Vietnamese Bring Culture Home to Kids : Youth Group Links Immigrant Children to Their Heritage

From the viewpoint of Vietnamese refugee Tom Trinh, straddling two worlds the way he does, his children are barreling toward a cultural crossroads.

As U.S.-born citizens in this land of plenty, they have never known the horrors of war. Nor do they fully understand the agony of his decision to flee Vietnam two decades ago, abandoning his family and the fractured land of his birth.

But the Oxnard father of three wants his children to know that the country he left behind is still part of them, and that the events of his past shape who they are and why they are here.

So each Sunday, he joins dozens of other immigrant parents from across Ventura County who immerse their children in activities designed to promote Vietnamese language, culture and values.

The youngsters belong to the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Group at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church in Camarillo. Part Sunday school and part Scout troop, the group allows young Vietnamese Americans to explore the traditions of a country that most of them only know secondhand.

“Most of the kids in America, they forget where they come from,” said Trinh, 39, an electrical engineer at the Seabee base in Port Hueneme. “I want my children to know where they come from, that the culture is still there. I don’t think they appreciate it right now, but in the long run, when they grow up, they will appreciate it.”

Like parents everywhere, Trinh and other Vietnamese are struggling to bridge a yawning generation gap that prompts many youngsters to shed the old ways in favor of a freedom that knows no right or wrong.

But the weekly activities at St. Mary Magdalen also serve another purpose. Because there are so few Vietnamese locally--about 2,300 countywide, according to the 1990 census--the church provides a place where members of the Vietnamese community can come together and trade stories of their homeland with others who share the same experiences.

And on this day--known as Tet, or the Vietnamese New Year,such connections so far from home become even more meaningful.

“Because in this area the Vietnamese people are so scattered, it is very hard for them to meet with their compatriots,” said Father Joseph Duc-Minh Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant himself who each Sunday, when the youth group is done, delivers the county’s only Mass in Vietnamese.

“For many Vietnamese in this area,” he said, “the church has become their community.”

Another Discipline

At first glance, the youth group could be mistaken for some kind of boot camp.

With a couple of blasts from a high-pitched whistle, 22-year-old group leader Xinh Truong called the youngsters to order on a recent Sunday at noon.

Uniformed in crisp white shirts, and blue pants or skirts, the children paraded around the asphalt playground of St. Mary Magdalen School, filed into straight lines and stood at attention.

“Young children!” Truong bellowed like a drill sergeant in Vietnamese, the dominant language of the day.

“Sacrifice one’s self,” the youngsters responded in unison.

Following more commands, the youngsters snapped a salute--raising their right hands, as if being sworn in at court--to demonstrate their devotion to prayer, church attendance, self-sacrifice and service to others.

“What we are trying to do is give them discipline and teach them leadership,” explained Truong, a Port Hueneme resident who after graduating from Pomona Pitzer College last May agreed to take over the foundering youth group, part of a national program and one of 10 groups in the Los Angeles region.

“This group was going to die,” she said. “They were at the point where either someone stepped in or they would close.”

Truong had been active in a similar group in Los Angeles, and her family helped launch the Ventura County organization about four years ago at Santa Clara Chapel in Oxnard.

When the group outgrew the tiny chapel two years ago, St. Mary Magdalen offered its facility. The youth group now has about 60 members, ranging in age from 6 to 19.

Parents come from as far south as Newbury Park and as far north as Santa Barbara to enroll their children in the three-hour program. Some parents work at the local Navy bases. Others are fishermen or manicurists at Vietnamese-owned salons.

“It’s important to my parents that I don’t lose my language or my culture,” said Phong Hoang, 14, a seventh-grade student at Sequoia Intermediate School in Newbury Park who came to the United States less than four years ago.

“We get to study about our country, about our culture, about our language,” he said. “I like it very much.”

As part of the Sunday routine, the youngsters recited a pledge to continue to uphold the values and traditions of their ancestors. And after religious instruction, led by Vietnamese students from nearby St. John’s Seminary, group members split up to pursue cultural interests.

In the school cafeteria, a group of girls practiced a traditional Vietnamese dance for an upcoming Tet celebration at St. John’s Seminary. Other cultural activities have included lessons on traditional food, dress and songs.

This summer, the Vietnamese community at St. Mary’s will host an intensive language and cultural program for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

“We don’t just sit down and learn about our heritage, we enact it,” Truong said.

Vietnam-born but American-bred, Truong is in a well-qualified position to understand the difficulties experienced by parents as they help their children traverse the cultural divide.

“The parents have to walk a thin line,” said Truong, who was among the many boat people who fled Vietnam at the end of the war. “Many have had to change the way they raise their kids.”

Already Americanized

Coming from a tradition where parental authority goes unquestioned, that transition hasn’t been easy for many Vietnamese parents. And that’s why the youth group plays such an important role, parents say.

“I just teach them the best I can, but because they were born here they are Americanized already,” said Moorpark resident Kim-Trang Nguyen, who sends four children to the Sunday program.

“As soon as I heard about it, I sent them right away,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even know what they teach the children. But it’s just important that they be around other Vietnamese. At least they’ll know more about the language and the culture, because they don’t really know.”

In Ventura County, where there are so few Vietnamese, the church group is one of the few ways that Vietnamese youngsters can meet others of similar backgrounds.

Of the 2,300 Vietnamese locally, about one-quarter are in Oxnard and another 800 in Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks.

In recent years, an increasing number of Vietnamese nationals have migrated to the county. For fiscal years 1992 and 1993, only Mexico and the Philippines funneled more legal immigrants to Ventura County than Vietnam.

“The community here is small, but it is active and growing,” said Father Joseph Duc-Minh Nguyen. “I think what we want to do is give them a sense of belonging, to put them in touch with their roots.”

Still, parents acknowledge that it is no easy task to get their children to care about more traditional values and about a culture that is literally foreign to them.

Fifteen-year-old Joe Nguyen of Ventura, for example, says there are things he would rather be doing with his Sundays, such as catching up on his homework or working on the computer.

But in his home, enrollment in the Vietnamese youth group is not negotiable.

“I think I’m the least spirited in the group,” he said. “I just don’t feel like I want to be there, like I’m learning anything. To be honest, I learn more about Vietnamese culture from my parents than from the group.”

Tony Nguyen, Joe’s father, said he doesn’t expect his children to have the same connection to Vietnam that he does. However, he believes there is much value in exposing his kids to the traditions.

“It’s our responsibility to teach them what we know; it’s up to them to accept it or not,” he said. “They cannot be completely Vietnamese, but they were born into a Vietnamese family. I want to teach them the good things about our culture, because--no matter what--they will always have roots in Vietnam.”