Dustin Kelley: Hi, my name is Dustin Kelley, a librarian at Lewis and Clark College's Watzek Library. Today is December 15th, 2020. I am speaking with Hoa Nguyen via Zoom. Nguyen works for Portland Public Schools and is a board member for API Forward. She is also a part of Our Lady of Lavang Parish. Thank you so much for speaking with me today.
Hoa Nguyen: Thank you, Dustin. Thanks for inviting me to this amazing project. I am looking forward to this conversation.
DK: Could you begin by stating your name and introducing yourself?
HN: Yes, my name is Hoa Nguyen and I have lived here in Portland for about twenty years. I currently work for Portland Public Schools. I do work around chronic absenteeism. I work directly with students and families in the community, especially in Southeast Portland.
DK: You came to Portland as a teenager. Is that correct?
HN: Yes, I did. I came here when I was fifteen years old, about a sophomore in high school.
DK: So, where did you grow up?
HN: I was originally born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, more specifically New Orleans East. That is important, because I grew up in a Vietnamese ethnic enclave called Versailles. That was the culture I knew New Orleans to be. Because, I think, when people think of New Orleans they think of Mardi Gras and the French Quarter, but I had the privilege to be able to have the experience of growing up in Vietnamese culture, in a Vietnamese neighborhood with a Vietnamese church, and living with my grandparents.
DK: So what first brought you to Portland?
HN: So, it is an unconventional way. I do not think this is a story you normally hear about why someone would move across the country. But, you know, in Vietnamese culture my family where I grew up in New Orleans, it was not just the Vietnamese community it was the Vietnamese Catholic community. The center of that community was a Catholic church. That was the reason why many Vietnamese people during the war were able to be refugees during the war to the United States. A lot of them were sponsored by the Catholic Church, which is one of the main reasons why many Vietnamese people came over to America, was from religious persecution for those reasons. So, that is why my family came to New Orleans. They were refugees who left Vietnam and they settled in New Orleans, Louisiana. In my family, we have a few people who are religious, who are nuns and priests, so that is kind of common in my family. I moved to Portland when I was in high school because my aunt—who is a nun for a Vietnamese Catholic community here in Portland—and she invited me to come up to Portland to live with her with an interest of, possibly, if my calling was to become a Catholic nun. That was the reason I came up here. One was, like, I wanted to travel. That was the main reason, but really just to experience something different. She talked about it for years growing up. So that was the reason why I came to Portland, to live in a Vietnamese Catholic community with the nuns because my aunt was a nun. So she was the reason why I moved here to Portland.
DK: What were some of your impressions both of the city and of Portland's Vietnamese community?
HN: It was very similar to the Vietnamese community in New Orleans because it was very Catholic-based. So in Portland, the convent I lived in was connected to our Lady of Lavang Parish. So it was a Vietnamese Catholic community that served over ten thousand families. It is a huge community. But my first impression of moving to Portland was I moved here in the summer, in August. I think my first impression was that it was very green. There were so many trees—I have never seen so many trees in my entire life—and it was beautiful. The air was so much crisper. Because I grew up in New Orleans, it was very humid and hot and especially in August no one really goes outside. I felt like the air was just really crisp and clean. It was cold for me. It was not something I [was] used to. The elevation was much higher. But it was a very beautiful place to me. Then, my first impression was living in the convent, so I did not really get to explore much outside of the convent a whole lot because we lived on a schedule. But, to me, my experience coming to Portland was being with the nuns. Also, I went to St. Mary’s Academy, so I went to high school and I got enrolled at St. Mary's Academy, which was the all-girls Catholic high school in downtown Portland. Then, on the weekend, I spent my time at our Lady of Lavang Parish. So that was my high school years coming into Portland.
[00:05:01]
DK: What was Our Lady of Lavang Parish like when you first started attending. Can you walk us through a typical weekend spent there?
HN: Oh, I spent all of my weekends there. It was busy, there was a lot going on. It was chaotic almost, but like organized chaos. The main thing at the Lavang on the weekends, a Saturday and Sunday, was that we had catechism class and Vietnamese language classes. So, in the convent I had my own schedule, but on Sunday we would dedicate our time to all day at Lavang. I would wake up at seven in the morning and we would get to Lavang at eight o'clock. I remember in the morning it would be the Vietnamese language class on Sunday. We would spend an hour and a half doing language classes, and it was usually taught by community members. I remember one of my teachers was this older Vietnamese man who was very smart, and he was very encouraging. He told stories and he taught us about Vietnamese poetry, I remember. So we learned not just the Vietnamese language but Vietnamese culture. It was kind of cool to learn about Vietnamese history and just different poetry. The things that I felt like I would normally not learn at home or in my actual school that I go to during the day. So that was really cool. Being Vietnamese American, you know, our level of Vietnamese was very different, meaning that we do not get to use Vietnamese every single day. I think it was kind of what we get in terms of the Vietnamese language and culture and actually using it and experiencing it. So I remember the teachers were all volunteers. I did not like it in the moment because I was in high school and I was like this so early. But it definitely paid off in the end as an adult for me because it really set the foundation for me to be able to connect with my Vietnamese community currently. Because as an adult it is harder to connect with your culture because you have to work extra hard. Like, I think as being in high school it was a step up for me. So I did not appreciate it then, but I do appreciate it now.
