate, graduate, and law students from any college or
university in the United States may apply. The application
deadline is December 20, 2005.
(http://www.nwf.org/campusecology/)
******************
TIPS/RESOURCES
FREE
WEBSITE HOSTING OFFERED BY THINKHOST, INC.
ThinkHost, Inc., established in 1999, is a privately owned
progressive company providing high performance website hosting
services to a global market, with a special interest in
assisting nonprofit organizations. ThinkHost still has a number
of free hosting accounts left to give away this year for
501(c)(3) registered organizations who qualify for the program.
Even if your organization does not meet the criteria, ThinkHost
offers to waive setup fees and provides substantial ongoing
discounts to most community groups.
(http://www.thinkhost.com/socialchange/)
******************
FINANCE:
DECIDING ON ACCOUNTING SERVICES
For small nonprofit organizations, the issue of retaining a good
accountant is vital, even though salary limits can present
difficulties in getting the best people.
In their book Financial and Accounting Guide for
Not-For-Profit Organizations, Malvern J. Gross Jr., John H.
McCarthy and Nancy E. Shelmon point out that accounting
responsibilities can be burdensome to the organization's
treasurer. Depending on an organization's size and scope, there
are several levels of in-house accounting service that may prove
workable. Each has its own considerations. They are:
* Secretary as accountant. If the number of transactions is too
large for the treasurer but not large enough to justify a
full-time accountant, duties may be relegated to a secretary.
Usually this means keeping a "checkbook" or a simple cash
receipts and cash disbursements ledger.
* Volunteer as accountant. While this can occasionally be
effective, it often turns out to be less than satisfactory.There
is little control over the activities of a volunteer accountant,
and it is difficult for the treasurer to insist on timely
records.
* Part-time accountants. This first step is to determine how
much time is required. A parent with school-age children may be
a good fit. If this arrangement is not suitable, a retired
accountant may be necessary.
* Full-time accountants. For larger or growing organizations,
there is a point when a full-time accountant is needed. A want
ad should be explicit on what is required and should indicate
salary and desired experience and competence.
(http://www.nptimes.com/enews/tips/finance.html)
******************
MANAGEMENT: IMPROVING ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
During the past few years, there has been heightened emphasis on
the concept of nonprofit capacity building -- the increase of
investment in organization and management.
Although one commonly accepted benchmark for improved
performance has always been fundraising, Mike Hudson points out
in his book Managing at the Leading Edge that greater funding in
itself is not enough and that organizations must raise the bar
on quality in order to achieve a greater impact. This can be
especially difficult for advocacy organizations, which often are
focused on rapidly changing external agendas and are staffed by
people passionately committed to the cause.
To attain this enhanced impact, Hudson offers a fresh new
paradigm for organizational effectiveness that has emerged from
a variety of conversations and observations in the nonprofit
sector.
The key characteristics of this new paradigm are:
* Making continuous strategic investment in the development of
the organization itself, its people, and its relationships to
give it the power to have greater impact.
* Charging the full cost of programs to funders and being
comfortable about making surpluses.
* Using unrestricted income and foundation grants to invest in
the capacity of the organization itself.
* Using unrestricted income to subsidize services only when
there is a compelling case and a demonstrable connection with
the organization's strategic priorities.
(http://www.nptimes.com/enews/tips/management.html)
******************
NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2005
CONTACT:
Nhan Vo, 301 257 8496
VIETNAMESE AMERICAN TELEVISION RECEIVED GRANT FROM MEDIA JUSTICE
FUND TO LAUNCH PROJECT “VOICE” to establish a national
youth-led media campaign on community outreach and empowerment.
Falls Church, VA—Vietnamese American Television is among the
seven grantees which have received special grants from Media
Justice Fund of the Funding Exchange (MJF).
This past summer, MJF’s Community Media Collaboration awarded
$109,000.00 to seven organizations from across the nation. As
the top recipient, Vietnamese American Television (VATV)
received $24,700.00 to launch its Project VOICE, a Vietnamese
Outreach Initiative for Community Empowerment.
The goal of Project VOICE is to form and train media action
teams to offer a more truthful presentation of the Vietnamese
American community in mainstream media and advocate for higher
journalism ethics and effective media reforms within the
Vietnamese American community. With this grant, Project VOICE
will be able to employ a coordinator to initiate, develop and
manage a national campaign, which has three major objectives:
(1) Campaign for progressive community media reforms and higher
journalism ethics; (2) Build a nation-wide alliance of key media
advocacy groups to effectively strengthen the network of
community media agencies; and (3) Develop new capacity and
funding sources for these agencies.
Beneficiaries of this project are small youth-serving grassroots
groups and media advocacy organizations who are struggling to
develop their capacity structure and maintain their services.
With this effort, Project VOICE expects the following outcomes:
(1) At least 10 new volunteers will be recruited and trained for
the youth-led media project and media action team; (2) An
alliance of at least 10 media advocacy groups and community
organizations in key communities across the country to support
and implement progressive community media reforms; (3) Creation
of 1 radio program targeting at-risk youth issues (gang
violence, teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, drugs and substance abuse,
etc.); and (4) Creation of 1 television program focusing on
civic participation and community empowerment.
This project will be implemented in collaboration with
Partnership to Ameliorate the Life of Minority Adolescents
(PALMA), an initiative co-sponsored by 5 organizations: Asian
Pacific American Cultural Arts Foundation (APACAF), Boat People
SOS (BPSOS), National Organization of Vietnamese Americans
(NOVA), Vietnamese Culture & Science Association, DC Chapter (VCSA-DC)
and VATV.
Launched in 2003, with the support of the Ford Foundation, the
Media Justice Fund of the Funding Exchange makes grants to
grassroots campaigns that aim to change the structure of US
media, build community-controlled media infrastructure, and make
corporate media more accountable.
The MJF’s CMC grants fund to media activists who focus on media
justice campaigns to increase awareness, enforce corporate media
accountability and influence regulators at all levels of the
government on policies relating to all facets of information
communications technologies which are not readily available to
marginalized communities.
“As a media advocacy organization, we prioritize our outreach
efforts on two under-represented and under-served groups: the
recent refugees and immigrants who speak very little or no
English and their second-generation children who often have
difficulty speaking Vietnamese,” said Nhan Vo, VATV’s Executive
Producer. “We thank MJF for giving us the opportunity to carry
out this mission.”
***
Founded in 2001, Vietnamese American Television (VATV) is a
nonprofit community media outreach organization which provides
the only bilingual television program in the DC Metropolitan
area. Our weekly educational program airs on MHz Networks and
serves approximately 35,000 viewers in the DC Metropolitan Area.
This program has also been syndicated nationally through Saigon
Broadcasting Television Network (Direct TV), and Vietnamese
Public Television (Lyngsat Satellite System). Additionally, our
programs are provided to Little Saigon Television Network (LSTN)
in California and VietTien TV in Toronto, Canada, for broadcast
in their entirety or as smaller program segments. VATV has
become the primary source of information for thousands of local
limited English proficiency families by consistently providing
educational TV programs on a weekly basis during its four years
of existence. Effective October 2, 2005, VATV has extended to a
full hour from 6:00 to 7:00PM every Sunday on MHz Networks.
(http://www.vatv.org)
******************
Media Note
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
November 15, 2005
JOINT U.S. – VIETNAMESE ANNOUNCEMENT OF HUMANITARIAN
RESETTLEMENT PROGRAM
Following is the text of the joint US-Vietnam Humanitarian
Resettlement Program announcement:
The Government of the United States and the Government of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam) jointly announce that, taking
into consideration the request from the United States
Government, the Government of Vietnam expresses its willingness
to cooperate with the United States to resolve humanitarian
resettlement issues.
This is a limited process to receive new applications from
Vietnamese citizens who might have been eligible under three
categories of the former Orderly Departure Program for
consideration for resettlement to the United States. This
process is limited only to those who were unable to apply or who
were unable to complete the application process before the
Orderly Departure Program closed on September 30, 1994.
