From the Ground Up: a Qualitative Analysis of Gulf Coast

FROM THE GROUND UP: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF GULF COAST

VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMUNITY

(RE)BUILDING IN POST-DISASTER LOUISIANA, MISSISSIPPI AND ALABAMA

AN ABSTRACT

SUBMITTED ON THE 10th DAY OF APRIL 2015

TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIEREMENTS

OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS

OF TULANE UNIVERSITY

FOR THE DEGREE

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

______

VY THUC DAO

APPROVED: ______CARL L. BANKSTON III, Ph.D.

______JOEL A. DEVINE, Ph.D.

______STEPHEN F. OSTERTAG, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

While researchers have long recognized the disproportionate impact of natural

disasters on racial and ethnic communities, research remains incomplete in examining the

plight of Gulf Coast Vietnamese residents after Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater

Horizon oil spill. This study presents a comprehensive, qualitative investigation of three

different Vietnamese communities located in New Orleans, Biloxi, and Bayou La Batre

and details how residents established and maintained nonprofit community based

organizations in a region that previously saw little or no formal mobilization among

Vietnamese residents.

Existing studies tend to isolate the extent to which variables such as language,

culture, social networks, and religious institutions, influence recovery outcomes. In

contrast, this study, by drawing upon multiple avenues of data collection, including 54 in-

depth interviews, fieldwork, and participant observation, provides an ethnographic

analysis of immigrant community building via the unique circumstances of post-crisis community rebuilding. Findings reveal that despite the differences among by the study sites, one overarching theme emerges: new Gulf South Vietnamese organizations struggled to bridge gaps and build relationships as they sought to transition the community of inexperienced, naïve, or complacent Vietnamese locals from loose, informal networks to structured organizational forms. This work examines the challenges faced by organizations as they become established and the strategies by which they grow and become sustainable.

Suggestions for how ethnic organizations may better serve and perform outreach into Vietnamese enclaves are presented in the form of lessons learned. Ultimately, this

study extends the established literature on the Vietnamese experience in the United States and contributes to the overall canon of research regarding Hurricane Katrina and the

Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

FROM THE GROUND UP: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF GULF COAST

VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMUNITY

(RE)BUILDING IN POST-DISASTER LOUISIANA, MISSISSIPPI AND ALABAMA

A DISSERTATION

SUBMITTED ON THE 10th DAY OF APRIL 2015

TO THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIEREMENTS

OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS

OF TULANE UNIVERSITY

FOR THE DEGREE

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

______

VY THUC DAO

APPROVED: ______CARL L. BANKSTON III, Ph.D.

______JOEL A. DEVINE, Ph.D.

______

STEPHEN F. OSTERTAG, Ph.D.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I gratefully acknowledge everyone in my life who, over many eventful years, had nudged me (gently and otherwise) toward finishing my doctoral studies. The best and most fascinating parts of this dissertation come from the participants who shared their stories. Their generous spirit informs every page, and my happiest memories of the Gulf

Coast include not only learning from, but sharing good times with Ginni Tran, Trinh Le,

Celina Tran, Joanne Tran, and her Tony (Cao), and Magalie Albert, and her Tony (Le), plus Kathy Vi Do and Christian Albert. Also, Gary McMillian, Dr. Allison Truitt, and

Lan Diep indulged me in long, heartfelt talks in which I learned from my fellow

“outsiders” about their adventures in the Vietnamese community. Quite simply, there were just so many people who welcomed me into their lives, and I can only hope that I conveyed their remarkable experiences in this study with respect and gratitude.

My sincerest appreciation also goes to my dissertation committee. Dr. Carl

Bankston, acting as the committee chair, delivered precisely the right advice at the right time to keep the project moving whenever it threatened to stall into oblivion. It was his suggestions that ultimately provided closure to the project and helped me deliver a successful defense. Dr. Joel Devine read my drafts closely and steered this work toward answering the most significant sociological questions. Along with these rigorous intellectual exchanges, it was always a pleasure to talk to him. Dr. Diane Grams, an early committee advisor, played a vital role in my understanding of qualitative inquiry and I am indebted to her guidance on field work. Finally, I thank Dr. Stephen Ostertag for

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stepping in as a new committee member and fulfilling this role with so much valuable

insight for future research and development.