Then, after that, we went to the catechism class. So, the Vietnamese language class was an hour. Then, right after that, we had another class—catechism class. Each grade level I remember at Lavang, they had catechism starting from kindergarten up to twelfth grade. That included baptismal class, communal class. So, I think when you do a commune class I believe that is third grade. In high school is when you start thinking about confirmation classes. So there are different sacraments, I remember. That is what we learned. We learned about different sacraments throughout the years. Yeah, I did not go through the elementary grades at Lavang, so I only went to Lavang in high school. So, I went through confirmation in high school. I was a junior, so I was sixteen or seventeen around that time when I got confirmed. It was a class of maybe a hundred-something students. So, classes were large because it serves over ten thousand families. When I say it was very crowded and seemed chaotic, there were just a lot of people everywhere. All the teachers were community members. I remember it was all volunteers, it was like parents of students, so it was all volunteer based, I remember. A lot of our instructors were people from the communities. The nuns themselves also taught classes, so I think that is why we spent the whole day on Sunday, because the nuns also taught catechism classes there too. My aunt, she was a director for the catechism program at Lavang for over twenty-five years, so she was very well known in the community and the families know her really well. She was very well connected to the community. So, I had her bring me along pretty much, essentially. Then we had lunch, so it was a full day and then we had lunch. I remember the lunch was a really interesting experience. I was used to it as a kid, but looking back at it as an adult it was kind of cool because we had a kitchen at the bottom of the basement and they cooked, like, full Vietnamese food, they had pho, like Vietnamese dishes. It was all volunteer: a lot of the parents, our grandparents and elders woke up super early to be able to cook food. They would cook all weekend just so we could have food, the students could have food. I mean, they served over ten thousand families. So, we were able to buy sticky rice, Vietnamese sandwiches, you could have pho for lunch. It was all in the basement at the church. After lunch then we would go to mass. So, we would have youth masses in the afternoon. Then, pretty much we would end our day around three or four, so it [was] a pretty full weekend. So any Vietnamese person who goes to Lavang, who has young children, or if you were a student there, that is kind of your basic experience. Some people stay after if there were community events, youth groups, or things happening after catechism. Some people even stay longer because there [are] other activities happening as well. There are probably like six different groups happening all at once at Lavang. So, there is a lot. It is very busy and has a lot of activity. There is a lot going on.
[00:10:24]
DK: Wow, that is a lot going on.
HN: It is.
DK: But the food … that part sounded pretty amazing. I certainly love Vietnamese cuisine. Can you walk us through some of the physical spaces? What is it like for someone who may not have visited Our Lady of Lavang? The parish is actually moving locations anyways.
HN: It is.
DK: So, if you could kind of walk us through what some of the physical spaces were like?
HN: I mean, so Lavang is located on Northeast Sandy off of like an Alameda neighborhood. It is in a residential area so parking is always an issue because when you are serving that many families finding parking is hard. But you kind of just deal with it when you are there. They have this synchronized system. They have security groups there, they have a whole group called the “security of the church.” It is a group of men. Like I said, there are so many groups that serve different purposes of the church and they do a really good job of it. But the spaces, you would be surprised by how much activity goes on in there. You would not know from the outside that [that] much diversity and that much culture is happening inside the building. So it is gated.