The three Orderly Departure Program categories are the HO, U-11
and V-11 subprograms. Persons whose previous Orderly Departure
Program applications were denied in the past are not eligible to
re-apply for Humanitarian Resettlement. Persons who were
previously notified of their ineligibility for former Orderly
Departure Program categories are ineligible to re-apply.
For free, accurate information about this process, please
contact the Refugee Resettlement Section at the Consulate
General in Ho Chi Minh City. Contact information is listed
below.
Access Criteria for Humanitarian Resettlement
HO category – Former Re-Education Center Detainees:
a) Vietnamese applicants who spent three or more years in a
re-education center as a result of their close association with
U.S. agencies or organizations to implement United States
Government programs and/or policies prior to April 30, 1975; OR
b) Vietnamese applicants:
- who spent at least one year in a re-education center as a
result of their close association with the U.S. Government prior
to April 30, 1975 and
- who were also trained for any length of time in the United
States or its territories under the auspices of the United
States Government prior to April 30, 1975; OR
c) Vietnamese applicants:
- who spent at least one year in a re-education center as a
result of their close association with the United States
Government prior to April 30, 1975 and
- who had been directly employed by the United States
Government, a U.S. company or a U.S. organization for at least
one year prior to April 30, 1975; OR
d) Widow/widower applicants whose spouse was sent to a
re-education center as a result of his/her close association
with the United States Government prior to April 30, 1975 and
who died while in a re-education center or died within one year
after release.
U-11 category – Former U.S. Government Employee:
Direct-hire employees of the United States Government in
Vietnam, with a cumulative period of time totaling five or more
years verified United States Government employment during the
period from January 1, 1963 through April 30, 1975.
V-11 category – Former Employees of Private U.S. Companies or
Organizations:
Direct-hire employees of private U.S. companies and/or U.S.
organizations, with a cumulative period of time totaling five or
more years verified employment during the period from January 1,
1963 through April 30, 1975.
Eligible Immediate Family Members:
An approved applicant’s spouse and unmarried children under the
age of 21 at the time of application may be included under
Humanitarian Resettlement.
Important Notes:
1) This Humanitarian Resettlement process is free. Anyone
interested in information should receive it directly from the
Refugee Resettlement Section at the Consulate General in Ho Chi
Minh City. No other person or organization is authorized to
provide information or assistance regarding the process or
application. We strongly urge that Vietnamese citizens
interested in this process not pay any person or organization
for advice or assistance.
2) Those seeking Humanitarian Resettlement should understand
that not everybody who applies will be approved for
resettlement. Being called for an interview or several
interviews does not mean that the applicant will be approved for
resettlement. An individual approved for resettlement will be
given sufficient time to make arrangements regarding employment,
residence and personal matters in Vietnam, before departing to
the United States. An applicant should not take any actions in
such matters until he/she has been notified officially by the
U.S. Government of approval for travel to the United States.
3) Applicants should not make any resettlement plans (i.e.
selling home, property, resigning job or school, etc.) until
official confirmation of their acceptance for resettlement is
received in writing from the Consulate General.
4) There is no charge to request information or to apply for the
Humanitarian Resettlement process, and all application forms are
available free of charge.
5) The U.S. Government does not have any relationship with any
private immigration agents or brokers and such agencies should
not be consulted.
6) The U.S. Government will verify all documents as necessary.
Those who make false claims or submit false documents to the
United States Government will be permanently denied admission to
the United States.
Contact Information:
To receive a written description of the Humanitarian
Resettlement process eligibilities and detailed application
guidelines, and for any Humanitarian Resettlement-related
questions, please contact the Refugee Resettlement Section at
the Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, as follows:
Telephone: 08-829-2750
Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. –5:00 p.m.
Mail: Refugee Resettlement Section (RRS)
U.S. Consulate General
4 Le Duan Street
District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
E-mail:
RefugeeInfo@wrapshochiminh.org.vn
For additional information, visit the RRS website at:
http://hochiminh.usconsulate.gov/rrs.html
2005/1076
(http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2005/56936.htm)
******************
November 19, 2005
PRIEST WORKS TO REBUILD FLOODED VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY
By SHARON COHEN
AP National Writer
He started out in a small boat, making his way through swirling
floodwaters to help rescue his frightened parishioners from
their homes.
Then he drove from Louisiana to Texas to Arkansas, twice, to
check on them. He knew they were resilient; he and they had
survived a war and fled Vietnam long ago. If his parishioners
could endure all that, the priest was sure they would endure
Katrina.
Now, nearly three months later, the Rev. Vien The Nguyen, pastor
of Mary Queen of Vietnam, is taking charge again in this scarred
eastern New Orleans community, helping thousands of his
parishioners rebuild their lives - one more time.
"These are people who've been displaced before," he says. "They
know how to cope mentally and physically. There's a sense that
everything will be all right. Every day the one question I hear
is: 'Father can you do something so we can go home quickly?'"
So every day he works to make it happen.
Wearing two earpieces attached to two phones, he speaks in quick
bursts, alternating between English and Vietnamese as he
arranges for temporary trailers to be placed on church grounds,
for lumber deliveries from Arkansas, for medical teams to give
tetanus shots, for crews to repair flood-ravaged homes.
"What my people need is a strong anchor," he says. "For many ...
they don't know the language. They're bewildered. I have to let
them know that I'm with them. Whatever they need, I will
provide."
He's not doing it alone. Father Vien - as he's known around here
- brought in friends from Texas, California and Washington to
help his community navigate the bureaucratic maze. His
parishioners have organized, too, to gather supplies, cook meals
and recruit volunteers to rebuild each other's homes.
And when the members of this giant congregation of 6,000 said
they needed spiritual solace, he and the other priests here
answered the call.
Just two weeks after Katrina struck, Father Vien celebrated Mass
in the damaged church. Hundreds came. Weeks later, there were a
few thousand. The beige brick sanctuary had no lights or water,
but the storm spared most of the building, except for a strip of
the roof that collapsed.
On All Saints Day - an annual celebration marked with special
services in this heavily Catholic city - Father Vien, two other
priests and a deacon offered prayers, songs, even a few jokes
about sharing trailers. The wooden pews were filled, the altar
was lit with two candles and two desk lamps powered by a
generator.
"We believe the saints intercede for us in times of trouble,"
Father Vien told the group. "This is one of those times."
Afterward, the 43-year-old pastor ('I look 24,' he teases)
traded his gold-and-white vestments for a gray wool cap, a
windbreaker and nicotine gum as he mingled in the parking lot. A
Red Cross truck provided lunch, boxes of donated groceries were
handed out and homemade rice soup was ladled from a stage behind
the church.
Nearly 12 weeks after the storm, people in the Versailles
neighborhood in east New Orleans are taking inventory of their
losses and beginning repairs. Electricity has been restored to
the church and many streets, but tarps still flap over damaged
roofs, pieces of sheet rock are strewn about from gutted homes
and rolled-up muddy carpets wait to be picked up on lawns.
Father Vien is trying to do his part to change that, blending
good-natured schmoozing as he negotiates with bureaucrats ('I'm
a po' man,' he tells one in a Southern drawl) with polite (but
persistent) lobbying.
He's confident Katrina is just a minor setback and virtually
everyone in this community will return. "If I'm pessimistic, I
say 95 percent," he says with a smile, though he makes it clear
he's completely serious.
More than neighbors, the people of Mary Queen of Vietnam are
bound by tradition, language, culture and history. Many came
from Nam Dinh province in North Vietnam, moved south as the
country split in 1954, then fled as refugees from communism as
the war ended and Saigon fell in 1975. Others migrated here in
the early 1980s and began raising families.
"Compared to that - when we return, we do not begin at the
beginning," Father Vien says. "We just have to pick up the
pieces."
