Source: U.S. Census 2000

1. Vietnamese Americans: Place Making in the America Mosaic Source: U.S. Census 2000 Presented by: Le Si Long, Ph.D.Director of International Initiatives of Global StudiesCo-Founder of Vietnamese Studies Courses of Modern & Classical LanguagesUniversity of Houston (USA)lsle@mail.uh.edu

2. Introduction: Being Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, and American Vietnamese American History Vietnamese Refugee Experience: From 1954 to 2005 The Second Generation of Vietnamese Americans: The Balancing Act of Two Cultures From Refugees to Transmigrants: Place Making in Vietnam? Overview

3. In Maintaining My Vietnamese Heritage(Below is a description of my family historical roots in Vietnam written by my paternal grandfather in 1982 while living in France) Source: Généalogie (gia-phå) des Lê

4. In Maintaining My Vietnamese Heritage(Below is my family’s genealogy being maintained by family members in Hanoi) • Source: Gia Pha cua Ho Le (in Hanoi) • Picture: My family’s ancestral alter which is being maintained by donations from family members.

5. My Family’s Legacy of Having Two Cultural Worlds During the French Colonial Era • Le Tai Truong (a bio data of my paternal grandfather) • Born on 04/14/ 1907 in Hà Dông (29e day of 11e month, Dinh Mui year, Hoi hour, (23h) • Elementary school in Tuyên Quang (Hoà Binh). Middle and High schools at Lycée du Protectorat, Hànoï (1914-1921-1926) • Participated in the students strike in 1926 organized after the death of Phan chau Trinh, a revolutionaire fighting against the french domination. Suspended for 3 months by the Lycee. Did not return to the Lycee. • A few weeks later, took the Baccalaureat, First part exam, as an independent candidate, at the Albert Sarraut Lycee. Passed with grade. The following year, as an independent candidate, passed the Second part exam, Option Mathematics, June 1927, with grade B, Option Phylosophy, Sept 1927, with grade C. • Nominated as chief’s assistant in the Residences in1928 (after his marriage). Assigned in Lao Kay, Kien An and in the Cabinet of the Resident Superior in Hanoi (1933). Collaborated with the newspapers and revues: France-Indochine, Annam Nouveau, Patrie Annamite, … • In 1934, passed the exam of Upper Judicial Indochina Studies (Hanoi University). Ranked No 1, in the first examination for «Tri Huyen» (District Chief) organized in Hanoi, in 1936. Intern in Thai Binh Province, then Binh Xuyen District Chief in Vinh Yen Province (1937-1938) • Returned to the Cabinet of the Superior Resident, in Hanoi. Nominated by Yves Chatel, Superior Resident, to replace E.Vayrac, Administrateur, in the functions of Chief of the Press Bureau. Kept this post until 1945. • The Viet Minh abolished the «Corps des Mandarins» (District and Province Chiefs corps). Took refuge in Saigon in 1946 (to avoid arrest, warned by his brother in law Hanh). Chargé de mission in Hong Kong (with Administrator J.Cousseau) in 1947. Got in contact with Emperor Bao Dai’s entourage. Returned to Saigon, then Hanoi (12/31/1947) • In 1949, right after the return of Emperor Bao Dai, named Director of Political Affairs, in the Imperial Cabinet by Prince Buu Loc. Member of the Vietnamese delegation at the Pau Interstates conference. Chief of the Civil Cabinet Civil, Assistant Chief of staff for Civil and Military Affairs, and Vice Imperial Delegate in the imperial domain (Province of Son La, Hoa Binh, Cao Bang, Lang Son, Mon Cay in the North, Darlac, Langbian, Ban Me Thuot, Kontum in the South) • Resigned at the ascension of Ngo Dinh Diem. Lived in France with the entire family from 1955 to 1964. • Source: Généalogie (gia-phå) des Lê

6. My Family’s Legacy of Having Two Cultural Worlds During the American Era(Below is picture of my father during the Vietnam War) (Le Thuc Can, project leader of the An Hoa Industrial Complex (center), discuss plans with Gen Walt and Lt.Col William W. Taylor (left), commanding Officer, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines. The battalion is about to reenter the An Hoa region in Operation Georgia). (Cpl Robert L. Peragallo, USMC 1/9”B”-1st Plt, 12 of May 1966) Source: http://www.americans-working-together.com/american_veterans/id91.html

7. My Family’s Legacy of Having Two Cultural Worlds at 331 Einstein, Thu Duc (Below is a picture of my home before we escaped by boat in 1982. I find it somewhat poetic that I grew up on a street with a Western name).