I know the church has been remodeled and it has been open since the ‘80s. I do not know what it looked like back then, but when I went there they added some buildings and they made some renovations. So they had the church, the main church. It is very beautiful and it has Vietnamese architecture, kind of like back in Vietnam. So you can see the design was very Vietnamese influenced. They have stained glass windows, and it was all contributed by volunteers from the community. They had a separate school in the back. That is where the office is at, and that is where a lot of people have meetings or congregate to do activities. The fire practices happened there. So there is a school building and the history was that the building used to be an all-girls Catholic school. It used to be called, I think, Holy Name Child Jesus or something back in the day. It was kinda set up, it used to be a dormitory—I guess the girls that went there also lived there. So, it was like a dormitory Catholic all-girls school but it did not exist anymore. I think it closed down a long time ago. As you know, Oregon only has one single-sex high school, which is St. Mary's. So I think, whenever that happened, I think that is when the school shut down. So yeah, we occupied the building and over the years it got remodeled to meet the needs of [and] the capacity of the community. So yeah, and then like I said it is just like a maze. There is a school, there is the main church, and there is a smaller chapel where I think they are able to have two separate masses going on sometimes. They would have the smaller church for the high school youth mass, then the bigger church would be reserved for the larger mass for younger kids from kindergarten to eighth grade. There is no way we could have that many people in one church, so they would have six to seven masses a day just because [there are] that many people in the community that they serve. Yeah, in the basement—what I was telling you about—there was food. So, like, around the corner, I do not know how big [the] space is, but it is not like a humongous piece of land because there is a parking lot, there is a stage where they have outdoor activities or concerts sometimes in the summer. Then there is the main church and then there is a chapel and then there is the school building. Oh yeah, below the small chapel is the basement and that is where they serve the food and they have the industrial kitchen where they cook in and provide all the food. So it is like, ten thousand people come through there, not all at once, but ten thousand people come through there on a given weekend.
DK: That is just so massive. I am curious, how have things evolved in the twenty years you have been attending?
[00:14:37]
HN: A lot has. I think, growing up, a lot of it was led by the elders in the community so we were young at that time. But now, a lot of it has shifted and our generation is now the adults. We are the ones with the families that attend church now. So, I personally am not as active as I used to be when I was younger, but I might be different because I do not have children so I do not feel the need to go there all the time. But I do go there quite often for big events, you know, just to stay connected, and I still have family and friends that go there quite often. But it is still pretty active. I mean it has grown, obviously, so now I think the generation is coming up as the leader of this community more so. A lot of the elders are still involved, but it is shifting. It is not like a direct shift, but it is starting to shift. I think we have got to be more open to more Americanized ideologies. There is still the tradition there, but us growing up in America we are not a hundred percent, all the time connected to our culture, being Vietnamese, you know? So I think it is shifting toward some ideologies, some practices, some things we believe in and values could be different.
DK: Definitely, yeah. [In] the global Christian community there are a lot of differences as you visit different communities.
HN: Yeah, when I was at Lavang I was heavily involved. I was pretty involved for a while even past college. I was part of a youth group. So, they have two or three different youth groups and I was involved in one of them. You know it is, like, we are Vietnamese Americans but we still want to give back, so we helped coordinate a lot of the retreats there, for the juniors and the seniors. We coordinated a lot of the confirmation retreats and senior retreats. So, as young adults I think that is what they do, they try to set up retreats to connect with the young students and to help them feel connected and help them with their faith because I think that is important to keep the community growing and to keep the youth engaged. You have to have people who can relate to the young people. So, I think that was how I was mostly involved in Lavang around when I was in my twenties. Now, I do not really feel I relate to the youth as much, so [laughs].
DK: [laughs] Speaking about youth, tell us a little bit more about your role with Portland Public Schools.
HN: Yeah, so I have been in education for over ten years and I [have] worked in the Portland Public Schools for about five years now. That has kind of been my main career in Portland. I started working at nonprofits. I worked as a youth case manager, then I became a SUN [Schools Uniting Neighborhoods] school coordinator for a few years. Then, currently, that led me up to working for Portland Public Schools, and my role in Portland Public Schools is called a school attendance coach. So what that means is that, unfortunately, we have one of the highest chronic absenteeism in the nation, the state of Oregon does, compared to other states. So that is the reason why our work is really important. We look at the data. So, the students that we recognize in the data that are not attending school—when we say not attending, they are missing like two, three, four months of school, you know, this is an extreme case. We realized that [what the] data reflects is connected to students who are homeless, who live in poverty, have mental health issues or challenges. You know, family dynamics that are not consistent or stable. Also, race is factored into it. We now noticed that students of color are more represented in that data than White students, so I think that is something [that], as a district, we are trying to work on. So how do we respond and support students? Because schools have a responsibility, we should. So we are having to shift some things just to improve attendance. You know, practices that are not working anymore. That is the goal. I say that, and it sounds easy, but it is a long process, especially in the current state that we are in with distant learning and a lot of students are on their computers and parents are forced to kind of take on responsibility as a teacher as well. It has shifted dramatically, so it has been a really busy year pivoting and working with the state to kind of figure out what are the best policy practices for attendance and engagement during distant learning.
DK: You mentioned the changes with students being at home. What has it been like so far to work and be an employee for Portland Public Schools in 2020? What is a typical day like for you?
