Immigration & Dreams

Last Friday Tracy Huang, Mike Honda Fellow at the Japanese American Citizens League engaged the LIA interns on the topic of immigration. She made a very good point that immigration is often looked at through the lens of the Hispanic & Latino populations, but that the API community is often overlooked. I really appreciated hearing the immigration stories of my fellow interns. Seyron and I were both born in Malaysia, but definitely got to the US in very different ways and yet both were legal options. Only in recent years have I learned of just how blessed I was to have that opportunity, in the sense that so many of our undocumented brothers and sisters have risked their lives seeking the same opportunities so freely given to the rest of us. It's illegal, but I can't blame the perpetrators when the system makes it so that even legal immigration takes at least six years but more typically will take anywhere between 12-28 years.

What's heartbreaking to me is that even after the momentous journey to the land of "the American dream" has been made, whether legal or not, our brethren are still on the streets struggling, their skin more tan and weathered than their brothers and sisters at home. I want to cry a little every time I see an old brown man waving one of those giant signs, weary and yet often still with a glimmer of resilience and hope in his eyes. It's the same way when I see an old man or woman pushing around a little ice cream cart. It took me back to the streets of El Salvador, when I was out and about in San Salvador in January, and where I asked myself how it must feel to be barely making enough to get by as I observed the saturated informal markets.

San Salvador

Have you ever thought about some of the less-obvious consequences of being poor? The people I spoke to in San Salvador, when asked about what their vision or goal was, many of them simply gave us a blank look. It was an alien concept to them--they were just living day to day, a long-term goal was unrealistic and the idea of one had long been pushed out of their minds. My take-away from that experience was realizing that I had the intangible privilege of a long-term goal and vision. Dreams were not really dreams but possible realities.

View from Pajaro Flor, our language school in Suchitoto, El Salvador
(I think I just wanted an excuse to show off the view)

If I leave any sort of legacy behind when I leave this earth, I'd like for others to be able to say that I helped them believe in the reality of their dreams.

Shalom,
Vi

Locating Ourselves in History

John Doan's family before they left their refugee camp in Bataan, Philippines.

Check out one of the stories, entitled "The Last Survivor", submitted to our intern project:

I was a volunteer for the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), assisting with new arrivals to the refugee camp. My job was to take down the refugees information and I ran across a story that broke my heart. I was interviewing a man. After obtaining his name, his age, and whereabouts in Vietnam he had departed, and how long the trip was, I asked him how many people were on the boat. How many women were there? How many men? Children? He told me roughly about 100 or so people. I asked him, did he experience any mishaps or difficulties during the trip? He paused for a long 5 minutes then replied in tears, “Chi con mot minh toi song sot thoi, tat ca moi nguoi deu chim giua bien!” He was the only survivor, everybody else had been lost to the ocean. He went on to tell me that he had survived by hanging on to a large empty barrel of oil. A large storm had come in the middle of the night and the boat was too heavy to hold all the rain. It sank, and all he could do was find something to hang onto. Miraculously, as the sky got lighter, another boat rescued him. And here he was today at my refugee camp, telling his story.
At the time I had thought my story was bad. My boat had been robbed three times by pirates. We went without food for a week. Three girls were taken by the pirates, some children died from dehydration, and some died from being shot by pilots. But my story was nothing compared to this new arrival.

I continued to hear horror survival stories.

I cried when I lost my shoes, until I saw a man in my camp without his feet.

I was 18 when I heard the lone survivor’s story. I am 47 today, but his story still haunts me to this day.

- Du "Ziggy" C.

This story was submitted by my uncle. I enjoyed the experience of hearing his story and transcribing it for him. He didn't want to write it himself, saying his English was bad. Ironic, because he is a poet, and has a way with words that definitely comes out even with broken English. I'm really excited for our projects and get pumped every time I sit and read the new stories that are being submitted. Please submit yours at locateyourself.net. I am a little worried because I don't know as many people here in California as my fellow interns do. I'm a believer that it's easier to ask people to do things, to join your cause, etc when there is a relational aspect to your request. It's harder for me to do that when most of my friends and people I have those relationships with are in Washington State!

Anyway, our internship is wrapping up within these next 3 weeks. I'm excited and scared because I'll miss our interns and if I don't find a job soon I'll probably move back to Tacoma/Seattle. I love my rainy cities but LA and OC have grown on me...