8. My Becoming an American and Shaping the America Mosaic

9. My Becoming an American and Shaping the America Mosaic

10. VIETNAMESE STUDIES PROGRAM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON Vietnamese Language Courses Beginning Vietnamese I Beginning Vietnamese II Intermediate I Intermediate II Advanced Speaking and Reading Vietnamese Courses in English Vietnamese Global Diaspora Vietnamese Culture and Society Contemporary Vietnam Politics Vietnamese American History & Experience* Vietnamese American Community & its Culture* Vietnamese Study Abroad Program Offered since 2005 Vietnamese Certification Program Will be offered in fall 2008 Shaping the Diversity in American Higher Education

11. Defining three interrelated cultural identities: Vietnamese, Vietnamese American, and American Who are the Vietnamese? Le Van Huu: constructing an identity of Vietnamese that place Trieu Da’s Nam Viet (207-111 B.C.) as the starting point for Vietnamese history, so as to illustrate ‘Vietnam’s equality’ with, and defiance against the imperial expansion of, China. Ngo Si Lien: constructing an identity of Vietnamese that was equal, if not superior, to the mythical emperors of China by predating the origin of Vietnamese civilization via the Hung kings to 2879 B.C. Early U.S. and Vietnam Contacts Thomas Jefferson: in July 1787 as a American Minister to France expressed an interest in acquiring rice seed from Cochinchina (southern Vietnam), constituting the first official American awareness of that distant foreign country. In a letter, Jefferson noted that “The dry rice of Cochinchina has the reputation of being whitest to the eyes, best flavored to the taste, and more productive” (Miller, 1990). John White: a US Navy Captain was the first to make contact with Vietnam in 1820. The Minh Mang’s court was willing to sign a contract in purchasing artillery, firearms, uniforms and books but unwilling to open ports for trade (Miller, 1990). Bui Vien: an official of the Tu Duc’s court was sent to the U.S. in 1873 to ask U.S. to intervene against French intrusion in Vietnam of which was noted to be “well received” by President Grant. However, this has lacked historical documentation in which such visit actually took place. Teaching Vietnamese American History

12. One of the Earliest Vietnamese Americans in the U.S.

13. Vietnamese in the U.S. before 1975 Vietnamese Immigrants Admitted to the U.S., Fiscal Years 1951 through 2001 Source: Adopted from Southeast Asia Resource Action Center’s Southeast Asian American Statistical Profile. The Vietnamese population before 1975 was small but active – about 20,000, of largely students and professionals. Many Vietnamese individuals were agents of change, not only promoting a better understanding of Vietnam as a country rather merely as a war in mainstream press and forums, but also assisting their fellow peers on adjusting to life in the U.S. (Vu, 2003).

14. The Vietnamese In-country Refugee Experience of 1954 • During the early 20th century, a modern Vietnamese integration emerged in which Vietnamese could adopt and adapt Western values and ideas, blending them with the Vietnamese value system without viewing them as contradictory. • This East-West fusion was expressed by Phan Boi Chau, raising many of the significant questions of westernization and modernization in French Indochina. Boi Chau saw the necessity for Vietnamese, particularly women and soldiers, to be trained professionally and vocationally in the western ways in order to achieve modernization, which will bring about a desire for progress and adventure, love and trust, virtue and heroism, no obnoxious mandarins, no dissatisfied citizens, no imperfect educational system, no neglected industry and no losing commercial activities. After that, the West “will learn from us,” according to Chau (Lam, 2003). • The partition of the country in 1954 through the Geneva Accord provided the conditions in which the East-West fusion could continue to develop in southern Vietnam. In fact, southern Vietnam’s urban centers – which were being subsidized by American ambition’s to “win the hearts and minds of the people” from 1954 to 1975 – provided millions of migrants from the north as well as from the rural areas of the south the opportunity to synthesize Vietnamese culture and western culture. • As a result, southern Vietnamese urbanites were far more likely than anyone else in the country to have attended or had children attending newly built schools with trained teachers and printed textbooks on mathematics, chemistry and engineering. They were also far more likely to be affected by the information and communication explosion, such as owning a television set, a radio, a telephone, and a car. They were more likely to have seen English TV programs such as “Dragnet,” “Batman,” “I Love Lucy,” “The Ed Sullivan Show,” “Gunsmoke,” “Mission Impossible,” and “Combat.” Moreover, Vietnamese urbanites were far more likely to have been an “entrepreneur” by way of the “American consumer economy” in southern Vietnam. • With the fall of South Vietnam in 1975, these southern Vietnamese urbanites disproportionately made up the numbers of refugees who evacuated and escaped Vietnam. Moreover, the first wave of Vietnamese refugees right after 1975 was made up disproportionately of the 1954 in-country refugees.