[00:19:39]
HN: It is really hard. I think in the beginning no one had the answers, and I think that was the most challenging part. No one has been through a pandemic. I think before, looking for answers and no one had them, I think that was the hardest part. But now we are in December, and we have been in distance learning since March. I think there are some routines in. But now, the challenge is people are kind of feeling fatigued. You know, they call it the COVID fatigue. So just trying to stay on course, trying to be positive, but there are some silver linings. I do not think it is all a negative experience. But I think in schools I met with teams, I created intervention teams in school. I help support and develop intervention teams in school. What that means is a group of staff, administrators, counselors, and social workers who work directly in these schools. So, basically, I support about thirty schools in the Franklin and Grant clusters. So, there, what feeder schools means is schools that are elementaries, K-8, and middle schools—schools that feed into the high school. So, Portland Public Schools has eight different high schools and each of those high schools has different elementary and middle schools that feed into them. I support students from kindergarten to eighth grade. Between thirty schools, I help develop support teams. It is basically training schools to develop teams and meet weekly and to track data. So, the goal is to be data-driven and to document interventions, essentially. We have a list of students, and looking at the chronic absenteeism data and trying to make sure we are outreaching to as many students as possible. I have seen a shift, like, in Chromebooks. I think in the spring Portland Public Schools has done a huge outreach. Not just Portland Public Schools, all school districts had to ensure that students all had Chromebooks and hotspots to have the ability to even log in, you know. There are a lot of inequities in this situation. Some families have more resources than others. So schools just are, kind of, and even teachers are in a place to pivot [to] a new platform they have never been in. So we are in December. I mean a lot of us are still here, so it has been constantly shifting, right. You think that you have got some things down and some new things can come up. We are constantly having to pivot and shift [to] new practices and try new, different things to see what works and what does not. But I saw, oh my goodness, the amount of outreach that teachers and staff have done has been amazing. I mean, I have seen teachers go above and beyond and principals going above and beyond to make sure families feel supported.
DK: That is great. How did you come into this career? Were you always planning to work [in] education?
HN: That was not the intention in the beginning. I went to Portland State [University] for college, and I ended up getting my degree in sociology. So that helps, too. But I think around graduation time when I was looking for jobs my first job was at George Middle School in North Portland. I worked for a nonprofit, for SUN schools there. It just kind of grew from there. You know, here I am over ten years working with the community and working with youth and now working in the system to make it better. So, starting with nonprofits, I started at George Middle School working for SUN schools and nonprofits, [and] it just kind of grew from there.
DK: You are also a part of the board for API Forward. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? How did you become involved with the organization? What type of work are you doing for them?
HN: Yeah, API Forward stands for Asian Pacific Islander Forward, and I have been on the board for about three years now. I was invited a few years ago by Tracey Lam and Ping [Shaw]. It was through networking, so they were outreaching for new board members for their organization. So, Tracey and Ping were both co-founders of the organization. It is a very young, small, very grassroots nonprofit organization, but the goal is to really advance opportunities and careers for the API community in Portland. So, whether that be doing workshops, or developing youth programs, or, you know, developing network opportunities. It is just really to create more visibility within the API community. Currently, obviously, around the census we did a lot of work around the census last year, and increasing access to voting. So, just depending on what the current interest is and we try to develop some things around it. But the biggest component that I have been involved with for API Forward is for a leadership program that we have developed which is developed for youth and undergraduate universities. We developed a scholarship opportunity for them to develop some career opportunities for them to be able to use when they get a job or not. So it is really to provide career advancements, career opportunities. That program was developed because we realized there were not enough resources for students who are in college. There is a lot of support for high school going into college, but when you are a senior in college what do you do? What happens after that? So we thought there was a big gap in that. I mean, I know I was not prepared coming out of college. You are used to living in this bubble: going to school, going to student groups, hanging out. But then, once you go into the real world, where do I find jobs? Not many students know what to do after that. So it is really geared toward helping develop networking opportunities to help and develop skills. They work in teams on a project, they develop team-building skills, they develop how to put together a presentation, how to work with different stakeholders, how to navigate new systems, right. Those are things that no one teaches you in college. So we are trying to develop and give them some experience in that realm, so to speak. But yeah, that is kind of in a nutshell what we do. We do a lot of other, different things, but it is really to build more community within the API community here in Portland.
[00:26:06]
DK: How do you seek out participants, or how do participants find you?
