ee eel eer ere os RT eera Eas) Ree Saal ation and De hi Mise ers of left 284. —tram quang nguyenCaring for the Soul of Our Community 285 *Viotamerican Reprisls”excorpt. Caring for the Soul eo hey itv: ‘hai muti lim néim vn tré this of Our Community: fisksntenar eearte anh hing bi&h mat bat bén chéo Vietnamese Youth Activism heroes disappear in the crossfire in the 1960s and Today sma ctura h6t con at by thong? but we have yet to ask who Is hurt? trong long ta ai con biét thuong? Tram Quang Nguyen ‘in our hearts who stil can love? ‘We were a northern Vietnamese family, my parents and their dhree daughters, who came co the United States in 1978 and lived, at first, in a flaking green duplex in Wichita, Kansas. When I chink back co how I became “politically conscious,” why I am stil trying to figure out what that means in my life voday, [look back on these origins to understand why. ‘My Dad had been a major in the South Vietnamese army, my Mom was the daughter ofa Viet Minh revolutionary. Our family had done time in the re- education prison, time on the escape boat, and time in the refugee camp—a familiar enough odyssey among other Viewamese American families arriving in the U.S. after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Tentered American school for the firs time in Wichita as a kindergartner along with working-class white kids and some Laotians, also relocated refugees like us. At home, my sisters and I spoke our Hanoi- accented Vietnamese to our parents, a flat Midwestern English to each other, and mostly kept to ourselves. The family got by ‘on welfare while our parents pored over their state college textbooks, As we moved around in the next years— ae following job prospects until our overloaded used car eters aan ato roan finally pulled up in Los Angeles when I was 10 years 6 Moment‘old—our family stayed a self sufficient, somewhat isolated unit, I picked up the sense carly on that we lived at the outskirts of American life. Buc neither did we hsve much connection to other Vietnamese in America. Ir ‘was a long time until I though about being Vietnamese in any way beyond my private, bifurcated home life. Iknow about a handful of other Vietnamese Americans now who ate involved with social change struggles. And most of us have lived some variation on this cory of dislocation and disorientation, which I think pechaps acu pare helps us occupy that shifting space of multi- Rie ees consciousness where family history, personal beliefs and erent community politics intersect. Many of these young progressives are more active in other communities of rT color, and some mask their political beliefs in order to Seated work with the Viernamese community. In either case, there seemed to be no precedents for how to organize ero Vietnamese Americans, our collective politics having Dac become defined by a right-wing dominance fueled with anti-communism. Like me, these young Vietnamese DR RUS American leftists knew little about any history of left Serre? ; Scie activism in our own community that we could look to. For most of us, it had been older Asian American movement radicals who inspired our political work. But there is Vietnamese history in America—and a leftist history at that—going as far back as the 1940s national liberation struggles among emigres in New York against French colonialism, to the 1960s anti-war activism of Vietnamese students and early immigrants. ‘Vu Pham, a Cornell graduace studene writing his thesis on the generation of Vietnamese in America before 1975, estimates their numbers as somewhere between 18,000 to 36,000. Many were the children of South Viet Nam's elite, sent abroad to study. Some stayed loyal to the South Vietnamese regime, and later became prominent in the refugee communities that sprang up after the war ended. Buc there were others who, shaped by movement, politics of the late ‘60s, became anti-war activists and lifelong radicals, Chuong Chung artived in California in the ‘60s as a foreign student fresh from a few years abroad in Belgium. Having grown up under French tutelage in South Viet Nam, Chuong was sent to Europe to learn photography in preparation for taking over his father’s Saigon business. 286 —tram quang nguyenCaring for the Soul of Our Community 287 He arrived in Berkeley at the height of the social justice movements in America. “For a good 10 years of my life, Iwas brainwashed co believe Brance was my mother country,” he recalled. “Icame here in 1968—that year vwas very, very memorable.” ‘The assassination of Marcin Luther King, Jr the Tet Offensive, and the Third World Suike at San Francisco Seace University all took place that year. Chuong began reading Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver and the writings of Frantz Fanon, He watched as anti-war demonstrations The assassination of swept the campus, afraid, like other foreign students, that Martin Luther King, Jr, he would be deported if caught demonstrating. “T wasn't the Tet Offensive, and active yet, but I started having this feeling of, why are we the Third World Strike fighting?” he said. “Why is ic char the United States, at San Francisco State wants to go to Vietnam? Ic triggered a lor of questions.” University all took place that year. During bis boyhood in Saigon, Chuong had led a privileged existence, isolated from the war unfolding in the countryside. He and his friends, going to weekend movies in the cicy far from the guns they sometimes heard in the