Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education

Vietnamese American Youth

Contributors: Diem Thi Nguyen Editors: James A. Banks Book Title: Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education Chapter Title: "Vietnamese American Youth" Pub. Date: 2012 Access Date: February 26, 2014 Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks Print ISBN: 9781412981521 Online ISBN: 9781452218533 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452218533.n719 Print pages: 2285-2288

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http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452218533.n719 This entry discusses the social, cultural, and historical contexts that shape the identities and academic achievement of Vietnamese American youth, and examines the historical background on the formation of the Vietnamese American community. It discusses the educational challenges that Vietnamese immigrant youth face as well as how issues of gender and cultural expectations influence their social identity and academic achievements. It also examines the various struggles that Vietnamese immigrant youth and their families face as they strive to reestablish their connections with their ancestral home while forging a new sense of social and cultural identity and belonging in the United States.

Historical Contexts: Formation of the Vietnamese American Community

Over the past 30 years since the first large wave of Vietnamese refugees settled in the United States, the immigration patterns and the context of their community have changed dramatically, transforming them from a group of displaced refugees seeking resettlement and acceptance in their new host country to a growing diasporic community with reestablished ties to their homeland. Today, the vibrant business centers from Boston to Orange County, California, often referred to as Little Saigons, show few signs to outsiders that not long ago Vietnamese Americans were a group of scattered and wounded people who were uncertain and fearful of their future. The academic success of many Vietnamese immigrant students, the strong social and cultural structures of Vietnamese communities, and the growth of businesses indicate a sense of renewal and unity among the Vietnamese as they strive to move forward in redefining their lives and community. However, their sense of oneness is fragile and constantly threatens to unravel. Underneath the common layer of ethnic and historical ties that binds them, deep scars, suppressed grief, survivor guilt, untold stories of tragedies, and political tension are waiting to surface and rip apart the delicate alliances. Even after 30 years, many refugees continue to look to their children for hope and healing while continuing to bury their own wounds and stories.