Peace & Blessings,
Vi

Mid-way update!

First, some pictures for your enjoyment.

Okay, on to non-picture-taking activities!

One of the difficulties of working at the VNCOC is my lack of Vietnamese fluency. I feel hindered when I can't find the right words or sentence structure to articulate exactly what I mean. It's frustrating but definitely motivation for me to be more intentional with practicing Vietnamese. Today I've been tasked with calling a group of our seniors and surveying them. Obviously it will have to be done in Vietnamese. I'm looking forward to confusing the seniors with my funky Vietnamese....

Another thing I've been struggling a little with is the difference in organizational culture between the VNCOC and Greater Spokane Incorporated, where I interned for the past school year. VNCOC is much more informal and less structured, yet there are some very inherent social hierarchies. Or maybe I'm just internalizing the Vietnamese social hierarchies that I've been taught since I was a little girl. I sometimes feel like I'm not quite on the same level as the other employees/volunteers of the organization because I'm young and female. And yet our CEO and our operations manager are both female and fairly young, so I do feel some comfort and reassurance there.

What I love about non-for-profit organizations is also what I hate: lack of rigid structure, flexibility and dynamic days can also mean disorganization, chaos, too much ambiguity, lack of anonymity with complaints/disputes, etc. I've mostly been working without supervision, which is great but I do kind of miss having my boss just a cubicle wall away like when I was at GSI. Reimar suggested I add some structure to check-in's by asking for a daily or weekly check-up with the bossladies. I like that idea but I think I'll make it a more casual stop-by-her-office type thing.

Anyway, outside of VNCOC work, the past couple days with LEAP have been busy but a great blessing. I am incredibly appreciative of all the networking opportunities I've had over the past couple of days. I definitely reminded myself to use John Kobara's tips on networking and introductions. What was surprising was that it felt quite natural to mingle and talk with strangers (some with very high profiles.) From executive directors of well-respected and nationally-recognized not-for-profit organizations, to senior-level managers of large corporations--I met them all and for the most part felt at ease. I think part of me just told myself not to be afraid and to see myself as being an equal in worth and standing. That dissolved a lot of nervousness and potential awkwardness.

Anyway, as of now I am about 90% done with the VNCOC website and just waiting to get the FTP information to put it all up. I've been working on some brochures for them also and those should get the final seal of approval tomorrow at their board meeting. Other things... hmm, oh, as soon as I get the website done I'm going to focus my energy on helping them plan a fundraising gala and putting together a potential mentorship program.

Also... I would like to declare my love for my LIA intern group, LEAP, LEAP's King's Hawaiian goodies-donating volunteers, and the freaking awesome BBQ food that was at THE PARTY (tnkat.org).

Peace,

Vi

A New Arrival

We just got a 52" flat screen for our senior center!

Paz,

Vi

P.S. Real update, soon!

The Early Days

I've been at VNCOC a grand total of 4 days now and because I have a spare moment I will summarize what I've done/learned so far:

• Mental healthcare is a pressing issue in the API community. Reflecting on my own family and friends' shared experiences in suppressing any visible signs of weakness or abnormality, this doesn't come as a surprise to me. A lifetime of that can wreak havoc on your brain and its health.
  
• Any Vietnamese woman over the age of 50 must love and adore me, showering me with gifts of fruit and lunches (see evidence, right) because I either remind them of one of their grandchildren or of themselves as a younger woman. Needless to say, I can't complain.
  
• VNCOC has one of the only court-approved counseling services available to Vietnamese domestic violence victims and perpetrators
  
• People are often averse to change. This is dangerous and can be harmful towards any organization's growth.
  
• Our CEO was a former LEAP/LIA intern.
  
• VNCOC would like me to help plan a fundraising gala for them.
  
• The Vietnamese here are cutthroat businessmen & women. How else do they manage to sell a bowl of pho for 50% off?!
  
• The Vietnamese and Mexican communities here used to have a lot of tension between them, but they have been working together and forming alliances to serve their communities needs.
  
• My bosslady has a lot more in common with me than I though. Her best friend is Cambodian (many of my close friends are too). She enjoys Mexican food, and even took me on a hunt for guacamole for lunch yesterday.

Shalom,
Vi