distance, were instilled with belie? in the cause of South Vier Nam and che necessity for the United Srates help in “scopping the evil Communist.” But as a 22- year-old living outside of Viet Nam, Chuong ‘was not only exposed to more viewpoints about the war, he also could see the devastation ic wrought on the country as a whole. This became the basis for his opposition to the war. “They had this Operation Ranch Hand where they dropped defoliation on the country. They had the carpet bombing, which is completely raking outa whole section of the geography, just leveled. I started to realize thar this war was not just abour stopping the communists. ‘There was a lot of racism in there too,” he said. “Viet Nam was not just a civil war; Viet Nam “Martin Luther King at Communist Training. was being used in this confrontation, ‘Bomb them back School Noord ts Soe ee into the stone ages’-—that started to germinate within me and I could see I wanted it stopped. That was was one of the things thar shifted within me.” ‘On July 2, 1972 in Los Angeles, the Union of Vietnamese in the United States was formed—the only group of ‘Vietnamese in America to organize against the wat the Movement and the Moment.Their base was small, only about 2,000 to 3,000 Vietnamese foreign students, and it had taken four years for the organizers to bring together a membership and to agree on a position about the war (they ended up supporting the peace points of North Vietnam's National Liberation Frons). STATEMENT OF THE | Tews theasasinaion of recliners GN WET Ra Paste oy 288 tram quang nguyen uNIOH OF Med lied Nguyen Thai Binh in 1972 that had motivated his fiends and comrades to organize the Union of Vietnamese. Binh hhad come to America in 1968 ona US, government scholarship co seudy fishery. The day he graduated from the University of Washington, Binh walked onstage for his diploma and took off his black graduation gown to reveal a demand to stop the war and free Viet Nam, witten in his blood. His anti-war activism eventually gor him deported to South VietNam. At Saigon’s Tan Son Nhut airport, an American agent who had been on the same flight shot Binh six times through the heart, His comrades in America held a memorial for him with the help of the Black Panther Party in Oakland. The Union began to take an important role in the anti-war movement, forming alliances with Asian American, Black, Iranian, Palestinian and other progressives involved in liberation steuggles. Ngo Thanh Nhan, a student at San Jose State at the time, had been one of Binh’s best friends, Also a scholarship student, Nhan became conscious of the anti-war cause and involved in the Union of Viernamese. “I read the Geneva Accords between the French and Viewnamese signed in 1954 and the history of my country, and decided thar the war must end and that the US should not be in Viet Nam,” Nhan recalled in one of his many writings since then about the war and its legacy. The Union opened a national office in Berkeley in 1975, and Nhan was elected as one of two chairs of che group's central committee.‘With the fll of South Vietnam in '75, refugees began atviving at camps in Guam and then in the U.S. Union members visited the camps, increasing their membership and educating refugees about the role of U.S. imperialism in Vietnam. After 1975, the Union also changed its name for political reasons to the Association ‘of Vietnamese Patriots and chen the Association of Vietnamese in the USS. Bur this was the same time the emerging Vietnamese community was becoming militarized. From 1975 to 1985, Vietnamese right-wing organizations were formed with the U.S. government's aiding and abetting to ferret ‘out Viet Cong infiltrators among the refugees. The FBI kept teack of Union of Viernamese members and gave their names to anti-communist groups. Between 11 to 15 Union members were killed during that time, according to Nhan. The FBI never found the killers, though a Vietnamese right- ‘wing organization claimed responsibiliey Among those attacked were Nguyen Van Luy and his wife Pham Thi Luu, who were gunned down in front of their San Francisco home in 1984. A group called the Vietnamese Organization for the Extermination of Communists and Restoration of the Nation claimed responsibility. Van Luy suffered severe wounds and his wife died in the actack. An early Emigré who lefe Viet Nam before World ‘War Il, Van Luy had been a longtime progressive and was the honorary president of the Association of Vietnamese at the time of his assassination, ‘When we spoke for the first time by phone recently, Nhan, now-a computational linguise in New York, asked me this right off the bat, “Why do you think people who opposed the war would care about the community, and why do you think Vietnamese American activists who are young might care a lot about the community?” ‘The young activists I know care about issues ranging from Voreouer A improving the economic and social conditions of Vietnamese communities in the U.S., to fighting the EQUDARITY ry END HoH INES jax @ BRIT Caring for the Soul of Our Community— 289 From 1975 to 1985, Vietnamese right-wing organizations were formed with the U.S. government's aiding and abetting to ferret out Viet Cong infiltrators among the refugees. The FBI kept track of Union of Vietnamese members and gave their names to anti-communist groups. OUR iSTERS HERS Inperiait Women "Boy Supglobal spread of capitalistexploitation and racial injustice. 