HN: We do some marketing. It is strategic, so we outreach with people that we know that work with college youth, especially at Portland State or OSU [Oregon State University], or just different colleges with API groups. So, that is a strategic outreach that we have. It has been word of mouth. We are in the third year of this forward-leadership program, so it is, like, over time these students talk about it. We select twelve students for each cohort. So, what the cohort means is that each cohort is about twelve students and they get grouped up into three different teams, and each year we connect them with a community agent, nonprofit, or some kind of corporation within the community that can work with the students and within three or four months develop a project. So, last year they did a big project around the census. They were primarily trying to [do] outreach [in] different counties to increase the API community's involvement in the census, you know. Also to educate them about what the census is and why it is important. I know the census last year did a huge push in marketing to kind of make sure that everyone is represented in the census. So that was our goal, to reach out to counties, especially counties that may not have a lot of resources to reach out to API communities, especially reaching out to elders. So their job was they worked with APANO [Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon]—we partnered with APANO on that project and split the teams up to different counties throughout Oregon and kind of helped develop a strategy on what is the best way to outreach to API communities. Especially API communities who may not be vast in technology, especially elders who may not speak English as their first language. The added challenge was COVID on top of that, last year. They had to pivot through COVID as well. Having everything virtually does make it harder to outreach to communities. So they worked with APANO, they worked with the counties and developed some strategies and plans and worked as a team. They presented at the end, and each student was awarded some form of scholarship based on first, second, and third place. I actually have a fundraiser this evening right after this, and that is a part of it. We do fundraising, so it is an auction fundraiser. We get in a lot of community donations and we get a lot of donations from businesses, so there is an opportunity for a silent auction and that is what we do, we fundraise throughout the year for it. People donate to our organization to be able to support this program.
DK: That is awesome. Are you involved with any other organizations?
HN: Yeah, I am. A lot. I am in the place where I kind of need to scale back a little bit, to be honest [laughs]. Another organization I am super involved in is called AAYLC, which stands for Asian American Youth Leadership Conference. I have been co-chair in that conference for over ten years now. I am co-chair with Helen Ying, who is on the board for CACA, which Chinese Americans Citizen Alliance. She is also a chair for MESD, Multnomah Education Service District. So I have been working with her for a long time personally, so we co-chair the conference together. We develop a day-long leadership conference for high school API youth throughout Oregon. We are doing it virtual this year, we did it virtual last year. Normally, for years, it was held at Concordia University, but Concordia got shut down so then we shifted to PCC [Portland Community College] Sylvania. Normally it will be an on-campus event, usually at the end of April or in May depending on, honestly, the venue's availability. But yeah, I have been involved with that for a long time. That is how I stay connected with student youth around Portland. I have seen many high school students throughout the program, so it is a very personal thing for me to be involved. You know, I love seeing the different students and they do come back and volunteer. It is kind of like, they have [gone] through the leadership conference and had a really good experience, and become adults later on, and they want to come back and volunteer to help plan for it. I think Helen and I are probably in a place where we are trying to get them more involved to step up more over time. So, that is kind of building sustainability. It has been a conference that has been around for over twenty-five years, and so the goal is to uplift the youth so that later on they could take on possibly planning the conference as a chair. We are in that process of trying to kind of groom them to take it on in the future.
[00:30:44]
DK: I would like to shift gears if that is okay?
HN: Yeah, absolutely.
DK: Let's back up a little bit. As you were introducing yourself you mentioned growing up in New Orleans, in New Orleans East, and the Vietnamese community of Versailles. Can you describe in more detail what that community was like?
HN: Yeah. I was born and raised in New Orleans. What that means is I have a very big family in New Orleans. My family, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, all live there. I remember as a kid growing up—I grew up with my grandparents—we lived in a duplex in New Orleans. Across the street was my aunt, my neighbor was my cousin. My grandma lived two blocks from me and I think my family intentionally set it up that way. It was a way for survival. Obviously, they are coming here to a new country and they need to stay in close quarters. It is not just my family but I guess also a lot of people who live in that community are people that also grew up in [the same] villages in Vietnam, so a lot of them probably knew [each other] since they were children. So out of survival they build networking early on. In order to survive, they had to rely on each other. What I have learned is that it is really, I think, they migrated to New Orleans because of the fishing industry. A lot of the people in New Orleans were fishers in Vietnam. So, obviously, when there is a job opening they tell other people you should come here. I think it is going to be a great opportunity for us to build a community here. They did, and the center of that community was the church. That is why I said when I came to Portland, going to Lavang did not feel that different because that was a very similar community that was also created in New Orleans East. So, the center of that community was the church. The only difference was where we live is called New Orleans East, or just called Versailles. It was very concentrated with Vietnamese families living around the church. So it was neighborhoods of Vietnamese families for blocks. So it was very concentrated in one area. Versailles is very isolated, so it is about forty-five minutes east of the French Quarter. I just say that because when people know New Orleans they think of the French Quarter, and that is downtown New Orleans. But I would say forty-five minutes east of that is where we live. You would never go out that direction because it is the direction going toward Mississippi. We would just pass through it all the time. But there is no reason for you to go out there, because in between where we lived in the French quarter it was a desert, there was nothing in between. So, it is very isolating. I think for a long time my parents just, like, worked, worked, worked and tried to provide the best opportunity for us to be able to live and survive. But yeah, as a kid I never went to the French Quarter. I did not go out to eat or I did not experience that culture that people knew New Orleans to be. I did not go out to the French Quarter as much until I was an adult, to be honest, because our parents did not know to take us out there. So I felt like I was very isolated from whatever New Orleans was, which is fine. It was not a bad thing, I think it just built the community that I know New Orleans to be in my neighborhood Versailles.
