Orange County Register, CA
May 1 2005

American stories
The Vietnamese chapter in U.S. history is a familiar tale

Steven Greenhut
Sr. editorial writer and columnist

Last week’s Register feature about 30 up-and-coming
Vietnamese-Americans “to watch” left me chuckling, given that just
about every Vietnamese person I’ve met in Orange County has a success
story to tell. Only 30? The real story would be finding 30 Vietnamese
losers who operate at the margins of society. They’re there, I’m
sure, but finding them would take real effort.

Thirty years after the fall of Saigon, when desperate people hopped
onto U.S. military aircraft or makeshift boats to flee the takeover
by a totalitarian and violent regime, the Vietnamese community in
Orange County epitomizes the age-old story of immigrants fleeing
oppression, then finding success and opportunity on our shores.

The success has been quick and astounding. We all know the anecdotal
stories, the common ones about, say, the Vietnamese restaurateur
whose five kids all go to Berkeley. It’s not just the Vietnamese, but
Lebanese, Pakistanis, Chinese, Koreans, Mexicans, Salvadorans and on
and on. I recall a John Stossel story about Indians, who struggle to
get by in their home country but do astoundingly well in America.

Big surprise, right?

That sounds cliched and unsophisticated in a world of whining about
inequalities, unfairness and every other grievance, real or
perceived. But the story of success in America is quite real, quite
profound, and – despite the troubling erosion of liberties in the age
of the welfare and regulatory state – an obvious result of keeping
government limited, and personal and economic freedom expansive.

Five years ago, I toured the “people’s paradise” in Saigon and Hanoi.
Vietnam is hauntingly beautiful, which in part explains why so many
Vietnamese-Americans cannot let go of their roots. (The other reason,
of course, is the circumstance under which they left. Imagine if a
war broke out on our shores and communist lunatics drove us from our
homes or put us in concentration camps for a dozen years. No one can
simply move on with their life without being haunted by what might
have been.)

The people are poor, the country depressed, the opportunities
limited, the oppressiveness of the government quite real. The
much-championed doi moi, the Vietnamese policy of promoting more
economic openness, has resulted in international investment and
improved economic conditions, but this remains a tightly controlled
society. China has opened up its markets, even as the Chinese
government holds tightly onto political control. Vietnam is a few
years behind China in that openness process.

Compare the struggling, poor, skinny Vietnamese people living in
Vietnam with the successful, affluent, chunky Vietnamese-Americans
one meets not just in Little Saigon, but in Newport Beach, Fullerton,
San Clemente and everywhere in-between. This is no coincidence, no
happenstance of birth.

When I was in Vietnam, I instantly could spot Vietnamese people from
back here, given their size, dress and obvious health and affluence.
Ted Nguyen, a Laguna Niguel resident who left Vietnam when he was 6,
returned for a visit 1 1/2 years ago and concurs. He saw Vietnamese
kids in baggy shorts and flip-flops and asked them where they were
from. Sure enough, they were from Huntington Beach. There’s no
mistaking an American citizen from a Vietnamese citizen!

Nguyen is head of public relations for one of my least-favorite local
government agencies – the Orange County Transportation Authority. We
usually get together for lunch to argue about light rail and other
transportation issues, but last week we met at a Vietnamese
restaurant to eat phoand talk about Vietnam.

His dad was in the Vietnamese military, stationed in Saigon, but
Nguyen was living with his mother and grandmother in their hometown
of Nha Trang, a picturesque beach community in the middle of the
country. The South Vietnamese forces were retreating south, and
Nguyen vaguely remembers his dad rushing home, grabbing him and
heading back to Saigon – leaving no time for changing or anything.

He remembers a little bit – the rushing, the screaming, the stream of
refugees. But his family filled in the details. His dad didn’t want
to leave his country. But his mother saw the handwriting on the wall
and insisted that they leave. They were among the first waves of
Vietnamese refugees, fleeing on a U.S. ship toward the Philippines
and then ultimately landing at Camp Pendleton.

The family was resettled in the scorching desert town of Sierra
Vista, Ariz., because an Army lieutenant from there sponsored them.
Townspeople collected money so that the Nguyens could buy a house. He
remembers the lieutenant saying to his dad: “Now you have a mortgage,
so now you are a real American.” His dad took a job as a house
painter and his mom worked long hours as a seamstress.

Eventually, the family moved to Culver City to be closer to
relatives. Then his parents fell in love with the mountains and the
open spaces and moved to Provo, Utah, where they could live the
American Dream: a big house on one-third of an acre. Ted went to
Brigham Young University, studied public relations and public
administration, and took a job with Laer Pearce and Associates in
Orange County. He moved to Laguna Niguel, and eventually took a job
with the transportation agency.

If this sounds typical, almost bland, it’s meant to sound that way.
Indeed, my dad fled Nazi Germany, and my siblings and I pursued
degrees, careers and families in the same way as did Ted Nguyen and
his family members. It’s the same with the descendants of the
Armenian genocide, with my friend who fled violence in El Salvador.

“My story is typical of a lot of Vietnamese,” said Nguyen. “Our
parents were well-educated, they had good jobs in the military and
government. They went from positions of power and influence to build
a new life in a foreign land. They took the jobs that they could
find. I have relatives who were doctors who are janitors here. They
humbled themselves to create a better life for their kids. …
Anything is possible here with hard work. It’s not a cliche. Most of
my peers, 95 percent of them, are college-educated. We think of
ourselves first as Americans, but as Americans with Vietnamese
accents.”

He doesn’t mean language accents. Most of the younger Vietnamese
people around here talk in perfect Southern California English, dude.
He means accented with a remembrance of their unique history, a love
of their culture and, of course, an enjoyment of the food.

That’s how it should be in America.

The new way, expressed accidentally by former Vice President Al Gore,
as he misinterpreted the phrase, e pluribus unum, is: “Out of one,
many.” It suggests that in America individuals see themselves mainly
as members of individual groups, unassimilated into an American
mainstream. The real translation, of course, is “Out of many, one.”
The meaning is the polar opposite.

As Americans, we come from many backgrounds, and we are a reflection
of those backgrounds, but we come together as one nation, one people,
despite our many disagreements and differences. It’s an ideal,
perhaps something mainly out of a civics textbook, but it’s always
worth having ideals to aim for.

The story of Vietnam – from the tragic war to the horrific plight of
refugees to success in America – is a recent passage in the book of
the American nation. My lesson from the 30th anniversary of the fall
of Saigon: As long as Americans cherish liberty and opportunity, new
chapters will continue to be added.