1 came to my first political awakening in college, much of ie shaped by exposure to campus activism and through UCLA's Asian American Studies Center, Like we did everything clse, my sisters and I gor politically active together, with my older sister leading the way. Today she’s a community organizer in our adopted hometo of San Diego, working with local unions and grasstoor: groups for economic justice. My younger sister isa Peneatn rescarcher ata progressive organization in L.A. and stays orerranen as active in the network of community groups we first got Nort to know in college. And I recently moved to Oaldand co worlkat a leftist think cank’s magazine. How did all thre of us end up on the left end of the political spectrum? 1 often get asked this question, to which I usually give some sort of short, simplified answer. Ly-Huong is a Bay Area activist and graduate student who ‘was born in Hawai'i and grew up in San Diego. She explained thac her politicization came in college through an anti- imperialist, anti- capitalise study of the war in of Vietnamese women in resisting French and American imperialism. Bue wondered whether that was her short answer—and later on, she touched on a driving sense of social and political unease I recognized. “Once I read all the different perspectives about the war, it reinforced even more my sense of alicnation in this sociery. Lalready had this sense of me as not an American, So it left me in this really weird position, of feeling like I don't wane to livein this country,” she said. “Buc if we go back to Viernam, this is not the Vietnam T idealized from the national liberation period. Its profoundly revisionist society. Theres no space for us there either.” : a 290. —tram quang nguyen‘Caring for the Soul of Our Community 291 Ly-Huong has been one of the more vocal critics of the repressiveness caused by the Vietnamese community's anti-communist fervor. “Ifyou mention the c-word, or : even talk about left of liberal, suddenly, chey're like, well 4 my parents were in re-education camp, they were in refugee camp,” she said. “Its very true, the elders in the "Ai Crostoad of Yesterday ai ay community have suffered, bur still, chey have thishold on the community itself, _[awsser so ton = Tes a real big conflict, because we want to L be respectful ro our elders and honor g their experiences. But we also want t0 3 challenge their assumptions.” 7 Ly-Huong is part of an email listserv of ‘Vienamese American leftists, a handful ‘of activists from around the country who started their online discussion group after meeting at che Serve the People conference at UCLA in 1998. 1 got on the listserv during the height of community uproar over Westminster's video store protests in 1999. Here, I thought, was a space for Vietnamese perspectives from the left. Buc there was no consensus or plan beyond that for countering the reactionary politics of the community’ vocal extremists. “[have to be honest, I worry about safery. T've come to learn that ies not prudent to confront certain people,” said Ly-Huong. “And there is no safe space where you can express leftist views with the broader When we spoke for the first time by phone recently, Nhan asked me this : right off the bat, * ‘Vietnamese American community. “why do you dhak Tn the lave ‘70s, the Union of Vietnamese organizers people who.opposed realized they would need a different strategy to work with the war would care newly arrived Viernamese Americans, Anti-communist about the groups, some training with automatic weapons in U.S. community, and military camps in preparation for reclaiming South why do you think Vietnam, controlled che political life of Vietnamese Vietnamese American communities. The Union decided to work for American activists S ending the U.S. embargo on Vietnam. “The first goal of who are young ¢ the Union was to take the arms out of the community, so might care a lot about the people can freely express themselves,” Nhan said. “Since canaiiancde: the ending of the embargo, and normalization with : Vietnam, you won't hear of the front having an armed force anymore; these people now have become splintered and become gangs.” o the Movement end the MomentSome former Union members ae still involved in the community, sid Nhan, but they keep their political past eva hag. out of sight in order to work with Vietnamese Americans. Meee econ Younger activists today have also had to learn how to Perea eet approach the issue of anti-communism more strategically. ‘ i pee insea ae Quynh Nguyen was the first politically active Vietnamese person I met at UCLA, Ae che time one of the founding members of a committee fighting for South and. Southeast Asian language courses, she went on to work for numerous union campaigns involving Vietnamese ‘workers and is now national organizer for Asian Pacific ‘American Labor Alliance, Quynh told me about her own, family history of migration from the north, her father later becoming a military court judge in the southern regime. They fled to Guam RYT} in 1975 and lived in Montreal before LFV gt] ending upin Southern California Wi Quynh is articulate about, and at peace with, the ambivalent position she occupies as an Asian American progressive and the child of Vietnamese parents who have lived a certain experience of the was, In activist circles, she has often been asked hhow she views the war—a loaded question for any Vietnamese American. Sometimes, Quynh says, the war can be as much ofa Tiumus