DK: Your family participated in an oral history project featuring the Vietnamese Community of New Orleans. Is that correct?
HN: They did, yes.
DK: What was that experience like?
[00:34:26]
HN: So the documentary is called, A Village Called Versailles. You can look it up, it is available. The whole purpose was to document the history of our community. When I said isolated, it just meant that like for a long time people did not know we existed. That was an issue because it came time for Hurricane Katrina, you know, there were a lot of issues with how evacuation happened during that time. The Vietnamese community decided to come back after Hurricane Katrina and rebuild. A lot of people did not come back after Hurricane Katrina. There was just, you know, other opportunities that arose and maybe some people did not have the opportunity to come back and rebuild. It just was not there for them. But the Vietnamese community decided to come back and rebuild. For a long time, it was just Vietnamese people who lived there. It was not any other ethnic groups that lived there, maybe some Haitian families live here or there. But predominantly it was all Vietnamese families. After Hurricane Katrina, more ethnic groups started to come by and found refuge. They started attending church at our Vietnamese church, so the priest there decided we needed to open up to our Latino community, we needed to open up to our Haitian community, and so it became more diverse. Because people needed a place to go for worship, and so for a long time it was just Vietnamese people who went there. I think being accepting of other ethnic groups was a big deal for our community. But also for one point post-Hurricane Katrina they needed a place to put all the debris from Hurricane Katrina, so they needed a landfill. That is what the documentary documents. It talks about the story of the Vietnamese community but also about them protesting against their community being a landfill. What the documentary shares is that we were invisible for a long time and people did not know we existed. It is about training our community to step up, because they had no idea. Especially our elders were like,"What are you talking about?" Whatever, they did not want to be involved, but it is kind of a natural thing to not be involved because it is too much or they just do not want to rock the boat. But our generation was like, we need to do this. So the priest in the documentary became the leader of these protests, speaking at the city hall and bringing the community out there. So it was months and months of protest. They eventually were able to move the landfill out of their community. But they were going to dump a landfill right on our community, you know. They did not think that people lived there or that a whole community exists. So that is why I talked about isolation, right. Now with our generation coming up, putting these things on the forefront more. We are starting to be more open, and starting to tell our story and share our narratives. It is important for people to learn from what we are, in that the Vietnamese community did contribute a lot to the culture in New Orleans.
My family was involved, because my grandma—I lived with my grandma—she started the Squatters Market in New Orleans. So that became a big deal now, like we have tourists that come by and visit. It started off with a group of grandmas that wanted to get together and just sell stuff. My aunt owns a little market, a little grocery store, so they had it in front of her grocery store. I remember, growing up in New Orleans, what made New Orleans East so unique was the gardens. The temperature was very similar to Vietnam, so things could grow there naturally because of the humidity and the heat. So I remember, growing up, every person that had their grandparents living with them had a really massive garden. It is amazing … they grew different squashes, lettuce, cucumbers, and you know that is what they did. So that is what the Squatters Market started from, like the grandmothers wanted to harvest their gardens and sell their stuff. Then they called it the Squatters Market because they literally squat and sell stuff. They set up the shop, it grew, and it became this whole vendor. What people know now is this type of farmers' market. But yeah, they started making stuff. It was not just stuff from their garden, but they could probably make stuff at home or cook something and just sell it out there. It grew over time and it was almost like being transported back to Vietnam, almost. It was something traditional about it, it was very unique. They also held a lot of New Year’s festivals there at the church. So I remember it did feel like being transported back to Vietnam. Just seeing the gardens, the lily pads, the different cultures, seeing the Squatters Market, and seeing the grandmas you know drive around with their hats. There was a lot of Asian and Vietnamese business too, like restaurants, salons, and supermarkets there too.
DK: Was it important to your parents and grandparents that you learned about Vietnamese culture and tradition? How did they do so?