And yet, there are many shattered lives here, people who've lost
homes or businesses, and in some cases both.
Theresa Nguyen's family convenience store was nearly stripped
bare by looters, her home was submerged in 20 inches of water.
Looters also rampaged through her house, taking precious
possessions - including a jewelry box that contained family
photos, baptismal papers and her grandmother's necklace and
earrings.
"Twenty-four years ago, I came here with $20 - only $20," Nguyen
says in a halting voice, holding back tears. "Today, I have two
children, two graduates from college. They have an education. I
still have a home. And I have the store. The building is empty.
It is damaged. But it's there."
She pauses, clasps her hands tightly in her lap as she sits on a
church stage.
"I work very hard," she says, "and I can work very hard again."
Nguyen is staying with family in nearby Metairie and hopes to
move into her garage soon while she repairs her home. "When we
run from the storm, we feel so lonely," she explains. "When we
come back here, there's such a warm feeling. We need each other.
Even when we clean up, we feel like family."
Duc Dang, a building contractor, agrees. "It's important for us
to come back," he says. "We have a school for the little kids
who learn our language and our culture. I feel that when we're
living here, it's like being in Vietnam."
Father Vien says that since Katrina, he senses his parishioners
have a deeper attachment to their neighborhood and the city. He
says there's a Vietnamese expression - que huong - that's used
to describe homeland or ancestral birthplace.
"In the pre-Katrina days, when we say 'que huong' we mean
Vietnam," the priest says.
"Now when they say it, they mean New Orleans. There's a shift in
their hearts. We have buried our loved ones here. We are
connected to the land."
Other Vietnamese communities also were devastated by Katrina.
Thousands of Vietnamese shrimpers along the Mississippi Gulf
Coast were wiped out in the storm that smashed their boats,
washed away their homes and heavily damaged their churches.
Many have relocated - either nearby or far away - as the
shrimping industry tries to get back on its feet.
More than 30,000 Vietnamese-Americans live in areas struck by
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to the National Congress
of Vietnamese Americans. About $750,000 has been raised so far
through grass-roots fund-raising, everything from a women's
group in Boston to community and business leaders in San Jose,
Calif., according to Hung Nguyen, the group's president.
More than 200 volunteers also have been dispatched to
flood-damaged Vietnamese communities throughout the Gulf Coast
to serve as translators, assist with paperwork and eventually
help rebuild homes.
Hung Nguyen says his group is searching, too, for charitable
partners to serve as mentors in the rebuilding. "We don't want
to be left out of the picture," he says. "We want to make sure
the local Vietnamese community has a voice."
In the New Orleans area, an estimated 20,000
Vietnamese-Americans lived on both sides of the Mississippi
River before the storm. Damage on the west bank, home to another
large Vietnamese parish, was far less severe than that on the
east bank, where Mary Queen of Vietnam is located.
For Father Vien, the storm brought his life full circle.
He was just a 12-year-old kid who knew only a smattering of
English when he arrived at a refugee camp in Fort Chaffee, Ark.,
in 1975. Three decades later, he found himself walking the same
soil where he had played soccer, comforting parishioners who had
been evacuated there.
The pastor says he sees the rebirth of his community as a chance
for a fresh start - maybe even an opportunity to establish a
Vietnamese retirement center.
"It's not just rebuilding," he says. "It's moving forward from
where we were."
After a morning of prayers and meeting parishioners this
November day, the pastor drives a few miles to see a Vietnamese
couple who endured an unimaginable tragedy here long before the
storm.
Ten years ago, Bich Vu, and his wife, Nguyet Nguyen's daughter
and son were murdered - along with an off-duty police officer
working security - in a robbery at their family restaurant. It
was one of the most notorious crimes in recent city. One of the
two killers turned out to be a female New Orleans police
officer, now on death row.
The couple stand outside, surveying their looted, flooded
business, the Kim Anh restaurant. Rusty stems of tables are
lined up, coolers are streaked in mud and dirt, workers wear
masks to filter out the overpowering stench.
Nguyet Nguyen's weary face is tearstained, and she rubs it with
the back of her hand as she animatedly tells the pastor in
Vietnamese this is too much to bear. When her two children were
killed, she says, she was younger, healthier, better able to
start over.
But now with her house was looted and flooded, too, she says she
doesn't know if she has the strength anymore.
Father Vien listens patiently. He leans in and gently rests a
comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Take heart," he tells her and her husband. "We will rebuild
together."
He drives off, convinced he has taken one more step to keep his
community together.
"They're strong people," he says of the couple. "They prevailed
before. They'll be back. There's no question about it."
(http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051119/APN/511190665&cachetime=3&template=dateline)
******************
November 19, 2005
SAN MARCOS SEEING GROWTH IN ASIAN COMMUNITIES
By: David Sterrett, North County Times Staff Writer
SAN MARCOS ---- Come in, grab a plate and enjoy the kimchi or
another traditional dish that have been prepared for lunch by
the members of the Palomar Korean Church.
Members of the congregation cordially encourage anyone walking
by the church, in a small commercial center near the corner of
Mission and Rancho Santa Fe roads, to try the spicy fish and
vegetable dishes.
"Food is very important to Koreans," said Jenny Ko, as she
cleaned the kitchen after a church gathering Tuesday afternoon.
Ko said that preparing the food and bringing the congregation
together helps preserve the members' traditions and teach their
children about Korean customs as they interact with the numerous
other cultures shaping this city of 73,000.
The Korean community is just one segment of a rapidly growing
Asian population in San Marcos. With increases in the Korean,
Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Filipino populations, the
number of Asians living in San Marcos rose from 1,142 in 1990 to
2,567 in 2000, according to U.S. Census data.
The data show that nearly 1,100 Filipinos make up more than 40
percent of the Asian population in San Marcos, while each of the
other nationalities has between 200 and 400 people living here.
"I have seen quite a bit of growth not only of Filipinos, but of
all Asian groups in this area," said Alaine Gallanosa, as she
strolled through the aisles of her Filipino Depot store on San
Marcos Boulevard. "You can really see the growth by just looking
at all of the Asian restaurants and markets in town."
A continental flavor
Cruise down San Marcos Boulevard or Rancho Santa Fe Road and
Filipino, Korean, Thai, Chinese and Japanese restaurants or
markets appear in almost every shopping center.
Right next to the Filipino Depot is a Thai restaurant, and
across the street, the menu is Japanese.
Gallanosa said that a couple of years ago, her store carried
only Filipino goods, but now she also stocks Thai and Japanese
products.
And the Filipino store owner is not the only one reaching out to
different Asian communities.
"Most Japanese restaurants around here are owned by Koreans,"
said Masa Mori, who runs the Boo & Mee Japanese Cafe on San
Marcos Boulevard and who came to America from Japan in 1990. "I
think it is because Japanese (food) is more popular than Korean
food around here."
Korean Ellen Park, whose parents started a Chinese restaurant in
Dallas, echoed those sentiments.
Park, whose husband is pastor of a Methodist Korean church group
that meets in San Marcos, said many Koreans run Chinese and
Japanese restaurants.
"Korean food is very spicy, and we still have to develop it more
so other cultures can enjoy it," Park said. "But there are a lot
of similarities between the different (Asian) foods and people.
"We share a lot of history and have influenced each other."
For example, Japan's colonization of Korea from 1910 to 1945
introduced Koreans to many Japanese customs, said Kyung Hee Suh
as she enjoyed lunch at the Palomar Korean Church on Tuesday.
"The Chinese culture also had a strong influence over all of
East Asia," said Suh, who added that she can read Chinese.
The Chinese and Vietnamese celebrate the same New Year's Day,
which is on Jan. 29 next year, said Loi Hoang, a Vietnamese
deacon at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Vista. He
said the Catholics and Buddhists come together every year from
the countries to share in the celebration.