15. Motives for Migration from Homeland among Vietnamese Refugees in Thai Camps Source: Institute for Asian Studies, 1988

16. Vietnamese Refugee Arrivals to the U.S., Fiscal Years 1975-2002

17. Vietnamese were systematically dispersed across the states to avoid burdening local governments’ budget and to prevent Vietnamese from clustering into large geographically ethnic communities. And once leaving the camps, governmental officials delegated and depended on the voluntary agencies to resettle Vietnamese refugees. While simultaneously adapting to America society, they were very capable of resisting and rejecting aspects of U.S. resettlement policies in order to retain aspects of their own cultural heritage of which provide them social and psychological support. Vietnamese refugees, in fact, saw the dispersion presented a major obstacle in adjusting because it prevented ethnic support and a sense of belonging (Tran, 1976). After a few years, government created diasporas were reversing, as Vietnamese themselves sought for the presence of a Vietnamese community, providing a source of practical, economical, and cultural support (Haines et al. 1981). Many of the emerging enclaves became known as “Little Saigons.” The “Little Saigons” were replications of the Vietnamese urban villages in which they “provide the individual with a sense of community and security in a potential hostile environment” (Do, 1999). Vietnamese with limited English gain employment, older immigrants find solace, and “Americanized” children can connect with the Vietnamese culture (McLaughlin & Jesilow, 1998). Today, there are various “Little Saigons” across the states. They are now integral part of the American environment landscape. “Little Saigons” are also laboratories to test and integrate American ideas on commerce, marketing, entrepreneurship, and the like. And like other ethnic American communities, a number of the “Little Saigons” are taking advantage of the information age in going international and going high-tech. The Little Saigons: Place Making in the American Mosaic

18. Vietnamese refugees were noted to have had a distinct kind of “anticipatory socialization” to American society, given southern Vietnam’s unique socio-historical familiarity with Western language, employment, customs, and traditions. The adaptation of the first generation Vietnamese refugees in the United States has been to “use cultural elements, both ancient ones and ones required through cultural contact” and to rely on “cultural ingenuity which views American society as a necessary ingredient for survival and for success” (Rutledge, 1987). Such bicultural patterns among Vietnamese refugees have caused analysts to describe Vietnamese of having various characteristics, including eclectic, adaptable, resourceful, practical, passive, indirect, and resilient. Vietnamese refugees see their exodus after 1975 as having been “for the children’s future.” As such, they would accept the prospect that their own generation may experience prolonged economic hardship so long as it would provide greater educational and career opportunities for their children. Thus, higher education was viewed as a path to attain economic attainment, particularly for the children of refugees and immigrants. Empirical studies have found members of the younger generation in marginal socio-economic environment who “have strong adherence to traditional family values, strong commitment to work ethic, and a high degree of personal involvement in the ethnic community tend disproportionately to have high grades, to have definite college plans, to score high on academic orientation” (Zhou and Bankston 1994). In fact, refugee studies have, in part, contributed to the relatively robust social mobility of the first generation of Vietnamese refugees to this cohort’s ability to retain aspects of Vietnamese culture. That is, in making places for themselves, Vietnamese refugees have retained Vietnamese cultural ideals of the family such as “hieu” (filial piety) and of the community such as “nghia” (the obligation to participate rather than withdraw from societal affairs). These Vietnamese cultural ideals co-existed with views that the American way of life was modern, scientific, and progressive. Vietnamese Americans have also documented a who’s who among their members, entitled in a large five volume edition of The Pride of the Vietnamese by Trong Minh Vu Van Chat. The Adaptability of Vietnamese Refugees

19. Source: Paul Star’s and Alden Roberts’ Community Structure and Vietnamese Refugee Adaptation (1982).

20. From Refugees to Immigrants Vietnamese Immigrants Admitted to the U.S., Fiscal Years 1951 through 2001

21. Self-Expression Values and English Acquisition Over Time Among Vietnamese Source: Author’s Analysis of Houston Area Asian Survey, March 1996 (N=151).

22. Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States Among the Top Countries of Origin Source: 2006 Index of Immigrant Assimilation by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. The index is a quantified measurement based on the comparison between foreign- and native-born people in economic, cultural, and civic factors.

23. Progress Among Vietnamese Refugees and Immigrants Source: 2006 Index of Immigrant Assimilation by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. The index is a quantified measurement based on the comparison between foreign- and native-born people in economic, cultural, and civic factors.

24. Cultural Values Index Between Vietnamese and Asian Non-Refugee Immigrants

25. Vietnamese Katrina Evacuees: Becoming Refugees Once Again • After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in late August 2005, more than 15,000 Vietnamese-American evacueed, and thousands of Vietnamese families were left homeless in Bayou La Batre, Alabam, and East Biloxi, Mississippi. • The Vietnamese Versailles community in New Orleans East has touted by national and local media region as an example of a “community that refused to place its salvation into the hands of the government.” • Forty-five of the 53 Vietnamese-owned businesses concentrated in the area are back, and over 90 percent of the Vietnamese American residents have returned, while fewer than 50 percent of the African Americans have done so. • The Vietnamese Versailles community’s faith and cohesion demonstrates how collective history and memory, contributed to the ability to rebuild so quickly after Hurricane Katrina. • For example, Father The Vien Nguyen of Mary Queen of Vietnam Church explained that the central role of the church in the community was not a postmigration phenomenon. Instead, it grew out of a pattern of church leadership that had developed in Vietnam over several hundred years in which a form of local leadership had played a major role in motivating villagers to flee their homeland for fear of religious and political persecution. • "During 21 years of war in Vietnam, we were always having to evacuate and rebuild," he says. "Katrina is just another detail for us to deal with." Father Vien Nguyen of the Mary Queen of Vietnam Parish. • Leaders of the community leaders are now looking beyond the rebuild phase and to the future. They submitted to the Bring New Orleans Back Commission extensive plans and drawings for a community center, including a museum reflecting the area's history and culture; a retirement home; pedestrian bridges spanning canals; an expansion of the community's famed Saturday-morning market that once offered some of the area's freshest and most-exotic produce; and a eye toward drawing tourists as an engine of economic development.

26. The Second Generation of Vietnamese Americans: The Balancing Act of Two Cultures • Studies found that Vietnamese youth involvement in an Anglo-American middle class community in Lansing (MI) is associated positively across personal, interpersonal, and achievement domains (Nguyen et al. 1999). This is because taking on the characteristics is useful in such community. • Conversely, Vietnamese who have high involvement in the Vietnamese culture in a primarily American context may experience less cultural fit because it is a context that has little support or utility for such involvements, although ethnic involvement was found to predict good family relationships (Nguyen, 2000). • As such, bicultural patterns that lean toward Anglo middle class values and norms, while maintaining ethnic cultural practices in the home, may provide the opportunity “to develop strong coping strategies protecting them from psychological distress, and perhaps facilitating upward mobility” (Lam, 2005). • In cases where Vietnamese youth is in contact with young people of native-born minorities and their adversarial youth culture, it has been found that Vietnamese students who have strong family ties and whose family is connected to the community such as religious or ethnic groups succeed in maintaining a more positive academic orientation (even if they live in single-parents homes) than those who are alienated from their families and communities (even if they live in intact families) (Zhou and Bankston 1998; Phan, 2005). • However, it is important to that American individualism is at odds with Vietnamese family’s hierarchy and obedience. That is, reverence for traditions and behavior based on social orders are at odds with American youth culture. By implication, adapting culturally transmitted norms and values to new circumstances involves some degree of conflict, if not in some cases alienation and delinquency.

27. Self-Expression Values Among Vietnamese 40 Years Old and Above

28. Self-Expression Values Among Vietnamese 18-39 Years Old

29. Vietnamese American College Students Speak Up Via E-Poll Source: The E-Survey of Vietnamese Students Associations (VSAs) was conducted by Long S. Le in 2004

30. Marking the Vietnamese American Heritage at the Smithsonian "Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon" Traveling Exhibit

31. From Refugees to Transmigrants: Place Making in Vietnam? • Discussion…

32. Conclusion • In becoming American, Vietnamese have culturally and structurally assimilated to the American society. • However, at the same time, Vietnamese have retained their ethnicity via their family, community, and their experience as political refugees. • And because becoming Vietnamese Americans is a process, it will entail some form of generational and gender conflicts.