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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.


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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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/)

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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)

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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.