[00:39:39]
HN: It was really important for them. My family was not just Vietnamese but they are very devoted Catholics, so that was really important for them to teach us that. Especially on my dad's side. You know, I feel lucky to have that experience. Living with my grandparents really helped with that. Because they did not speak English I was forced to speak to them in Vietnamese. I am the oldest of three siblings, so if anything I had the most experience with our grandparents. But I remember helping my grandma out with the Squatters Market. She made me go with her. I had to carry stuff for her, I had to sit next to her to help sell stuff, I had to wake up at five in the morning. So, just having that experience with her was really … I thought it was really cool. I look back, and it was part of, like, it was not just about learning the language but just the culture of learning it through my grandparents was really cool. Just seeing the community and network they built with each other was really something I do not see as often anymore here, unfortunately. But yeah, it was really important for them, which is the reason why my dad told me that is when he refused to give us American names. So I used to be a kid growing up, “How come everyone gets American names? How come I do not get an American name?” As a kid, it was hard because I always get my name mispronounced, and I used to be so embarrassed by it. I am actually thankful my dad thought ahead, you know, he was very strategic about why he did not give us English names. I think that is one step of it. But part of it was I was jealous as a kid [about]why I did not get an American name, but I appreciate it more as an adult now. It makes me feel more unique.
DK: Sounds like it plays a big role in your identity as well. I would like to zoom out a little bit, if that is okay.
HN: Yeah.
DK: I am curious what social and economic issues you think are most significant in the Vietnamese community at large?
HN: Here in Oregon?
DK: Let's stay here in Oregon, but feel free to expand on that too, if you [would] like to.
HN: Yeah, I guess for me I always switch between Portland and New Orleans because those are the two places I call home. I am still connected to New Orleans quite a bit because my parents are still there. Even though I have lived here for a long time, my parents, grandparents, and aunts are still there. So I probably talk to both, and it interchanges a lot because I tend to compare the two quite often. But at least in New Orleans, I know invisibility, and the same thing with Oregon too, invisibility is a huge one. It is a stereotype we have as the API community. This is why I am a part of these API organizations, to increase visibility and know that we can make a mark and we contribute to American society. In New Orleans, in the documentary, it was really important for us to document that because for a long time we were very invisible and we had to stand up for ourselves and tell people we are American. We did contribute to society. So at least in the South, there is a new term called Viet-Cajun. I think a lot of Vietnamese people my age say, "We are Cajun too. We are just as Cajun as anyone else from New Orleans." Because they were born in New Orleans and they were born and raised there, and they opened up business. They developed a lot of Asian-fusion food that incorporated Cajun flavors with Vietnamese flavors. So they call it, like, the Vietnamese Po-Boys, right. It is pretty much the Banh Mi, but then they kind of evaluated it to make it more southern. So not just about food, but culture right. So I think that making our mark in the communities that we have contributed so much to is very important.
Same thing in Oregon. I think there are people who do not really know how to be involved in communities, and I see that with my work with education. A lot of parents think that education is separate from our home life. So that is where I try to educate some of the Vietnamese families and that it is like, “No, you need to be involved in your schools.” It is not just said like, "Oh, you leave everything up to the school and they are responsible for everything else." But no, it is important for you to talk to the teachers. It is important for you to go to your school meetings and be involved in your school's community, so that way you can understand that in American culture it is very different from Vietnamese culture in that sense as parents are involved in the schools. Whereas, I guess, traditionally in Vietnamese culture parents just don't, and they leave it up to the teacher. In Vietnam, I think being a teacher is a very high-status position. So that ideology of, “Oh, you are a teacher. We respect you, so whatever you do, hundred percent.” But, in America, what I have learned is there are a lot of inequalities in our education systems. So no, you do not want to give hundred percent control over the schools. There is something around mental health which is a huge one. Like, our generation is big on mental health but our parents do not really understand what that means. So that is the big gap there is around mental health, emotional support, being involved, and how to help us make decisions with the schools to help us provide better services for their students. Bridging that culture gap of what it means to be involved in the community, it starts from the schools too, and so it trickles down to how they want to be involved in their own communities and why we should stand up for things that do not serve us. I think in New Orleans what the documentary talks about is we need to fight. We need to understand inequities and that it is not okay and we have to fight against it. Because, growing up in Vietnam, that really is not something that—in their generation—I believe is not a practice that they are used to.
[00:45:27]
DK: Do you think that city, state, or even federal programs need to be doing more to address these issues?
HN: Yeah, I think that there is also that model minority myth that we hear a lot about. It is true. I think in our data it apparently shows that Asian Americans and even Vietnamese parents do well. Based on a median household, based on whatever. Based on this data we are doing really well. However, it does not account for the real issues that we struggle with. So, that is why resources cannot happen if they think that according to the data we are doing so well. But then there is the mental health component. Also, there are a lot of Vietnamese families who are struggling, who get overlooked because people think we are the ethnic group that tends to do well. But the Asian race is so much bigger, and each ethnicity has its own challenges. So, we are seeing even our Pacific Islander community are struggling a lot with absenteeism. We are seeing a lot of Pacific Islander students represented in the chronic absenteeism data. So, they kind of get lumped in together sometimes as Asians, right. It is an issue, and I think we have got to dig deeper and look past the data and not rely on that so much, but really talk to the community and really what are some cultural responses that are available to help support our families. So that is the model minority myth. I think people think that we tend to do well, you know. But that does not define all the experiences of every Vietnamese person in this community.