But Hoang said the biggest connection between the Asian
communities is the importance of family.
"We all have very close-knit families," Hoang said. "And we show
a lot of respect to our elders."
Family and education
The strong commitment to the family is a central point in the
Vietnamese culture, said Anh Cao.
Born in Vietnam, Cao came to the United States when she was 5
years old and grew up in a foster family in several rural
Pennsylvania towns.
After graduating from Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, Cao
said she began climbing the corporate ladder at Merrill Lynch.
But, without a second thought, she quit her job and left
Pennsylvania for San Diego about six years ago when she found
out that her father from Vietnam had lymph cancer and needed
help raising her younger sisters.
"I barely remembered my father, but it was my job to support
them, " Cao said. "That is the Asian way of life."
After Cao moved to San Diego, she also decided that she wanted
to "step out of corporate America and do something more
meaningful."
For Cao, that meant helping prepare children for higher
education, and she decided to open the Tutoring Club of San
Marcos.
"One of the biggest values of the Asian culture is education,"
Cao said.
Children of all races attend the tutoring center, at the
southwest corner of Rancho Santa Fe Road and San Marcos
Boulevard, but Cao said it's often Asian parents who talk to her
about making sure their children don't get distracted from
studying by activities such as video games.
"Each family is trying so hard to make sure their kids get a
college degree," said Park, who came to America from Korea when
she was 19 years old and then graduated from Loyola University
in Chicago.
Keeping the culture alive
Many Asian parents also work hard to make sure their children
don't forget the cultures of their parents, Park said.
She said her church teaches children how to read and write
Korean, while Mori said a Buddhist Temple in Vista provides
schooling in Japanese.
Deacon Hoang said his church in Vista provides schooling in
Vietnamese.
"We want to make sure the youngsters learn from the new culture,
but also keep the old culture," Hoang said.
One reason Ko decided to attend the Palomar Korean Church in San
Marcos is to expose her children to the culture. All of the
Bibles and hymns have both English and Korean text, and the
walls are lined with posters in Korean.
This environment creates a fusion of American and Asian
cultures, said Ko, who came to the United States in 1972 from
Korea because her father wanted the children to get a better
education.
But, she said that in growing up in America, she began to feel a
little removed from the Korean culture.
"Cultures start to get diluted over time," she said. "But we
don't want them to get diluted."
Food is one important way to remember those traditions, said Ko,
as she wrapped up some leftover fish entrees from the Tuesday
lunch at the church.
The dishes included dried Pollack, a mix of spinach bean spouts
and Jell-O, a pot roast, and kimchi, which is pickled cabbage.
While kimchi is a traditional Korean dish, spring rolls made
with rice cake, an assortment of vegetables and noodles are a
favorite of Vietnamese, said Kayla Nguyen, who lives in
Escondido.
"I introduce 10 people to the spring rolls and 11 people like
it," Nguyen said wryly.
She said Vietnamese coffee, sua da, is another very popular
item.
At the Filipino Depot, Gallanosa said the rice, noodles, ice
cream and sodas from the Philippines are all top sellers.
She also said the store has a money wiring service, and many
people send money to help their relatives living in the
Philippines.
"Close-knit families are part of the culture," Gallanosa said.
"Food is also very important to the culture because it's a
social thing. There is always more than enough food at a
Filipino party."
Contact staff writer David Sterrett at (760) 761-4411 or
dsterrett@nctimes.com.
(http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/11/20/news/inland/22_46_4511_19_05.txt)
******************
November 20, 2005
THE
MORNING READ: THANKFUL FOR A NEW START
New Orleans family struggles to rebuild its post-Katrina lives
in O.C., weighs next move but knows 'hurricane was a wake-up
call.'
By Nguyen Huy Vu
The Orange County Register
Hurricanes victims in O.C.
Hurricane victims relocated to Orange County: 1,036
Approximate percentage of local evacuees of Vietnamese decent:
35
Approximate percentage of evacuees living in motels: 50
Most common request to OperationOC: Housing assistance
Second-biggest request: Transportation help
Refugees' biggest obstacle: Lack of documents (most were
destroyed by the floods)
Source: OperationOC
SANTA ANA - Annie Nguyen nudges her sleepy daughter, Amy, 12, to
get ready for class.
It's a chilly fall morning and the fog hasn't lifted. The
seventh-grader yawns, rubs her eyes and pulls a donated sweater
over her head.
Annie then goes to son Alan, 3, and gets him dressed for
preschool.
She tries to keep up a routine for the kids these days, but it's
hard. Annie and her three children have shared a cramped house
on the outskirts of Little Saigon with two other families since
September, when Hurricane Katrina stormed through New Orleans
and destroyed their three-bedroom brick house.
"I try not to think about what happened," said Annie, 32, while
rummaging through piles of used dresses and toys in Tustin on a
recent afternoon.
For the last two months, she, Amy, Alan, and 9-month-old April
have been trying to rebuild their lives in Orange County.
Meanwhile, her husband, Phil Nguyen, is hundreds of miles away
in Tennessee, working days as a Navy recruiter and nights
fighting with insurance claims adjusters and filing federal
paperwork for hurricane relief. Although the family had
homeowners insurance, they were offered just $6,000 for the
damage to their $120,000 house.
While the majority of hurricane evacuees have poured into Texas
and other nearby states, the Nguyens and scores of families of
Vietnamese descent have resettled in Orange County.
Jim Palmer, president of OperationOC, a collection of nonprofit
groups providing services to Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims,
said about a third of the county's 1,000 evacuees are
Vietnamese-American.
"This was a starting place for many Vietnamese-American
families," Palmer said. "There is a strong cultural trend for
families and friends to support each other. It's a safe
community to return to and where they feel welcome."
Family is what brought Annie to Santa Ana. She and Phil decided
the family should stay at her mother's house until they figure
out their next move.
TWICE REFUGEE
This is not the first time the Nguyens have been separated.
Annie left Vietnam 15 years ago for a refugee camp in the
Philippines. She grew up in Saigon and missed everything about
it.
"I felt like I had to start all over in the United States,"
Annie said in Vietnamese. "When I came here I didn't know
anything. It's how it feels now."
She was 16 when she met Phil, who had left Vietnam about the
same time. He was three years older, but quiet and shy. Annie
had to drag him onto the dance floor at a Christmas party.
"He was very sweet," Annie recalled. "We were both just friends
then."
After a few months, Annie ended up in Salem, Ore., and Phil and
his family were sponsored by a family in Grand Rapids, Mich. The
two constantly wrote letters and talked on the phone.
Annie moved to Orange County a few years later to help her
mother, who was struggling as a seamstress. She found work as a
hairdresser. Phil planned to study engineering, but he joined
the Navy and transferred to California to be closer to Annie.
The couple married in 1993 and 10 years later moved to Chalmette
- a suburban parish near New Orleans, La., sandwiched between
the Mississippi River and Lake Borgne.
The yellow brick house was their first home.
HURRICANE SEASON
Then came the warnings about Hurricane Katrina. City officials
were calling for a voluntary evacuation, but no one thought too
much of it. Hurricane season was just part of life.
Annie didn't want to leave again. They had evacuated four times
in less than two years. But Phil insisted. They brought a week's
worth of clothing, and on Aug. 27 headed to Annie's uncle's
house in Lafayette, La.
The family was stunned as they watched television coverage the
next day that showed rising water rushing toward their
neighborhood. A nearly 30-foot storm surge swept through
Chalmette, and their home was swallowed up by sea water and mud.
They spent a week driving west from Lafayette to Houston to
Bullhead City, Ariz. Phil and Annie talked about all the
clothes, photographs of the kids and other valuables they left
behind.
"We didn't bring anything. I never thought anything like that
would happen," Annie recalled. "Everything was lost."
The plan was to move to Bullhead City with Annie's mom, but the
kids couldn't tolerate the heat. They eventually settled in the
Santa Ana house that her mother owned.