And of course, there are friends. During the grueling, penniless, and often comatose inducing slog of graduate school, these good folk kept me going. Thank you most dearly to the soon-to-be Dr. Constance Bailey, and Dr. Alexandra Priebe (look out

world; we’re the new generation of warrior-mother-academics). Geraldine Neville,

Dennis Dwulet, and Fadi Kordahi were the constants. Many other friends who are just as smart, hilarious, and good-looking as this crew should know who they are, and most likely, I owe you a coffee date, a long-overdue apology, or some kind of good karma.

Finally, there is family. I happen to be the older sister of two brilliant and deeply kind young men. My admiration for them would fill many pages so I will only say that I am very proud of who they are as individuals and what they have done with their lives.

Love you both, bros, (but I’m still the only doctor in the family, and yes, it counts). Our parents, Don and Thu Dao have created our family with much love, hope, and strength of will. Everything we have today in both material abundance and resilient grittiness comes from their decisions and guidance. Our family is strong because of my parents.

At last, I am grateful for the many years of unwavering faith I received from Dr.

Scott Cardin; he told me that this project can and will be done. I thank him for this vital support, but most of all, for our dazzling daughter, Magnolia Quynh. From her, I formed

the most resolute opinion I have about writing a dissertation. I now believe that many

students begin a dissertation to satisfy personal curiosities and ambitions, but ultimately,

many complete the voyage for someone else. They have a beloved person in mind as they

cross the finish line. Maggie is my beloved. And in the end, I did all this for her.

FOREWORD

This study began when I became a Hurricane Katrina evacuee. In many ways, I

am not really eligible for this title because it carries with it a dignified subtext of tragedy

and survivorship. Katrina evacuees were, after all, the residents of a beleaguered Gulf

Coast who were forced to fill their overflowing cars with loved ones, extra water, and

gasoline to drive for hours, only to end up in cheap motels, or sleeping on living room

floors far away from their flooded homes. This was the hard reality for many evacuees,

and in comparison to those who saw property, livelihoods, and even lives lost to the

hurricane, I gave away very little to the crisis. Technically, I evacuated for the “storm of the century,” but in the end, I was fine. Further, and this fact is of no small consequence when you make a claim to have “been there” for the Katrina experience, I lived in New

Orleans for just 6 days before it flooded.

During the week leading up to Monday August 29th 2005, I had moved from

Texas to Louisiana to begin my doctoral program at Tulane University. The unrelenting

task of unpacking was punctuated with my attending school orientation and getting to

know my 6 person graduate student cohort. I felt something of a cultural whiplash

because of the differences between Houston, with its miles of superhighways and strip

malls, to now living in the gracious, old-money Uptown District of New Orleans. This

lush area was just blocks away from the even more elegant and older-moneyed Garden

District. Altogether, this was the Uptown/Garden District of American films and

literature where tourists from all over the world came to admire the long, languid blocks

of sprawling oaks, antebellum mansions and grand old houses lining the world famous

Saint Charles Avenue.

But for me, there was no time to soak in the Southern charisma because by dawn

on that first Friday morning, I woke up in my decidedly old, but not-at-all-moneyed apartment, to hear a commotion outside my door. Looking out the window I witnessed my downstairs neighbors rushing their sofa, dining room set, and television into a pickup truck and then speeding away. In retrospect, their efficient getaway must have shaved several hours from wherever they were fleeing toward, because within half a day, major interstates and highways would be choked with tens of thousands of extra cars.

I hadn’t even put silverware into the kitchen drawers and couldn’t fathom the idea of leaving. Standing outside my building, in the sweet and sticky heat of late August, I tried to soak in every taste of my new home, listening to the clanging of the Saint Charles streetcar, and taking in the cracked whitewash paint of the corner drugstore. In a neighborhood such as this, there could be a greasy, juke-style lounge situated next to a pastel colored carriage house or a Creole cottage---and indeed there was one---right down my street. But all the new people I was getting to know seemed anxious about this storm, even when they acted sanguine about previous ones. And, I had never witnessed a televised press conference of such gravity as the one Mayor Ray Nagin led that called for a city-wide evacuation. Twenty four hours later, I found myself back in Houston, but this time, I returned to Texas with just a fraction of my possessions and what seemed to be the entire city of New Orleans.

