Fall 2016 Spotlight: Vietnamese American Community in Marin

Dominican Service-Learning students Ruhen “Ronny” Chandel (top left) and Fernando Pons (top third from left) participating in weekly social gathering of the Vietnamese seniors in Pickleweed Park Community Center. Community volunteer Lieu Pham (standing) leads the group and translates between Vietnamese and English speakers.

Marin County has a special place in the migratory history of Vietnamese in America — Hamilton Field in Novato, previously a Navy Yard and now where Homeward Bound is located, was an intake center for South East Asian refugees after the Vietnam War. Many of the refugees moved on to other parts of the United States since then, but some stayed. Currently, approximately 0.5% of Marin’s population self-identify as Vietnamese ethnics. Since 2013, Service-Learning faculty Dr. Emily Wu and her students have been working with the Vietnamese American community in Marin. Through collaborating with Marin Asian Advocacy Project, Asian American Alliance of Marin, and Vietnamese mental healthcare providers from Marin County Mental Health Services, Dominican Service-Learning students participate in a range of regular activities with local Vietnamese American community members. Community activities include stress management group, youth outreach, citizenship exam preparation, social gatherings, walk and exercise group, lunch programs, home visits, and field trips. SL students are also invited to special events such as the Community Appreciation Lunch that the Vietnamese community hosts at St. Vincent de Paul of San Rafael.

On Veteran’s Day, the Marin Vietnamese community sponsored a lunch at the St. Vincent de Paul Society to show appreciation to the Marin community that accepted them as refugees after the Vietnam War. SL student Rhea Abesamis helped out in the kitchen.

From left to right: SL student Vheada Deleon, community senior Phuoc Luong, and SL intern Sierra Najolia.

SL students working with the Vietnamese community are required to conduct a recorded interview with the seniors at the end of the semester. The interviews are added to a Vietnamese American Oral History Archive that Sierra Najolia, a History major and SL intern, is systemizing and organizing this semester.

One student, who wishes to remain anonymous, had the opportunity to shadow Marin Asian Advocacy Project staff My Tong to do outreach in the local nail salons. Here is her reflection on the experience:

We walked around San Rafael downtown to the closest Vietnamese nail salons and and [My] talked to them and handed them brochures of the events the MAAP is setting up. I didn’t understand what she was saying most of the time, but I knew from some of the names My used, she was talking about the events, and when she told the Vietnamese adults about what was going on, they were excited and wanted to participate. Most people were very interested in the trip when MAAP takes people to the Buddhist temple in Hayward.

Walking around I learned that many of the nail salons in San Rafael are owned or run by Vietnamese women, but one or two of the salons we went to had Vietnamese men working as well. My experience overall was really good, the people My and I encountered were all very nice and actually listened to us.

From going on this walk, I was able to get an insight on how some people treated the Vietnamese employees that worked in the salons, and it made me think how even though America is the land of the free and everyone is treated equal, I realized how untrue that is. At one of the last salons we visited, a woman who was getting her nails done got mad at My when she was explaining to the owner why we were there. This lady yelled at My and and said that she didn’t want us to be there at her time and that she is there to relax. The way she was talking to us seemed like she thought she was above us. It got me really mad. This really got me thinking about what the people at these nail salons might face daily and they have to live with it because they need the business and money those customers provide. To me it looked like this woman was boss and the Vietnamese lady was her servant, and that is so wrong. I will remember this experience for a long time, because through it I got a taste of some of the injustice other communities beside my own (Sikh community) face on a daily basis. Through this I have a new respect to minorities because they truly do put up with a lot.