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    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.
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