Get to Know Paul Hoang, Clinical Social Worker and Founder of Viet-C.A.R.E.
An Interview with Paul Hoang
An interview with Paul Hoang, clinical social worker and Founder of Viet-C.A.R.E., a non-profit organization based in Orange County, California committed to increasing mental health support through education, dialogue, and community events in Vietnamese American communities.
Tell us about yourself!
My name is Paul Hoang. I am refugee and boat person who escaped Vietnam in the late 80s, along with my family and 27 other adults and children. I was in a small fishing boat that floated around with broken engines in the Pacific Ocean for almost a month. I experienced three pirate attacks, waves of thirst and starvation, was tossed around by three different typhoon storms and rejected multiple times by cargo ships passing by offering us food but stopped short of rescuing us from our numerous near-death experiences.
Despite these hardships, we were rescued by local fishermen off Kuku Island in Indonesia. After almost two years of living in different refugee camps, my family received sponsorship and arrived in the U.S. in 1989. Not realizing how much the escape journey has impacted me on a subconscious level, I grew up in the US suffering from several different invisible wounds. I was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and clinical depression.
I have been able to get to where I am today thanks to many supportive people in my life, the opportunities I have had to grow, heal, and succeed. I am grateful for the internal and external resources I have developed and continue to develop that help move me forward.
What inspired you to work in the mental health and psychology field?
My seven years of religious missionary work greatly motivated me to work in the mental health field. By working with people from different ethnicities, faiths, social classes, and backgrounds, I have come to realize how critical and impactful mental health is to everyone — individuals, families, communities, and society. I believe it is one of the most, if not the most critical dimension of our health and wellness for all. When our mental health is ill, it impacts our emotions, thoughts, behaviors, relationships and ability to be productive. Poor mental health is debilitating on many levels and produces subtle to dangerous consequences in our lives and others. It’s most dangerous when we don’t realize we are dealing with poor mental health.
For these reasons, I was motivated to explore and actively engage in the mental health field. I want to help myself and others to gain greater freedom of choice, control of our own health, and develop accountability for our actions. We cannot address what we do not know. Greater awareness brings more opportunities for healing and growth.
Just as I was not aware I was suffering from severe clinical depression and PTSD, I was not able to do anything but to be a blind victim of my symptoms growing up. Just as I did not know what mental illness was, I did not seek professional help. I continued to live with my symptoms from sixth grade until my first year of college and religious seminary school.
Throughout my seven years of training and living as a religious missionary, I was fortunate to receive mental health support and treatment. My spiritual director and religious confreres were instrumental in my healing process. My missionary assignments and volunteer work brought me to St. Louis, Missouri, South Side Chicago, Illinois, Japan, and Smokey Mountain, Philippines. Travelling opened my eyes to the reality that mental illness is universal and does not discriminate against the rich or poor, young or old, male or female, people with or without faith, and other identities.
With the encouragement from the late Brother Dennis Newton, SVD, I applied and was accepted into the Masters Program in Social Work at Loyola University Chicago. Since the first day of class until now, I have found my life’s vocation. I work on a daily basis with people who experience mild to severe mental illness and addiction issues. It’s incredibly rewarding and each day affirms that I found my life’s vocation.
As a clinical social worker, I am a firm believer and practitioner of the holistic approach of addressing the systemic challenges and dynamics that impact a person’s mental health. A person’s mental health affects their community. In order to develop safer and healthier communities, we must help individual community members receive mental health support and treatment.
What are some unique challenges Vietnamese American communities face with mental health?
There are many documented challenges unique to Vietnamese American communities when it comes to mental health. Language, culture, and transportation are fundamental barriers. The more challenging barrier is having healthcare providers, both Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese speaking, who are comfortable with and capable of engaging with Vietnamese American communities.
Many healthcare providers, especially in rural areas, or areas lacking a significant Vietnamese American community presence, family members often serve as translators. Many times in the older generation, the patient’s children are asked to translate. The majority of younger Vietnamese Americans have limited proficiency of Vietnamese and therefore lack knowledge of medical and mental health terminology. As a result, this leads to miscommunication, misreporting, and misdiagnoses.
I experienced this personally during my graduate school practicum year. I had a monolingual Vietnamese-speaking client transferred to me because I was the only Vietnamese-speaking clinician/trainee at the agency. The client was diagnosed with schizophrenia and had been in treatment at the agency for over a year before seeing me. After a month of weekly and assessments and treatments, I suspected that my client did not have schizophrenia.
As a young clinician, I wanted to do due diligence and make sure I had all my bases covered. After all my interviews with my client and his children, chart reviews, research, and discussions with my professors and clinical supervisor, I concluded that my client was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia. Although my site clinical supervisor agreed with my findings, they couldn’t change my client’s diagnosis which was made by the lead psychiatrist.