test for leftists as iv is for the anti- communist crowd. “When people ask me what do T think of the Viet Nam War—well, how many hours you got? And then when I do attempe to go into it, Asian Americans just don’t get it. I don't blame them, They haven't gone through it. They don't FREE THE 200,000 POLITICAL PRISONERS Bae eeu eee rd my parents perspective either, but Pm Seren loser to it, And so I chink the best ’ Ress anybody can doi to be sensitive tothe fact that there is ambivalence. And that & there’ no right or wrong. We have a totally hybrid experience.” Given all tha, Quynh emphasizes the futility of hanging ‘onto the war debate when it comes to the Vietnamese community, Beyond a personal and academic pursuit, sei 292. —tram quang nguyenCaring for the Soul of Our Community— 293 she sces no point in bringing up che war when organizing Vietnamese workers. In fact, she has found that che andi- ‘communist cause can actually be the source of much of the community's organizing strength and potential. “L ep of Vietnamese comnurity ih Sauter Calforia. cots Enews renee learned that the closest ching thar we have to an activist movement in the Vietnamese American community at the present time is anti-commun- ism—home country politics,” Quynh said. “That's where we get our most experienced leaders and activists.” Recenuly in San Jose, Vietnamese paper carriers organized a strike for better working conditions So oe ene, with the San Jose Mercury News. Service Employees International ‘Union organizers who came in later to help with the campaign were impressed with how well organized the workers were, how prepared with bullhorns and whistles—the same ones they had used in protesting a Ho Chi Minh art exhibit in Oakland earlier 8 Fighting We fee Rtn Reclaiming our Vietnamese American history thar year and identity has Quynh focuses on working with low-income Vietnamese come.to have a lot workers, such as the United Food and Commercial more meaning for ‘Workers campaign that organized hundreds of staughter- me these days. It. |= will mean, I think, - careful and strategic organizing work within our communities. it will mean nurturing the youth and not antagonizing the house workers at the meat industry giant Farmer John. She sees worker organizing as an important entry point into fostering more activism among Vietnamese Americans, “For us to become a force, we have to feel entitled, we have to become mad and feel like we can do more. And one of the areas where we're constantly being pushed down is work,” she said. “If people can feel empowered on the jb, Fdhnk will deeply afer chee elders. It will mean sense of empowerment overall growing and (Others active in organizing Vietnamese Americans also see struggling in the U.S, without forgetting to fight ‘the imperialism that brought us here. poverty issues as another entry point into working with the community. Sissy'Irinh, a former union organizer ‘who now works on welfare and immigrant issues with che Asian and Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles, said, “Iesall about bread and buster issues, as opposed to ideological ones. A lor of Vietnamese are aware that their job options are fairy limited, and that iv’s not quice as enent and the Momentsimple as just getting another job if you dont like the pay at this one,” Progressive seeds are also being sown in youth organizing such as the Southeast Asian Youth Leadership Project of New York’s Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence. “The youth of the project, mainly Vietnamese and Cam- bodian high schoolers, have researched, documented and advocated against welfare reform that has squeezed their families in the Bronx. One of the program’ volunteer organizers, Johnn ‘Tan, left Saigon as.a one year old, growing up in Uh without much ofa sense of Vietnamese “American community beyond “going to my Moms friends houses.” His parents told him never to get involved with any Vietnamese rallies or political activities for fear of getting huzt or killed by anti-communist extremists. At CAAAY, he’ found similar caution is necessary in approaching the organizationis work with communist- f wary Southeast Asian communities. The group's political hite, ‘education programs incorporate a critique of capitalism and racism, linking i to the issues that affect families every day in the Bronx, such as the cutting of welfare benefits or police brucality. “I think a lot of people don’: associate CAAAV in a hard political way. They see us as nice people who want to help them with welfare and translation,” Johna, said. “What we want to start out with is meering their immediate needs, but then trying to build on that. Showing them that i's not an individual problem, that others face the same problem in the community from the same institution, and that by working together and having unity we can fight these institutions.” “For a good several years, Viet Nam existed only in my memories. In 1991, [returned for the first time. And it was like, i hit me so hard. It was like falling in love with my history, Twas overwhelmed,” Chuong told me. “Ever since, Vier Nam has been in my mind a lor.” His words echoed a feeling T've had since I first went back in 1997. In the years since then, I've cherished a fantasy about leaving the American part of my identity behind and moving to Viet Nam to live. Limagined falling into the rhythms of daily life in Hanoi, experiencing 294 —tramaquang nguyenCaring for the