[Hue] A little story to forget about IRAQ, SADDAM, and JOBLESS

[Peter Le]

The following article relates to the trip that I plan to make to SJ.  According to the article, many Vietnamese in SJ don't like Little Saigon because "it's too Vietnamese" :-))

Duc

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Nostalgic link for Vietnamese
Reminiscent of old country, bus binds communities and families 
By KATHERINE NGUYEN 
The Orange County Register 

On a bus ride from Little Saigon to San Jose, Ngoc Nguyen is transported back in time.

Back to when she was a little girl riding the Xe Do Hoang bus - the Greyhound of Vietnam - with her grandmother on balmy summer days, traveling from the bustling capital city of Saigon to her home province of Rach Gia for the scenic countryside views and delicious summer fruits. 

Now, decades later and her hair a few shades grayer, Nguyen is on another Xe Do Hoang bus, but far from Vietnam. For the 6 1/2 hours that it takes to get to her destination, Nguyen finds herself re-creating the world she once knew. 

"I think of Vietnam every time a breeze blows through palm trees, every time it rains like this," said Nguyen, 61, gazing out the bus window recently. "Riding this bus brings back so many poignant memories of my old country."

Nguyen's lined face breaks into a warm smile as she turns back to concentrate on knitting a little red, white and blue jumper for the grandson she is going to visit in San Jose.

Today, riding the Xe Do Hoang bus in California does more than connect Nguyen to her daughter and grandson, it links the two largest Vietnamese populations in the United States – one in Orange County and the other in San Jose.

The bus, which runs daily between Westminster and San Jose, provides a nostalgic link to the past, a glimpse at family and communal ties, and points to the growth and progress of Vietnamese refugees who were scattered across the United States nearly 30 years after fleeing the broken nation of Vietnam. 

On this bus, Nguyen sits next to her granddaughter, 12-year-old Elizabeth, who tunes out the pop Vietnamese music videos streaming from the TV monitors on the bus and listens to rock bands like Cherrybomb and Limp Bizkit on her portable CD player. 

Nguyen lives in Santa Ana, while her son and two daughters have carved a niche for themselves in Orange County, San Jose and Houston.

Her children have gone where the opportunities are available, and now she goes to where her family is. 

Bus-line owner Linh Hoang Nguyen said he realized about five years ago that there was a need to connect California's two major Vietnamese communities. Today, an estimated 200 people travel between San Jose and Westminster every week on a charter bus with colorful seats and a free banh mi sandwich, iced coffee and copies of local Vietnamese newspapers thrown in with each ticket, $35 one way or $70 round trip.

"It's only natural; people have friends and family in both areas and business, too," said Linh Hoang Nguyen, 36. 

Many who take the bus say they prefer it to the hassles of taking a plane and enjoy being surrounded by the comforts of their own food and language.

Nguyen said there are many more that travel from Westminster to San Jose than vice versa.

"The Vietnamese in San Jose don't tend to like Little Saigon so much," said Linh Hoang Nguyen. "They tell me Little Saigon is too crowded, too Vietnamese."

DISPERSED IN SAN JOSE

When she visits her family in San Jose, about once or twice a year, Ngoc Nguyen stays at her daughter's home in East San Jose, where many residents are middle-class Asian, mostly Vietnamese and Filipino families. 

"My daughter and her husband bought a nice home for around $600,000," Ngoc Nguyen says, beaming. "She works with her husband's family restaurant business in San Jose." 

The growth of San Jose's Vietnamese population is linked to the growth of the Silicon Valley. In fact, the Vietnamese have long been credited with helping fuel Silicon Valley's high-tech job boom. 

East San Jose residents My and Chieu Do were among the hundreds of Vietnamese-Americans who got jobs on the assembly lines of IBM and Aztec more than two decades ago. 

The Dos fled Vietnam in 1975, and Chieu's brother came to San Jose in 1977 after landing at a refugee camp in Florida. Chieu's brother and many other Vietnamese refugees were sponsored by American families through churches in Hayward, and the Dos decided to move in with their family in San Jose. 

Chieu and My Do immediately went to electrical school and then landed assembly-line jobs. Within three years of living and working in San Jose, the Dos purchased a four-bedroom, $75,000 East San Jose home to raise their three daughters. 