As an activist and community organizer, I wanted to continue advocating for my client. After months of going back and forth with my clinical supervisor, clinical director, and medical director, I finally received approval to change my client’s initial diagnosis of schizophrenia to the accurate diagnosis of major depression. Having an understanding of Vietnamese cultural dynamics and language heavily impacted my client’s assessment.
How can the younger generation of Vietnamese Americans support their elders and vice-versa?
One of the most important things the younger generation of Vietnamese Americans can do for their elders is to communicate with them in Vietnamese. I realized this is difficult for many, especially when they didn’t grow up learning Vietnamese. Language and effective compassionate communication is the key to bridging and connecting with elders. It’s a lot easier for the younger generation to learn and retain new information and languages than the older generation who came to the US while being middle-aged. The younger generation is more progressive and open to learning about stigmatized topics like mental health. They also have fewer responsibilities compared to their elders when it comes to supporting family members. In most immigrant families, the younger generation speaks English a lot better than the first.
The elders have sacrificed a lot for their family which the younger generations will fortunately never have to experience. It is important for the elders to feel proud, grateful and humbled for the fruits of their labor. However, the elders shouldn’t use their sacrifices as a comparison to guilt trip the younger generation. It’s a very meaningful and healing opportunity for both generations to have an open dialogue about their experiences. The narrative therapy approach is effective in facilitating these dialogues. We need more mental health professionals trained in narrative therapy to help the elder generation develop effective approaches to sharing experiences in a way that satisfies the storyteller’s goals and retains compassion from the younger generation.
Why did you start Viet-C.A.R.E. and what does the organization do? What kind of impact has it made?
I started Viet-C.A.R.E. because my personal and professional experiences have shown me that there is a lack of culturally relevant mental health resources and services for Vietnamese American communities. Furthermore, the cultural stigma and lack of understanding of mental health continue to prevent Vietnamese Americans from seeking and utilizing professional mental health services. As a result, many continue to suffer in silence from mental illnesses and other issues like alcohol and gambling addictions and domestic violence. Families are broken and the cycle of intergenerational trauma continues to perpetuate.
Since its inception in 2009, Viet-C.A.R.E. has organized eight annual conferences, quarterly workshops, and community education programs that provide prevention and early intervention services to destigmatize mental illness, increase public awareness of existing mental health services in our community, and most importantly, normalize the discussion of and utilization of professional mental health services.
Viet-C.A.R.E. has also run its own television show, VietView, on a local Vietnamese station which broadcasted on local public television in California and internationally on cable television. VietView received phone calls and emails from viewers from the US and Canada sharing their challenges of not having any Vietnamese speaking mental health professional or services in their community. These viewers shared how watching our program helped them “better understand” their own experiences and/or their family member’s challenges.
Many have attributed our organization for their courage to get professional mental services, start difficult conversations with family members and doctors, receive mental health education, and “finally” accept themselves with mental illness.
I’m also proud to recognize Viet-C.A.R.E.’s impact and connections with the non-Vietnamese American communities, as well as with government agencies and public elected officials. It is through the partnership and collaboration with all different community partners that we are able to raise the general public’s awareness of our own Vietnamese American community mental health needs and voices.
Do you want to give any shoutouts to individuals or organizations that mean a lot to you?
It has not been an easy journey to get to where I’m today. The path I have chosen will continue to present me with more challenges that I am ready to tackle. My grounding and mindfulness present was developed with the blessings God has given me, the spirituality of the Society of the Divine Word — a Catholic Religious Missionary order, the many religious missionary brothers and sisters whose life and guidance have affected me, especially Fr. Gus Wall, SVD, Fr. Bill Shea, SVD, Brother Dennis Newton, SVD, Fr. Jim Bergin, SVD, Sr. Anne, Brother William “Bill” Tomes (Founder of The Brothers & Sisters of Love), and many other religious from different religious orders with whom I was blessed to have crossed paths.
During my personal and professional development, I was also greatly inspired by the late Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Pope John Paul II whose life and works exemplify the calling to servant leadership. In our society, those who are most marginalized, poor, oppressed, voiceless, and neglected are the many people suffering from and living with mental illness.
My journey in life has led me to subscribes to the beliefs that:
Love is the most important value in life.
We have the responsibility to learn as much as we can from our experiences and the world around us.
We have the responsibility to make our communities more safe and healthy.
I also want to thank the many mental health and non-mental health professionals who have and continue to believe in me and the vision set forth for Viet-C.A.R.E. In particular, I want to thank Suzie Dong-Matsuda, Clayton Chau, Jenny Tang and Vanessa Pearson who has supported me and Viet-C.A.R.E.’s works. I also want to thank all the previous and current Viet-C.A.R.E.’s board of directors and volunteers who have dedicated countless hours to meet, plan and execute many of Viet-C.A.R.E.’s activities for the community.
Finally, I want to thank my wife who is my stronghold and a solid supporter which has allowed me to continue to be active in my community services. Thank you to my family, especially my father, who demonstrates daily his spiritual discipline and modeling for me the importance of family values and responsible community services.