Orange County always felt like home, Annie said. It was where
Amy was born, and where Annie spent most of her life in the
United States.
HELPING HANDS
Asking for help does not come easily to Annie. She and Phil came
to the United States with nothing, but they always managed to
survive.
This time is different.
Once a week while the children are in school, Annie hitches a
ride from friends to OperationOC at the barracks of the former
Tustin Marine base.
On a recent weekday she walked through rows of sweaters and
jackets, and stopped to examine clothes that might fit Alan and
April.
Diapers, packaged socks and a toy train set were carefully set
on a sidewalk to be picked up later. Then she stepped into a
scratched white truck-trailer and packed dry pasta, canned corn
and crackers in brown paper bags.
Friends, former clients and strangers have also stepped in to
help. They have handed Annie $100 bills, paid for new eyeglasses
for Amy and bought a new bicycle for Alan.
"Everyone has been so helpful to us, which has made things
easier," Annie said. "I don't know how to repay them all."
REBUILDING THEIR HOME
While Annie and the kids were settling in Santa Ana, Phil was in
Millington, Tenn., making a tough decision.
It made him feel sick to think about what he might find if he
went home, but he didn't want to sit around and wonder anymore.
So in October, he and a few of his Navy buddies tossed shovels,
rakes and rubber gloves into the back of a pickup and headed to
New Orleans.
When they got there they saw that almost all of the homes in
Chalmette had been obliterated.
Phil was shaking as he took the first look at his house.
It was covered in a foul-smelling muck. The ceilings had
collapsed, exposing splintered wooden planks and sheets of pink
insulation. Splotches of black and white mold coated the walls.
Photographs and artifacts carried from Vietnam were ruined.
Everything was caked in mud.
"It was horrible," Phil recalled. "It was like a war zone. I
broke down and cried."
GRATEFUL FAMILY
The Nguyens won't be together for Thanksgiving.
Annie plans to celebrate the holiday with the kids in Santa Ana.
Her husband returned to Millington recently.
In the meantime, Phil wants to gut the house and try to make it
inhabitable again.
And by summer, he expects to get new marching orders from the
Navy – and reunite with Annie and the kids. They might return to
New Orleans or maybe move to Texas or New York.
"That hurricane was a wake-up call for me," Phil said. "There
are so many things out there besides money and material things.
"It could have been much worse. We all could have died. We've
been blessed."
CONTACT US: (714) 445-6685 or
vnguyen@ocregister.com
(http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/abox/article_847583.php)
******************
November 20, 2005
GHOSTS OF VIETNAM LINGER
By Paul Scapicchio
This fall, Boston City Councilor Paul Scapicchio toured
Vietnam as part of a nine-member delegation sponsored by the
American Council of Young Political Leaders. The trip was meant
to foster relations between the two former adversaries.
For many Americans, Vietnam is a kaleidoscope of images. Marlon
Brando's dark-hearted visage hovers apocalyptically over file
footage of protests and exploding napalm. It all ends in 1975,
with that last refugee-laden helicopter lifting off from the US
Embassy in Saigon.
Today Vietnam is industrializing rapidly, young people scurry to
learn English, and diplomatic relations between our two nations
are open. However, ghosts still linger.
In 2003, the City Council voted unanimously and despite
objections by the Vietnamese government to recognize the
''Freedom Flag" as the official symbol of the Vietnamese
community in Boston. Designed by the French, this
yellow-and-red-striped flag was the banner of the former South
Vietnamese government. It flew over South Vietnam from about
1952 until 1975, and was replaced by the incoming government
with a Soviet-style solitary gold star floating on a red sea.
Why would the Boston City Council pass a resolution dealing with
another country's flag? An earnest group of South Vietnamese
expatriates lobbied City Councilor Maureen Feeney and some
at-large councilors to draft the resolution. As Councilor Feeney
represents a large proportion of Boston's Vietnamese community,
she honored the request and drafted the proposal, and the City
Council chose to follow her lead.
Our reasoning: If members of Boston's South Vietnamese community
wanted to fly the flag they left behind in 1975, then let them.
These were our allies during the Vietnam conflict, after all.
Fast-forward two years. As part of my delegation's preparation
for going to Vietnam, we flew to Washington for a series of
briefings from the American Council of Young Political Leaders,
the State Department, and others. We got a crash course on the
differences in perception held by the two former adversaries.
While, in America, we recall the ''Vietnam War," we learned
that, to the Vietnamese, it is ''The American War." We learned
that, while Vietnam is industrializing rapidly and creating a
market economy, old-line communists still control the country.
On Sept. 2 we departed on a 24-hour odyssey that landed us in
Hanoi late the next day. There we met Mr. Vu Xuan Hong, a member
of the Vietnamese National Assembly and president of the Vietnam
Union of Friendship Organizations. Mr. Hong gave us an overview
of the country and its hopes for better relations, especially
economic, with the US. He surveyed the room and then focused his
attention on me.
''I notice you are from Boston," remarked Mr. Hong. ''May I ask
you a question?"
''Of course," I answered, expecting some query about Harvard
University, the foliage, or Cape Cod.
''In Boston, you passed a resolution we find troubling," he
began. The conversation turned into a lesson in the Vietnamese
state perception. While in the minds of the city councilors, we
had supported a constituency, to the Vietnamese, we had offended
a nation. "Recognizing that flag is the equivalent of us
recognizing the Confederate flag as the official symbol of the
United States," insisted Mr. Hong.
The question and Mr. Hong's answer hit me like a mortar round. I
would be hit with similar rounds again and again, as government
officials in each city we visited dredged up the subject. I
asked myself, would Americans like it if other nations
recognized the flag of the Confederacy as the official flag of
an overseas constituency? My answer: Probably not.
Toward the end of our journey, we breakfasted with US Consul
General Seth Winnick in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). In
answer to my questions about the issue, Mr. Winnick offered that
while our City Council resolution was not helpful to
Vietnamese-American relations, it underscored the difference
between our two nations.
Simply put, as Americans we are free to express our opinions,
though sometimes those opinions have ramifications we certainly
never anticipated.
Paul Scapicchio is the city councilor for District 1, including
Beacon Hill, Charlestown, East Boston, North End, and West End.
(http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/11/20/ghosts_of_vietnam_linger/)
******************
November 20, 2005
COMMUNITY LEADERS
A people of the sea
Katrina took away Coast Vietnamese's life, work
By Joshua Norman
jdnorman@sunherald.com
A Vietnamese folk legend says in ancient times, the sea dragon
Lac Long Quan married the mountain fairy Au Co and she gave
birth to 100 children. Half of the children went with their
mother back to the mountains, and half stayed to live off the
sea.
From these 100 children came the Vietnamese people.
The 50 children who stayed with their father became fishermen.
Thus those who make their living off the sea have an honored
status in Vietnamese society.
The sea rose and took away much from the Vietnamese community
along the Gulf Coast during Hurricane Katrina.
In response, a collective of fishermen called the An Giang
Fisheries Association from the Mekong Delta in Vietnam gathered
$15,000 and gave it to the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi to distribute
among their brethren here, reported the Thanh Nien Daily, one of
Vietnam's largest newspapers.
Though it was a small amount compared to the devastation - for
the 10,000 or so Vietnamese in South Mississippi, the hurricane
ruined their principal occupations of shrimping and hospitality
as well as their neighborhoods - it was a huge gesture from one
of the world's poorest and last communist countries.
"The concern is that one of our own is suffering, starving in a
foreign land," said Tuyet A.N. Tran, a community advocate and
founder of New York-based viettouch.com, a Vietnamese cultural
Web site. "Many in the Vietnamese diaspora have relatives in
Vietnam still."
The Vietnamese community spread throughout America also was
eager to help after the storm, said Huy Vu Bui, president of the
National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies. The
perception in the community here and abroad was that not enough
was being done for a group of people who largely did not speak
English and kept to their own.