Just like Vietnamese families in Orange County, the Dos blend Vietnamese tradition into their typical middle-class lifestyle: My Do prepares Vietnamese meals every day and the family celebrates holidays like the lunar new year. After dinner, the parents will catch the news on Vietnamese TV channels or listen to Vietnamese radio, but the family also loves to catch American reality TV shows like "The Bachelor" and get into spirited discussions over who will win. 

My Do shops at Vietnamese markets within walking distance of their home and at the neighborhood Albertsons weekly. 

When visiting her daughter, Ngoc Nguyen hits those same Vietnamese markets, near what's known as the Lion Plaza, to buy groceries and oblige requests for mom's good ol' home cooking. 

In San Jose, there is no designated Vietnamese business district like the stretch of more than 2,000 Vietnamese shops and eateries concentrated along Little Saigon's Bolsa Avenue. 

Vietnamese shops and plazas in San Jose are dispersed throughout the eastern part of the city. 

Back in Orange County, it only takes about five minutes for Nguyen to drive two miles to her part-time job in Westminster. At the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., a non-profit refugee resettlement support agency, Nguyen answers the phone in the morning and helps newly arrived refugees enroll in ESL classes.

At noon, Nguyen heads home to pick up granddaughter Elizabeth from school. At home, Nguyen is quick to remind her granddaughter to complete her homework.

Nguyen says she tries to speak to her granddaughter only in Vietnamese, but Elizabeth doesn't like it. "She says, 'Please, ba ngoai (grandmother), English!' " Nguyen said, chuckling. "I tell her I don't know English well enough to speak it all the time, and she says, 'Then I'll teach you English, ba ngoai.' "

During the summer, Nguyen stays at home with Elizabeth and cooks and knits.

"Her mom works all day, so I look after Elizabeth and it's not easy," Nguyen said. "There are so many freedoms here for children. I worry about her getting into the wrong crowds, and especially boys! So I take her to PG-13 movies and to the Girl Scouts on Sundays."

Although she enjoys spending time with her family, Nguyen said she can't imagine living anywhere but in her second que huong, or homeland, of Little Saigon.

"Being here, surrounded by so many who speak my language and share my culture, it's the closest thing to being in the country we all lost years ago," Nguyen said. 

"In the eyes of almost every person in Little Saigon, you know there is a story of survival, and as an old person, I still need to be near that," she said.

Nguyen said she realizes that feeling, echoed by so many first-generation Vietnamese, will wane through the years as each new generation assimilates further into American culture.

"They will not and cannot know the strong, almost wrenching tie to our que huong, because their que huong won't be Vietnam. It will be here, in America."

ALWAYS THE CAPITAL?

Although the Dos would never live in Orange County, Chieu Do said he still considers Little Saigon the central hub for Vietnamese in America.

 "Little Saigon is a point of pride for all Vietnamese here," said Do, who visits friends and family about once a year in Little Saigon. "The community there has put themselves on the map. It shows our success as a people, shows how far we've come along in 20-something years." 

Although Little Saigon may be viewed emotionally as the central hub of Vietnamese- Americans, observers say other enclaves will continue to emerge and thrive across the United States. 

Jim Freeman, a retired San Jose anthropology professor who has written books on the San Jose Vietnamese refugees, says there are other Vietnamese communities that are diverse and independent of Little Saigon.

"Because San Jose is in the heart of Silicon Valley, many of the Vietnamese have acquired a certain entrepreneurial spirit, which is characteristic of the region," Freeman said. 

Freeman and others point to growing Vietnamese hubs in cities such as Houston, Washington, D.C., and the northern Virginia area, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Diego, Las Vegas, Louisiana and Florida.

In Louisiana, many Vietnamese took to the fishing industry, with many operating shrimp boats. The latest hub to emerge is in Las Vegas, the fastest-growing major city in the United States, where Chinese and Vietnamese merchants have opened up a slew of restaurants and shops just 15 minutes away from the Las Vegas Strip.

Jeff Brody, a California State University, Fullerton, professor who teaches a class on the Vietnamese-American experience, says "Little Saigon has become the capital of the Vietnamese-American diaspora.

"Little Saigon has the most businesses and it's the center of the Vietnamese media and entertainment industry."

But even Brody said he can only speculate whether the bustling hub of Little Saigon will maintain its cultural strength in years to come.

"That depends on how the second, third and fourth generations assimilate," said Brody. "If the second and third generation now are starting to rely more on American services and shops, we could see a shift in significance of ties to the enclaves."

Nguyen and others say the enclaves aren't really what matter: "So long as people have family and friends all over, the communal ties will always be there."




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