After interviewing my parents about their lives in Vietnam, I decided to move on to writing about my family's immigration roots by connecting their stories and by writing my thoughts (along with my parents' thoguhts) about keeping our Vietnamese roots in the family (and the future family) while in America.
My Family's Immigration Roots
My family came over to the United States during the first large-scale immigration from Vietnam that was a part of a U.S. military evacuation called “Operation New Life.” This immigration occurred in 1975 during the Fall of Saigon when the communist North won the Vietnam War.
The Vietnamese refugee's first-language was the Vietnamese language. For certain people, having another language other than English as a first-language causes immigrants to have heavy accents. This is especially true for the people who come over to the U.S. at a later age (like my father who came over in his late 20s). Because heavy accents cause difficulties in communication, immigrants would decide to stay within the technical side of their work fields in order to use minimal required English-communication skills, instead of working in the management or marketing side of large businesses. This also hinder the immigrants' advancements in the working field compared to the advancement of the people who already learned how to speak English as their first-language. However, being able to know both Vietnamese and English promotes the possibility of being able to work with both English-speaking people and Vietnamese-speaking people.
Being able to speak the language even though I am an American-born child who's never been to Vietnam before is something I am proud of. I speak Vietnamese as a method to communicate with the Vietnamese people who can barely speak English (whether they are old, newcomers, or from a completely different country); to sing traditional Vietnamese songs; to know specific terms relating to the Vietnamese culture; and to badmouth about non-Vietnamese-speaking people. For me, it's important for my future children to know the language because it might be the only way they would communicate with their Grandparents (my parents). Also, they would not be able to branch out to their relatives in Vietnam (or other countries) if they do not know who to speak Vietnamese. It is also important for my future kids to know my family's roots so that they can know the stories about what their grandparents went through and how they can become successful despite of all those hardships. The stories my parents told me and the stories I've heard from other Vietnamese adults are not written history that can be found in textbooks, making the stories of my family's roots dependent on future generations' retelling of the stories. I would transmit the language and the stories about our immigration roots by teaching and telling them these starting from when they are at a young age. The stories can be told as bed-time stories, and it's possible to teach the kids Vietnamese by speaking to them in Viet or by letting them listen to recordings of music and story-telling.
Keeping the Vietnamese language and the stories of our roots, my kids would be able to practice the customs and traditions that my family is still practicing based on the original traditions in Vietnam. Having Vietnamese New Years with Red Envelopes (Li Xi) is one of the main holidays and traditions that originated from Vietnam but are still celebrated in America. Wearing traditional Vietnamese dresses for holidays and keeping traditional Vietnamese food (such as nuoc mam, mam, banh chung, pho, etc.) are some of the very dominant customs we continue to keep while in the U.S. We also continue to eat A LOT of rice in our daily meals [This tend to make me question what other people would eat instead of rice...]. The Vietnamese families tend to help each other for “free,” such as cousins in America paying for the expenses of their newly-arrived cousins from Vietnam for one or two years. The Vietnamese families are also traditional families who would have a custom of going to their relatives' houses to visit. This includes the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and even 5th cousins. Using honorific titles for family members and strangers while calling the person by their first name is something done in Vietnam and is still done in America, despite the fact that the American culture would usually incorporate last names. A fun fact: When I go to California to visit my dad's side of the family, someone who is four years older than me would call me “Grandma Chau” [Chau's my Vietnamese first name]. This would also apply to MANY of my relatives in Vietnam because my grandfather (from my dad's side) was the youngest of all his siblings, followed by my father who is also the youngest of all his siblings, making me a young “grandaunt” or so.
The Vietnamese refugee's first-language was the Vietnamese language. For certain people, having another language other than English as a first-language causes immigrants to have heavy accents. This is especially true for the people who come over to the U.S. at a later age (like my father who came over in his late 20s). Because heavy accents cause difficulties in communication, immigrants would decide to stay within the technical side of their work fields in order to use minimal required English-communication skills, instead of working in the management or marketing side of large businesses. This also hinder the immigrants' advancements in the working field compared to the advancement of the people who already learned how to speak English as their first-language. However, being able to know both Vietnamese and English promotes the possibility of being able to work with both English-speaking people and Vietnamese-speaking people.
Being able to speak the language even though I am an American-born child who's never been to Vietnam before is something I am proud of. I speak Vietnamese as a method to communicate with the Vietnamese people who can barely speak English (whether they are old, newcomers, or from a completely different country); to sing traditional Vietnamese songs; to know specific terms relating to the Vietnamese culture; and to badmouth about non-Vietnamese-speaking people. For me, it's important for my future children to know the language because it might be the only way they would communicate with their Grandparents (my parents). Also, they would not be able to branch out to their relatives in Vietnam (or other countries) if they do not know who to speak Vietnamese. It is also important for my future kids to know my family's roots so that they can know the stories about what their grandparents went through and how they can become successful despite of all those hardships. The stories my parents told me and the stories I've heard from other Vietnamese adults are not written history that can be found in textbooks, making the stories of my family's roots dependent on future generations' retelling of the stories. I would transmit the language and the stories about our immigration roots by teaching and telling them these starting from when they are at a young age. The stories can be told as bed-time stories, and it's possible to teach the kids Vietnamese by speaking to them in Viet or by letting them listen to recordings of music and story-telling.
Keeping the Vietnamese language and the stories of our roots, my kids would be able to practice the customs and traditions that my family is still practicing based on the original traditions in Vietnam. Having Vietnamese New Years with Red Envelopes (Li Xi) is one of the main holidays and traditions that originated from Vietnam but are still celebrated in America. Wearing traditional Vietnamese dresses for holidays and keeping traditional Vietnamese food (such as nuoc mam, mam, banh chung, pho, etc.) are some of the very dominant customs we continue to keep while in the U.S. We also continue to eat A LOT of rice in our daily meals [This tend to make me question what other people would eat instead of rice...]. The Vietnamese families tend to help each other for “free,” such as cousins in America paying for the expenses of their newly-arrived cousins from Vietnam for one or two years. The Vietnamese families are also traditional families who would have a custom of going to their relatives' houses to visit. This includes the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and even 5th cousins. Using honorific titles for family members and strangers while calling the person by their first name is something done in Vietnam and is still done in America, despite the fact that the American culture would usually incorporate last names. A fun fact: When I go to California to visit my dad's side of the family, someone who is four years older than me would call me “Grandma Chau” [Chau's my Vietnamese first name]. This would also apply to MANY of my relatives in Vietnam because my grandfather (from my dad's side) was the youngest of all his siblings, followed by my father who is also the youngest of all his siblings, making me a young “grandaunt” or so.