That perception led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in
donations from the Vietnamese government, American
businesspeople and community organizations.
Interviews with dozens of Vietnamese living in South Mississippi
did not reveal the same sense of abandonment by government that
many in the outside community felt.
"They didn't do much for anyone," said Thuy Tran, 25, a
manicurist in Gulfport who grew up in Pass Christian.
She said she did not feel the Vietnamese were ignored any much
worse than anyone else and many Vietnamese spoken to in the last
month agreed.
According to many of the interviewees, Vietnamese translators
appeared in South Mississippi a little more than a month after
the storm for agencies such agencies as FEMA and the Red Cross,
while the Coast Guard had translators almost immediately after
the storm to help in rescuing the many Vietnamese stranded on
fishing boats.
The Rev. Dong Phan of the Biloxi Vietnamese Martyrs Church said
finding comfort in community has been crucial since the storm.
More than 70 percent of Vietnamese in South Mississippi are
Catholic, and his church, one of several Vietnamese Catholic
churches in South Mississippi, has been a cradle of the local
community, providing spiritual guidance and a place to gather
every day since the storm.
"There has been a lot of suffering," said Phan, a former
chaplain in the South Vietnamese Army. He said he has been eager
to get people together to help in the healing.
Just up the road from Phan's church at the Van Duc Buddhist
Temple, the monks Thien Tri and Minh Nguyen have been trying to
provide a sense of normalcy for their constituents.
The monks estimate only 30 percent of the local community is
Buddhist, but said 80 percent in Vietnam are Buddhist. The monks
hold daily meditation sessions and are especially able to
empathize with their community - they rode out the storm in
their temple's attic.
Nguyen said every monk is allowed four possessions: three sets
of robes and one bowl. Everything else must be donated by
followers because Buddhist monks vow a life of poverty by
tradition. Nguyen said all he has left now are the robes on his
back.
The sense of loss is overwhelming in the Vietnamese community
and it goes well beyond material possessions.
Thuy Tran's parents lost everything to the storm. Her father,
Thin Tran, 58, was a shrimper who stayed on his boat in hopes of
saving it but barely escaped with his life. Now, like the
hundreds of older Vietnamese shrimpers who know nothing other
than shrimping and cannot afford a new boat because of a lack of
insurance and an already-dismal shrimping season, Thin Tran does
not know what he can do.
Thuy Tran lost her old job at the Wal-Mart in Waveland and now
lives in her overcrowded apartment with several homeless
relatives, like most Vietnamese in South Mississippi.
The sudden loss of housing and jobs - a vast majority of
Vietnamese either worked in the seafood industry or in a
casino-related job - has sent at least 25 percent of their
population elsewhere in America looking for work, said several
Vietnamese interviewed.
Hai Tran, no relation to Thuy, was a welder in Mobile who lived
with his three children, his wife, his parents, his brother and
his sister on Division Street in Biloxi before the storm. His
house was leveled by the flood water and he now lives with just
his mother, wife and kids because his father and siblings have
gone from New York to California in search of jobs.
"I lost everything I got," Hai Tran said, adding he is grateful
to have a FEMA trailer to live in. "I don't have money to
rebuild my house. I applied for an SBA loan. I stay here for my
family."
South Mississippi's pleasant climate and ties to the sea are
what keep many Vietnamese here. While the sea took so much away,
many said there is much that it can give back and that is their
hope for the future.
Vietnamese diet
Vietnamese have a very different diet than Americans. Their food
is largely vegetarian and consists mostly of soups and stews, as
well as large amounts of rice and fish.
After the storm, many of the older Vietnamese struggled to
digest the MREs and hot meals given out by the Red Cross and
Salvation Army.
In response to the problem, the American Red Cross and other
local relief organizations provided the Vietnamese community
with two bulk deliveries of foodstuffs that were more in line
with their needs. The items included fresh produce, tofu, ginger
root, Vietnamese basil, bok choy, coconut milk, fish sauce, soy
sauce, Vietnamese rice and seasonings.
- AMERICAN RED CROSS, COMMUNITY LEADERS
***
Vietnamese population
Most local aid agencies and community groups estimate there are
10,000 Vietnamese in South Mississippi, most here legally.
Vietnamese represent the largest Asian ethnic group in South
Mississippi.
• In Harrison County, there were 4,934 Asians, or 2.6 percent of
the total population in 2000.
• In Jackson County, there were 2,102 Asians, or 1.6 percent of
the total population in 2000.
• In Hancock County, there were 386 Asians, or 0.9 percent of
the total population in 2000.
• In Biloxi, there were 1,489 Vietnamese people in 2000. Their
median household income was around $25,000, compared with the
citywide average of more than $34,100.
Most Vietnamese live in neighborhoods near harbors where shrimp
boats can dock, such as Point Cadet in Biloxi, Bayview Street in
Pass Christian and Lakewood in Hancock County. Unfortunately,
these are also low-lying areas, which is why so many lost their
homes to the storm.
- U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, COMMUNITY LEADERS
***
Vietnamese language
Vietnamese is spoken by more than 60 million people in Vietnam.
There are also more than a million additional speakers of
Vietnamese scattered across the globe, including 500,000 in the
United States.
Vietnamese is a member of the Mon-Khmer branch of the
Austro-Asiatic language family. Other Mon-Khmer languages
include Mon, which is spoken in Burma; Khmer, which is spoken in
Cambodia; and Muong, which is also spoken in Vietnam. The
language that developed into Vietnamese probably originated in
the area of the Red River, which is in modern-day northern
Vietnam.
Originally, Vietnamese used a character-based writing system
that was similar to Chinese. However, in 1910, a romanized
script that had been devised by Catholic missionaries in the
17th Century was adopted as the official Vietnamese alphabet.
This writing system is still in use.
The Vietnamese alphabet consists of 17 consonants and 12 vowels.
Vietnamese is a tonal language, meaning the tone or pitch used
when a word is pronounced helps determine its meaning. There are
six distinct tones in Vietnamese: the level tone, the
high-rising tone, the low-falling tone, the low-rising tone, the
high-rising broken tone, and the low-broken tone.
Many second-generation Vietnamese in America speak little or no
Vietnamese, especially when living outside of a Vietnamese
community. However, several Vietnamese who were raised in Biloxi
said they are fluent because there were so many people to
communicate with.
- TRANSPARENT.COM, COMMUNITY LEADERS
***
Vietnam's Boat People
A vast majority of the Vietnamese in America immigrated here
between 1975 and 1980. The immigrants were almost all Southern
Vietnamese fleeing the Communist takeover.
Many were the famous "boat people."
After the Vietnam War, more than one million refugees desperate
to get out of the country took to overcrowded and leaky fishing
boats and set out into the seas around Southeast Asia. It became
the largest mass departure of asylum seekers by sea in modern
history.
In many cases, parents still in Vietnam used life savings to put
a child on a boat departing the coast of their homeland. Their
plan was for the child (typically a son) to win refugee status
in another country, a status that would be the anchor for the
rest of the family following.
Some got lucky and were granted visas to a wide array of
countries from Bermuda to Australia to Iceland, but many were
forced to drift for years from one deserted spot to the next.
Legends of piracy and cannibalism abounded.
Many also ended up in detention camps throughout Southeast Asia
for years before either returning to Vietnam or getting asylum
in a western country.
America took in the largest number of boat people during the
early years. The final numbers of Vietnamese who stayed during
this time varies, but at one point in the late 1970s, America
was taking in 14,000 boat people a month.
CNN.COM,
CBC.CA,
(http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/13215415.htm)
******************
November 22, 2005
THE LIVING HELL OF
“BUI DOI”
By Michael Benge
FrontPageMagazine.com
Shunned by much of society, denied access to land, forced to
work in degrading conditions, virtual slaves, and routinely
abused at the hands of the police and of a privileged class who
enjoy the state's protection – these are terms used to describe
the deplorable lives of Amerasians (mixed-race) under the
communist regime in Vietnam.