Soul of Our Community— 295 Viet Nam asa resident and nota tourist. But more than. that, Irld people, I wanted to grasp a chread thar links eae me co my history as a Third World person, before it got roan en eure 100 frayed and tangled. I think I was looking fora Vietnamese community. When the first orphan airlift arrived on Californias coast in 1975, Chuong was there to see the beginning of what would burgeon into a refugee community that took on various shapes over the years. An Asian American Scudies and Vietnamese ‘American Studies instructor at San Francisco State University, he analyzes the community shifts in terms of waves. The late 1970s, Chuong remembers, brought with them anti-communist atticudes and some rallies, but without the level of acrimony and hatefulness toward suspected communists that emerged later. In the 80s, with 2 different wave of refugees arriving, many fiesh from communist re-education camps, combined NGUYENTHAIBINH swith Reagan-era conservatisim and a pop culture (Jan. 14,1948- july 2,1972) : surge of Vietnam War movies, he observed much Bnok pure drop of veten ve dein more intense anger, more alle about taking back ieeoh pactalop aes eoteerer the country, and attacks on communist eae beanie eset aa sympathizers, id bicod and whise bones Preserve then vith aave! But after the eruption in Westminster two years ago, a new analysis of the community winds has taken hold. Many now believe it might have been one of the last hurrahs of the anti-communise era. If : ‘Truong Van Tran had staged his provocation afew | fo" 2¥_2¥4 fers of oom lon years earlier, he would have likely suffered a loc ‘more physical harm than the concussion he got falling to the ground in the midst of some pushy protesters, 1 think a community can change, much asa person oe ome doce. Stitt held Peimty 0 chetm wots. Ac the lefiise think rank where work, the question, | 532°f,25004,29" Die paver 29 ovens strategic and pragmatic, often comes up in Phave shail remain discussing one community or the other—are they mobilizable? And so P've been asking other ‘Vietnamese Americans, whether our community is ready to mobilize for progressive political power. “People are politically aware, in the sense that they see these problems and they know they're being screwed ane Mogament and the Momenteeu Ce a Reet Sa ea RUM cI ese esc Dae Rey Been 296 —tram quang nguyen oven” Johnn thought. “But mobilized is different. ‘The younger generation has more potential to be mobilized.” Quynh pointed out that multi-generational cooperation emerged from the Westminster protests, similar to the way the Los Angeles riots brought outa middle generation of Korean American lawyers and other professionals who became the spokespeople for the older generation, “The challenge is how do you gerit wo be grassroots,” she mused, “There is the structure, the seed of mobilization, but { don’t know the answer. One is to try to get a shift in priorities, to include other issues, and negotiating the different styles of leadership.” ‘As for the space to be a Vietnamese American and a leftist, even that is emerging in some respects. “Private space, no doubt its there. Public space? It exists at varying levels,” ‘Vu observed. “How much can you get away with? It’s happening, quite quietly, and it’s not gecting stopped. “That to me indicates levels of politics. It depends how you define space and at what level.” To certain outside viewers, Vietnamese in America may have become synonymous with flag-waving conservativism, embodying a reactionary and censorious nationalism couched in the rallying cries of “democracy” and “freedom.” ‘That’ definitely not me nor quite afew other Vietnamese ‘Americans both young and old. But neither are we the conical-hacted, machine gun-slinging peasant warrior glorified in the lore of America’ left movernent. Reclaiming our Vietnarnese American history and identity, has come to have alot more meaning for me these days. Iewill mean, I think, caseful and strategic organizing work within our communities. Iewill mean nurturing, the youth and not antagonizing the elders. Iewill mean growing and struggling in the U.S. without forgetting to fight the imperialism thae brought us here. “To return to Nhan's first question to me—why do we care about the community? Were the anti-war activists, those who got killed because of their beliefs and those who lived and kept working for their beliefs, as much Vietnamese patriots as my grandfather during the national liberation war, ot for that matter, my father and those refugees of the southern regime who will be forever scarred by the loss of their sig ia i es qCaring for the Soul of Our Community— 297 country? Can my generation lay claim to all of these legacies? And then what political disections and ideological spaces of our own will we create? “Twelcome the rime when Vietnamese anywhere in the world will not be separated by ideo- logical war created and financed by the U.S. We will have to create a situation where we can do that,” ‘Nhan said. “Onee that kind of strain is off from our community, then the youth will freely organize and care about the community” ili 8 Tram Quang Nguyen isa writer and editor from Southern California and Vietnam, She works for Colortines, ‘2 magezine in Oakland, and was part of the new gidra magazine collective. She graduated from UCLA in 1996, where she first pursued her interest in working with writers and artists at Pacific Tresnewsmagezine F