‘We Owe Something Special to These People’ : North Carolinians Take Vietnamese Refugees to Heart

GREENSBORO, N.C. —  When Audrey Hinson heard a neighbor complain recently that 213 Montagnards were coming to be resettled in the community, she got sputtering mad.

“I heard this lady say: ‘They’re bringing over the people what killed our sons.’ So I turned around and I said: ‘Hey, sweetheart, you’ve been reading the wrong comic book.’ ”

Hinson smiled with satisfaction, adding: “The girl who does my hair also told her to shut up. End of story.”

Ever since the U.S. State Department announced that the Lutheran Family Services of North Carolina had won a contract to resettle the Vietnamese refugees, scores of church groups, Vietnam veterans’ organizations and people like Hinson have gotten deeply involved in the project.

Indeed, more than 59 church groups have volunteered to sponsor households of Montagnards, donating clothes, food, lining up jobs for the new arrivals and finding them places to live. It has been a unique community response, according to Sheppie Abramowitz, a State Department refugee specialist.

“It sounds corny, but I think there’s a lot of patriotism and religious motivation in this case,” she said. “You have people out there with an impulse to do good. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

As a condition of getting the contract, the Lutheran group agreed to find housing and employment for most of the refugees in advance, and to settle them in the communities of Greensboro, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham.

The government will subsidize each refugee with a $550 payment for the first month, but after that the local charity groups are on their own, Abramowitz said.

Concern and Good Economics

For Hinson’s family, the decision to give lodging and employment to six Montagnards on their rustic farm and nursery just outside of Greensboro was a matter of civic concern--and good economics.

“I think we owe something special to these people, and even though it may take time for them to adapt, we have to be patient,” said Steve Vaughn, Hinson’s son-in-law.

Vaughn added that the refugees, who had asked for jobs as farmers, would be put to work on landscaping projects and plant maintenance. The men will receive $4 an hour, taking jobs “that we couldn’t fill for the past six months. . . . It’s not like these guys are taking work from anybody else,” he said.

Elsewhere, residents seem impressed by the Montagnards’ historic association with the Green Berets. In a town like Greensboro--which is only 90 minutes up the highway from Ft. Bragg, the home of the U.S. Special Forces--that appeared to strike a special chord.

Asked to identify a home where 16 Montagnards had been settled, for example, mailman Greg Dunn pointed to an old fraternity house one block away. Dunn quickly added that he was a former Green Beret, knew “one helluva lot” about the Montagnards and was “mighty proud” they had come to Greensboro.

At the fraternity house, a Lutheran sponsor pointed out that the landlord, Michael Linnane, was also a former Green Beret and had made a special effort to get the house ready when he learned that Montagnard refugees were coming to town.

“I guess we have that Green Beret stuff on the brain down here,” one church sponsor said.

Rhonda Rosser, who has coordinated the resettlement project for Lutheran Family Services in conjunction with other church groups, said the refugees would need time to adjust. During their first hours in town, she and others noted, several of the Montagnards were bewildered by ice cubes, looked dumbstruck at television sets and seemed overwhelmed by the number of automobiles.

“But people here will have to adjust to them as well,” Rosser said. “It’s definitely a two-way street.”

In time, said Pastor Bradey Faggart, the Montagnards may wind up giving more to the community than they receive.

“During the past six months, the coming of these refugees has brought people together, gotten them thinking about their neighbors and given this town a sense of community it hasn’t had in years,” he said.

“What I’m saying is, these Montagnards are going to be a very special asset, a great resource for us. We will wind up thanking them just as much as they thank us.”