Amerasians bore the brunt of the Vietnamese communists’ hatred
toward America after their take over of South Vietnam in 1975.
Used and abused by the communist officials, beaten at will,
debased, raped and forced into prostitution, life under the
Vietnamese communists has been a living hell for Amerasians.
Many Amerasians were rounded up by the Vietnamese communists and
sent to concentration camps, where they were forced to
deactivate mines with nothing more than a knife. According to
one internee, only two out of eight in his section survived, six
were blown up one by one in the minefields. They were told that
they had to harvest what their fathers had sown; however, many
of the mines were those sown by the communists themselves.
When U.S. forces withdrew from Vietnam in 1975, an estimated
50,000 Amerasian children were left behind. Amerasians – My lai
– are regarded as bui doi – dirt or dust of life – children of
the enemy by the xenophobic Vietnamese communists. However to
be My lai den bui doi – half-black Amerasian – is the lowest of
the low in the repressive Vietnamese communist society.
There is a Vietnamese saying that it is better to marry the
village dog than a man from somewhere else. It was commonplace
for the mothers of Amerasian children to tear up their
children’s birth certificate in an attempt to hide the ethnicity
of their children out of fear of persecution by the communists;
more so if their children were My lai den. At best, the mothers
were ostracized – shunned – for bearing "half-breeds" because
this meant that they had "collaborated" with the hated American
enemy. Some mothers, fearing the new government's reaction,
gave up their Amerasian children to relatives, childless
couples, orphanages, or even abandoned them on the streets.
As the new Communist government consolidated its power, the
prejudice and discrimination Amerasians and their mothers had
experienced before the War's end was institutionalized. Along
with other "collaborators," Amerasians were denied educational
and vocational opportunities and other social service amenities
such as access to health care. Many, along with their families,
were relocated to the New Economic Zones with little or no
infrastructure and social services in desolate, remote, sparsely
populated regions to which adherents of the former "puppet
regime" were sent. Here they were given land and a little food
and told to start their lives anew. But many of them became
virtual slaves.
Outcast, despised, and openly discriminated against, many of the
fatherless Amerasians and their mothers became part of "the dust
of life" (bui doi), the poorest-of-the-poor and forced to live
on the fringes of Vietnamese society. Local children chased the
Amerasian children and pelted them with sticks and stones while
shouting: "go back to America" or “bastard of American
imperialists.” Young Amerasian boys and girls were often raped
and sold into prostitution.
Tuan Phuoc Le is My lai den born to a Vietnamese woman, fathered
by an African-American serviceman. He was born in the port city
of Rach Gia, Kien Giang province in November 1971, less than
four years before America’s abandonment of South Vietnam. Rach
Gia is a port city on the northwestern coast of the Mekong
Delta, on the Gulf of Thailand. Tuan Lee was too young to know
his father, but his uncle told him his father was a U.S. Marine
and was Missing in Action (MIA). Tuan Le’s mother escaped
Vietnam by boat to Thailand in search of a new life, abandoning
him when he was 5 or 6 years old.
Tuan Le went to live with grandparents and uncle, who lived in a
rural area. He was able to attend school for the first and
second grade during which time his schoolmates cruelly taunted
him with chants: My lai den! My lai den! (black-half-breed)
“Son of a whore”! “Bastard son of an American imperialist”! He
was picked on, humiliated, teased and insulted by the students,
the teachers as well as the schools officers. They beat him up
for no reason at all. For his safety as well as not being able
to take the abuse, he quit school after the second grade.
His extended family lived in extreme poverty and inhabited a
very small house in a rural area. Even there he had no peace.
Because of the lack of room, much of the time he had to eat
outside. If the communist cadre walked by and saw him, they
would beat him on the head and taunt him with pejorative names.
Because of this, his grandfather would not let him outside any
more.
Between the ages of 8 to 12, Tuan Le roamed the streets
scrounging for food and trying to find some kind of work – as a
last resort, he would beg for food or money. When the communist
cadre caught him, they would force him to strip naked and
dance. They told him that if his mother could do “the dance”
with an American GI, he could dance for them too. When he
wouldn’t dance for them, they would begin stabbing the ground
around his feet with bayonets fixed to their rifles. The more
they stabbed the faster he would dance, all the while they would
be calling him degrading names for their entertainment. On one
occasion, he was stabbed several times with a bayonet
penetrating his ankle. The scars are visible on his ankle, as
many scars are on his head, some from being beaten with a North
Vietnamese soldier’s helmet.
In Vietnam, the communists require everyone to carry an ID card,
and without one, Tuan Le could not travel anywhere. Many
commodities, such as rice, were rationed and one had to have an
ID card to buy any. The communists told Tuan Le that for him to
get an ID card he would have to bring his dead father with him
to get it. They thought this was amusing.
Tuan Le was bigger than the Vietnamese kids his age. He worked
at odd jobs whenever he could, in the rice paddies or on fishing
boats; however, because he was an Amerasian, he was always paid
much less than others. When he was 15, he was sent to a labor
camp, where he had to dig ditches. As an Amerasian, he was
forced to work three times as hard as non-Amerasian Vietnamese –
if they were assigned to dig one meter of a ditch, he had to dig
three. If he did not complete his assignment, he was severely
beaten. Whether he completed his quota or not, he was beaten at
least once a week, most often on his head and face. He did not
receive any pay for his hard work other than just enough food on
which to survive.
Tuan Le wasn’t able to escape Vietnam until June 26, 1992 when
he was accepted into the U.S. Amerasian program. His uncle had
heard of the program and the family saved and scraped together
what little money they could so he could take Tuan Le to the
place to sign up for it at the provincial capitol of Kien Giang.
His grandmother gave his uncle Tuan Phuoc Le’s birth certificate
that she had kept hidden all those years so that he could give
it to those running the Amerasian program. Tuan Le then
received a blood test, was processed and left almost
immediately. He was sent to Baatan, Philippines for further
screening and processing and for ESL (English as a Second
Language) training.
On September 15, 2004, the State Department listed Vietnam as a
“Country of Particular Concern for Religious Freedom” under the
International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, one of 8 countries
worldwide to be so designated. This designation carries the
option of sanctions against repressive countries, such as
barring its officials from traveling to the United States.
Vietnam is one of the last bastions of communism along with
China, Cuba, North Korea and Cambodia.
Instead of sanctions, the State Department rewarded the
Vietnamese communists by arranging a White House visit with
President Bush. For this prestigious honor, Vietnam’s Prime
Minister Phan Van Khai promised that he would ensure that the
religious persecution and human rights abuses would stop, a
promise that turned out to be nothing but communist hot air.
This, of course, came as no surprise to anyone who followed the
politics of the communist Vietnamese, for they have continually
broken every agreement they ever made with the U.S.
On the morning of June 21st, more than a thousand Vietnamese
Americans and a smattering of Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnam
veterans gathered in Lafayette Park across from the White House
to protest Khai’s presence and meeting with President Bush.
Khai’s caravan – with his huge entourage of communist
“officials” in tow and a Praetorian guard of U.S. Secrete
Service agents – arrived at the White House front gate a little
after 9:00. Part of the crowd of protesters crossed the street
and moved toward the White House gate while shouting: “Khai go
home!” “Communists go home!” “Khai stop killing the Vietnamese
people!” “Religious freedom now!” “Stop human rights abuses!
“Democracy now!” “Khai, let our people go!”