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When Vietnamese refugees first arrived in the United States in 1975, many encountered great resistance from the American public. Their arrival exacerbated the anger and resentment that many Americans had about the Vietnam War. A public opinion poll conducted in May 1975 indicated that 54% of the American public did not want the refugees in the United States. With 57,692 American men and women dead and 2,000 more missing in action, the American public remained deeply divided. In addition, Hien Duc Do states that economic recession left many feeling vulnerable and fearful that public assistance for new refugees would add an additional financial burden on the American people. The Vietnamese refugees' initial settlement was made even more difficult because there was no preexisting ethnic community. Without social and cultural support structures in place, Vietnamese refugees became dependent on the U.S. government and the goodwill of charity organizations and ordinary American citizens. After their initial resettlementusually in small towns or suburbs with few other Vietnamesemany of the refugees began to feel socially, culturally, and linguistically isolated. Depression and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder emerged. While refugees remained grateful to their sponsors' support, financial dependency lessened some of the refugees' sense of self-worth, particularly among the men, who had previously provided for their families. The refugees' previous education, training, and knowledge were often not transferable to their new environment. [p. 2285 ] To relieve this sense of social, cultural, and linguistic isolation, many of the refugees began their secondary migration to areas with larger concentrations of Vietnamese. The new redistribution of the Vietnamese population set the stage for the future development of Little Saigons in large urban areas throughout the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, by 2000 more than 70% of 1.2 million Vietnamese Americans resided in just nine states: California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. As they focused on reestablishing their lives, problems and conflictsboth with the larger mainstream community and within their communityarose to further complicate their adjustment process. In the early period of settlement, incidents of racial prejudice, discrimination, and harassment against the Vietnamese refugees were high. In Texas,
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Louisiana, and California, tension rose between White fishermen and the newcomers. In other parts of the United States, cases of racial harassment and discrimination were also reported. Within their community, a politics of exile came to dominate the political sphere, spreading fear and tension among the group that was struggling to rebuild their lives. Many of the people who were heavily involved with the former South Vietnam regime claimed responsibility for organizing the overthrow of the Vietnamese Communist regime. These organizations made clear their lack of tolerance for anyone who expressed sympathy for the Communist regime. The fear of being labeled communist kept many silent and wary of politics, leadership roles, or discussions about Vietnam. The tension over political difference came to a boiling point in 1994 with President Clinton's move to lift the 19-year-old trade embargo and begin proceedings to normalize relations with Vietnam. Many took part in demonstrations against Clinton's intended foreign policies. At the same time, many who had previously been silent now felt emboldened by Clinton's policy intentions and began to voice their support for normalization. Many seized this opportunity as a chance to move forward and put the past behind them. In 1994, a poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times indicated that the majority (54%) of the Vietnamese American community was in favor of rebuilding ties with Vietnam. The Vietnamese youth, who consist of Generation 1.5 and second generation youth, also played an important role in the debate on normalizing relations with Vietnam. Having grown up during an era of broken social, cultural, and diplomatic ties between the United States and Vietnam, the experiences that many of the youth had in discussing or learning about Vietnam often turned emotional and divisive. Parents would often shield their children from the political past by emphasizing their education and their future. The lack of opportunities for the Vietnamese youth to actively engage in the discussion about Vietnam contributed to their general sense of disconnect from their community and history. They viewed the process of normalization as an opportunity to reconnect with their ancestral home and learn more about their people's history and struggles. For the first time, many of them organized and appealed to their community to renew ties with Vietnam. While the political discussions that took place during the normalization process became contentious and triggered violent reactions at times, they
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also created a forum for the community to confront the anger, resentment, and guilt that the Vietnamese refugees had suppressed for almost 20 years. In a sense, these difficult discussions allowed the community to begin the process of healing and becoming more whole. The process of normalization between the United States and Vietnam has altered the Vietnamese American community in significant ways. Thousands of Vietnamese Americans now make annual journeys back to Vietnam. Many are living transnational lives as they rebuild relationships with friends and families in Vietnam. Younger Vietnamese are discovering or rediscovering their ancestral home and finding ways to incorporate this aspect of themselves into their daily lives. And as the youth attempt to find ways to strengthen and expand the diasporic community, they also face the challenge of constantly balancing their Vietnamese ethnic ties with their American identity and sense of belonging in the United States. They also continue to face other social and cultural adaptational challenges in school and other areas of their lives. The next section examines in more detail the educational challenges that Vietnamese immigrants face. It also discusses how issues of gender and [p. 2286 ] cultural expectations and practices contribute to an academic gap between male and female students.

Educational Challenges: Language, Culture, Gender, and Academic Achievement

Issues of language and culture have long been highlighted as significant factors impacting the social adaptation and academic achievement of immigrant students. As a growing immigrant group, Vietnamese students often encounter barriers similar to those faced by many other immigrant groups, such as poverty, language, and sociocultural barriers. In addition, social and psychological issues such as low self-esteem, lack of social interaction skills, and depression serve to hinder the academic success of Vietnamese immigrant youth. For students who are unable to secure support, their lack
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of language skill and understanding of teachers' expectations often cause them to drop out of school. Although Vietnamese youth face tremendous social, cultural, and academic challenges, their needs are often obscured or neglected because they are frequently lumped in with other Asian American groups who are viewed as model minorities by many Americans. Contrary to the popular notion that they are a model minority, the academic performances of Asian Americans vary greatly. While many Asian Americans, for example, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Punjabi Indian Americans, may excel in school, surpassing or paralleling White students on standardized test scores, many Southeast Asians struggle with language, social, cultural, and psychological issues. Although there are variations in academic achievement among Asian Americans, the model minority myth continues to perpetuate the image of Asians as ideal students. Immigrant students' educational experiences and achievements are also gendered. While many immigrant families and communities embrace traditional values of gender roles and expectations that tend to restrict women's personal choices and movements, studies consistently show that young immigrant women, including Vietnamese immigrants, excel in school. Females tend to demonstrate higher educational achievement than males. For instance, Min Zhou and Carl Bankston's analysis of Vietnamese immigrant female students in a low-income New Orleans neighborhood found that young women were performing better in school and enrolling in college at a higher rate than young men. According to Desire Qin-Hillard, cultural expectations and family practices contribute to the academic gap between male and female students. In her large-scale survey study, she found a positive correlation between the maintenance of ethnic identity and positive attitudes toward school. Strong ethnic identity, such as the association with ethnic and language groups, mitigate the adoption of negative attitudes and behaviors that lead to lower academic achievement. Over time, boys, whose academic performance continues to slide, are more likely than girls to adopt hyphenated identity as Vietnamese Americans, and they use more English in their peer groups. In addition to maintaining their ethnic identification, heritage language, and cultural practices, girls tend to have stronger social networks, such as supportive teachers, parental supervision, and female friends who are serious about school. These networks, family, and community oversight
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act as forms of social capital for the girls and help them become more academically successful. Members of the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California in a Tet parade celebrating the Vietnamese New Year, January 2009.