DK: How do you think the Vietnamese community at large is evolving as a different generation emerges as adults and community leaders.
HN: I think we are seeing a lot of bi-racial families now. You know, mixed cultures and mixed ethnicities and not just someone who is a hundred percent Vietnamese. We are seeing a lot of that integration. How do you balance the two out and how do we maintain our Vietnamese culture while still maintaining their other ethnicities and cultures as well? So we are seeing an increase in diverse families within the Vietnamese community and culture as well. I think that is a big shift. I see it a lot in Portland, especially at our Lavang Church. We have some families who are bi-racial, you know. So I think that is new to our community, something I think we can learn how to be more open to and be supportive of. Also, gender fluidity is something that comes up in our Vietnamese community a lot. As our generation is learning more and more about mental health support and just different ways in how we experience ourselves and be more open to a different culture and ethnicity and trying to be open to that, right. There is also the political aspect of a lot of things [such] as really just trying to talk to our parents about the current state of what is happening and why it is important for us to be allies in certain movements, and to really understand how we came here. We are also immigrants, too. We also benefit from the fight of other ethnic groups that are trying to make it better for themselves, which ultimately benefits us, so that makes sense.
DK: Are there other differences you see between older and younger generations of Vietnamese Americans?
HN: There is. I do not know how safe it is to say it here, but I saw data that talks about the political divide that we have seen between Democrats and Republicans. The data shows, nationally—I cannot speak for Oregon—but they did say that forty three percent of the Vietnamese community voted for Trump. That became an issue for our generation because it is, like, how do we talk to them about our views and why it is important for us to fight for other groups that are struggling. So I think that is the issue, that there is anti-Blackness in the Asian community. It is how we vote, it is how we choose not to be involved, it is how we choose, “Well, it does not impact us so why should we care.” I see that a lot in our community, so that has been a big struggle. At least currently, that is the conversation that I have a lot with my friends who are in that age group, and about how do we talk to our parents about this? How do we bring this up with them? It is hard. It is really hard because we do not want to hurt them, but this is what our views are. You know, this is what we believe in. In the documentary [A] Village [Called] Versaille they talk about that. There is a huge generation gap between the protests. Like, to get them to work together, it was really hard. I do recommend checking out the documentary. It talks about the generation gap. You know, I think the elders do not think we are capable. So I think there is a big gap, and they talked about the struggle between the two generations. However, we need to work together for a common cause and goal. I think that is the part that is hard. It’s like, how can we get them to be more involved. We want them to be supportive. It is not just the API community, I think it happens a lot in many ethnic groups.
[00:50:57]
DK: In your mind, what role does being Vietnamese American play in your life?
HN: I mean, it makes me feel unique. It is weird because a lot of the spaces that I work in are predominantly White, especially being in Oregon. So it is something that I try to put upfront whenever I come into these spaces around these conversations. It is a very unique experience because I think people look at me and think every Vietnamese person is the same, and [we are] not. You know, my experience is very unique to [me], and being a Vietnamese American and being the first of my family born here I do relate really well to a lot of young people who have to take on the responsibility as a kid to help their parents. That is what I did growing up, was that my parents owned a grocery store so I had to help them out in the store. Also, take on the responsibility to help them translate some things. Really, I had to navigate things on my own because our parents just did not have that experience. They were working, but they just did not understand how to support us. I think that is what I bring into my job. I always try to pretty much bring the immigrant experience [to] the forefront. Especially for these students, you know, who have to take on a lot more responsibility than maybe their normal American friends. I think that is something to acknowledge. I want to make sure, and let them know that is your experience and that is something to be grateful for and that is something to be proud of. I think it serves me so much now as an adult, and it gave me really good work ethics. It gave me a very diverse experience. It makes me appreciate that I want to develop more research and support for my community and for the Vietnamese students within Portland.
DK: We are coming close to the end of the interview, and I am curious if there is anything that we have not asked that you would like to discuss or any question you hoped I would ask but I have not.
HN: No, I think that this was a great interview. I mean, I think we could go on forever and ever, you know. I just know my experience is very unique and, like I said, the reason why I came to Portland was very unique. But I am grateful to say that I call Portland and New Orleans home. I have the experience of two different Vietnamese communities from different cities. Both of those cities, the Vietnamese community is very predominant in those places.
DK: Well, thank you again. It has been so great chatting with you. Again, this is Dustin Kelley and I have had the privilege of talking with Hoa Nguyen today on December 15th, 2020. Alright, this concludes our interview.
HN: Thank you.