Tuan Le had brought an effigy of Ho Chi Minh hanging from a
gallows pole and had stayed in the park with the remaining
protesters. Around 10:15 several members of the communist
delegation, dressed in suites, came out of the White House gate
and headed straight over to the park, infiltrated the crowd,
split up and began provoking the protestors. About three or
four confronted Tuan Le and gave him thumbs down and began
calling him names and taunting him with “dirty black bastard”,
“son of a bitch”, son of a whore and a black American
imperialist”, and “Du ma may” (F….. your mother!). The
Vietnamese protesters surrounded them shouting: “Communists go
home!” “Communists go home!” With fear on their faces, the
communist Vietnamese broke free of the crowd and ran down the
street pursued by the protestors. A large presence of police
cut off the pursuers, and the communists disappeared around the
corner toward the rear of the White House. This must have been
a planned diversion to let Khai and the main delegation slip out
the side gate of the White House so the protestors couldn’t
confront them.
Just before Khai came to the U.S., the communist regime passed a
law against protesting near government buildings, and protesters
like those who confronted him would get 15 yrs. to life in the
brutal communist prisons and gulags in Vietnam.
A reporter came out of the front gate and told the crowd that
Khai and his delegation had left. The protesters began leaving,
and those Vietnamese-American protesters who didn’t go home
split into two groups and went to get lunch, both groups
planning to continue their protests against Prime Minister and
his delegation at the Willard and Mayflower Hotels where they
were staying.
After lunch, the group that Tuan Le was with headed for the
Willard Hotel where Prime Minister Khai was staying. At about a
quarter to two, they arrived at the hotel. Tuan Le spotted one
of the Vietnamese communists who had taunted him at the White
House standing in front of the hotel. Tuan Le’s ears started
ringing, he saw red, it was déjà vu; his thoughts flashed back
to Vietnam – to the years when he was forced to dance naked, and
the abuse he suffered. Tuan Le lashed out and hit the communist
alongside his head and screamed – “You dirty communist, you
killed my father!” By coincidence, the communist that Tuan Le
hit turned out to be Nguyen Quoc Huy, vice chairman of the Prime
Minister's Office for the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The
U.S. Secret Service detail assigned to protect the communist
Vietnamese delegation, grabbed Tuan Le, handcuffed him, and sat
him down on the sidewalk. Several of the communist delegation,
still in suits, came up to him, pointing their fingers in his
face, taunting him with the same slanderous names as before.
When Tuan Le tried to reply, he was told to shut up by the
Secret Service, but nothing was said to the communists.
Tuan Phuoc Le was then arrested by the Secret Service and put in
jail for assaulting his communist tormentor, and even though he
is an Amerasian, and he now faces deportation by the U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services section of Homeland
Security.
However, if Tuan Le is sent back it will be in violation of both
American and international law: "Renditions: Constraints
Imposed by Laws on Torture" – makes clear that the 1984 U.N.
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment, which this country signed in 1994,
declares that no state party, "shall expel, return or extradite
a person to another state where there are substantial grounds
for believing he would be in danger of being subjected to
torture." And a U.S. law, the Foreign Affairs Reform and
Restructuring Act of 1998, implementing our responsibilities
under the international convention, emphasizes our pledge that
we do not, "expel, extradite or otherwise effect the involuntary
return of any person to a country in which there are substantial
grounds for believing" he would be tortured.
At a September 21 congressional hearing exploring developments
in Southeast Asia, Representative James Leach, chairman of the
Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific of the House Committee
on International Relations stated: "As exemplified by the visit
of the Vietnamese Prime Minister earlier this year, the United
States and Vietnam are developing an unprecedented and warming
bilateral relationship, with growing trade, security, and
people-to-people ties. However, the depth of the relationship
is constrained by continuing human rights violations, such as
the jailing of dissidents, the attempt to control religious
practice, and brutal crackdowns in the Central Highlands."
As proof that things haven’t changed, on September 23, the U.S.
Ambassador to Hanoi Michael Marine denounced the regime in Hanoi
for trampling political dissent and religious freedom at a
meeting with the American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi. "The
United States remains concerned that the government of Vietnam
is intolerant of political dissent and limits its people's
enjoyment of the freedoms of religion, speech, press and
assembly," Ambassador Marine called on the government to release
their political prisoners including journalist Nguyen Vu Binh,
democracy activists Nguyen Khac Toan and Tran Van Luon, and Dr.
Pham Hong Son, a physician sentenced to 13 years in prison for
downloading a State Department article on democracy. Human
Rights Watch has criticized Vietnam for its dismal human rights
record and says thousands of democracy activists, members of
religious and religious and minority groups and government
critics have been jailed or harassed.
The Big Lie: Like the philosophy professed by Nazi Joseph
Goebbels in Germany’s extermination campaign against the Jews,
the Vietnamese communists' promised policy change to improve
human rights and religious freedom for the oppressed Vietnamese
people is the same: "If you tell a lie often enough, it
eventually becomes accepted as the truth." The only difference
is that in 1945 the United States liberated the imprisoned Jews
of Germany, but abandoned the peoples of South Vietnam in 1975.
Tuan Le met his wife in the orientation camp for Vietnamese
refugees in the Philippines, and they arrived in the U.S. on
January 9, 1993. They now have three children twin girls who
are 12 years old, and a boy of ten. Tuan Le and his family live
in Gwinnett County, Georgia, and he works in construction. If
it is up to the immigration service, Tuan Phuoc Le won’t see his
family again for he will be deported back to Vietnam.
The morbid irony of this is Tuan Lee’s father, a black American,
died fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese, and his death
deprived Tuan Le of a father. Now, America’s misguided judicial
system is trying to deprive Tuan Le’s children of their father,
and Tuan Le of his freedom. If Tuan Le is sent back, it is
inevitable that he will end up in one of communist Vietnam’s
brutal prisons for many years – once again back to “a living
hell.”
Michael Benge spent 11 years in Viet Nam, over five years as
a Prisoner of War—1968-73. While serving as a civilian Foreign
Service Officer, he was captured in South Viet Nam by the North
Vietnamese and held in numerous camps in South Viet Nam,
Cambodia, Laos, and North Viet Nam. Mike is a student of South
East Asian politics, is very active in advocating for human
rights, religious freedom, and a full and accurate accounting
for our POW/MIAs, and has written extensively on these subjects.
Endnotes:
Personal interview with Amerasian Michael Sheppard-Nguyen on
July 29, 2004
Personal interview with Tuan Phuoc Le on August 27, 2005.
Robert S. McKelvey. Vietnamese Amerasians: The children we
left behind.
http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/MotsPluriels/MP798rmk.html
Thomas A. Bass. Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home”.
http://www.thomasbass.com/work4.htm
Neil Jamieson. Understanding Vietnam. University of
California Press. 1995.
April 28, 2005. Congressional Research Service Report for
Congress -- Renditions: Constraints Imposed by Laws on
Torture.
Congressional Record. September 21, 2005. Congressional
hearing: Exploring Developments in Southeast Asia.
Department of State briefing on S.E. Asia September 23, 3005.
Sister Christine My Hanh. Director of the Center for Family and
Youth Services of Georgia. Stories of the Amerasian (Con
Lai). Story of the Week section. So My Hanh van hung nguoi
Con Lai on RFA.org 08/30/05.
What Happened to These Children of War? Marie Claire.
June 2005.
Mach Song No. 15. Vietnamese Amerasians: Coming Home to a
Bleak Future. Sept. 2003.
Gaiutra Bahadur. Legacy of Vietnam, Lost in Translation.
Philadelphia Inquirer. Oct. 22, 2003.
Edward Hegstrom. Relocated Amerasians find opportunity in
Port Arthur. Houston Chronicle. October 13, 2003.
(http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20254)
******************
About NCVA
Founded in 1986, the National Congress of Vietnamese
Americans is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community advocacy
organization working to advance the cause of Vietnamese
Americans in a plural but united America – e pluribus unum –
by participating actively and fully as civic minded citizens
engaged in the areas of education, culture and civil
liberties.
Copyright material is distributed without profit or payment for
research and educational purposes only, in accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. section 107
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