Source: DHN/Wikimedia Commons. [p. 2287 ] Immigrant boys, on the other hand, tend to have fewer social networks that would benefit them in school. In school, many female teachers often view male immigrant students as threatening and tend to avoid reaching out to them. At home, parents are less strict with boys and allow them greater personal freedom, which often increases their chances of encountering negative forces out in the streets. Meanwhile, the close supervision of immigrant girls acts as a buffer against the adoption of negative aspects of American life. Because these cultural and family expectations and school practices continue to differentiate between male and female students, the academic gap may persist.

Future Challenges for Vietnamese Americans

As members of the Vietnamese American community move forward and gain greater permanence in the American social, cultural, economic, and political landscape, they face the challenge of continuing to find ways to balance how they view and represent
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their sense of community, social, and cultural identityboth their American and ethnic identitiesin a constantly shifting global, social, political, and economic context. Diem Thi Nguyen http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781452218533.n719 See also Asian Americans, Diversity Among Asian Americans, Education of Culture, Diversity, and Education Ethnic and Racial Identity Development Gender and Learning Immigration and Education New Immigrants, Diversity of Refugees, Children of

Further Readings Do, H. D. (1999). The Vietnamese Americans . Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Kibria, N. (1993). Family tightrope: The changing lives of Vietnamese Americans . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pang, V. O., Kiang, P. N., & Pak, Y. K. (2004). Asian Pacific American students: Challenging a biased educational system . In J. A. Banks, ed. & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education (2nd ed., pp. pp. 542566). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Qin-Hillard, D. B. Gender expectations and gender experiences: Immigrant students adaptation in schools . New Directions for Youth Development , (2003, Winter). vol. 100 , pp. 91109. Stritikus, T. T., & Nguyen, D. T. Strategic transformation: Cultural and gender identity negotiation in first-generation Vietnamese American youth . American

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Educational Research Journal , (2007). vol. 44 no. (4), pp. 853895. http:// dx.doi.org/10.3102/0002831207308645 U.S. Census Bureau . (2000). Profile of the foreign born population in the United States: 2000 . Retrieved May 23, 2005, from http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/ p23-206.pdf Zhou, M. (2001). Straddling different worlds: The acculturation of Vietnamese refugee children . In R. Rumbaut, ed. & A. Portes (Eds.), Ethnicities: Children of immigrants in America (pp. pp. 187228). Berkeley: University of California Press. Zhou, M., & Bankston, C. L., III. (1998). Growing up American: How Vietnamese children adapt to life in the United States . New York: Russell Sage. Zhou, M., & Bankston, C. L., III. The experience of Vietnamese refugee children in the United States . Urban Diversity Series , (2000). vol. 111 , pp. 288.

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Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education: Vietnamese American Youth