Several years later, in March of 2011, my husband and I moved from New

Orleans to the Mississippi coast with our four-day-old infant daughter. We took on this

vi foolhardy task of relocation during a rush of new-parent euphoria and would have wallowed in weary regret if it hadn’t been for the help of my parents and brother. Our little caravan trekked 50 miles eastward on Hwy 10, across two bridges, through

Chalmette, past Slidell, Louisiana until we arrived at the tiny beach town of Bay Saint

Louis. We found a duplex not far from the water and measured our surroundings with the gimlet-eyed suspicion of city dwellers.

Could the streets really be this peaceful? How can the rent be so cheap and the beach so near? And, in another charming surprise, just down our street sat the stately grounds of the Saint Augustine seminary, the oldest Catholic seminary in the state of

Mississippi. It was as if God was welcoming us to the neighborhood. For the next stretch of time, we settled down nicely, enjoying the pleasures of living near sand and beach and letting our toddler roam the small city, but despite our appreciation for the quirky, artistic community, it was obvious that Hurricane Katrina had left abidingly deep scars in this small town.

Bay Saint Louis, or “the Bay” as locals call it, is the county seat of the southernmost county in Mississippi, skimming the eastern edges of its Louisiana neighbor, St. Tammany Parish. The beachfront towns of Waveland, Pass Christian, and

Long Beach are located within Hancock County. The county adjacent, Harrison, encompasses the most populated Mississippi cities of Gulfport and Biloxi. Then, stretching out like a string of beads, smaller towns dot the edges of the beachfront highway from Ocean Springs, Gautier, into Pascagoula before ending in Mobile County.

In August of 2005, Katrina had pummeled this area into near oblivion and the extent of storm damage here were among the most astonishing in U.S. history. Over 90%

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of southern Mississippi cities flooded, resulting in the near-total obliteration of infrastructure, commercial and residential properties, and public works systems in the majority of coastal communities (NOAA 2006). Surging waters walloped the coastline and triggered historic levels of flooding that reached over 12 miles inland. Within days, every county in the state was declared a federal disaster area. (Knabb, Rhome, and Brown

2005). In fact, the force of water and wind had been so great that the Bay Saint Louis

Bridge fractured entirely into a series of concrete vertebrae-like chunks that jutted up out

of the water toward the sky.

By the time of this writing in early 2014, recovery along the Gulf Coast had been

underway for years, but many areas have remained entirely unchanged. The extent of

rebuilding varied greatly from city to city, varying among neighborhoods, and even along

the same streets. Newly constructed restaurants, storefronts, strip-malls, and other

businesses appeared next to dirt-flattened lots. Beach homes painted with Easter-egg

colors rose high on skinny wooden legs or concrete columns. Like a series of pastel

soldiers, these houses seem to stand on lookout, but this time, they were built a measured

distance from the water. Closer to the road that is Beach Boulevard itself, long stretches

spanning from Pass Christian to Gulfport are still punctuated with concrete slabs outlined

in borders of spiky green grass---the only remainders of the stately Southern Living style

homes that had once stood there. While some of these sprawling homes have been rebuilt

to their former elegance, the fact that there were so many large buildings swept away

from the beachfront gave an overall ghostly effect to the beach.

I first visited this region of Mississippi in 2006 and recalled that residents were

parking their trailers alongside their tarp-covered homes. Here, among the rock-strewn

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ramble of post-Katrina flatland, it was easy to guess how far rebuilding had progressed

by eyeing the height of the debris in the dumpsters. While some homeowners were still

emptying piles of trash, others had cleared their land for new construction. Some homes

boasted freshly painted mailboxes while others resorted to propping two-by-fours under

sagging walls.

Yet, beyond the irregular progress, there seemed to be a sense that this

community was working to recover. Real-estate signs dotted the landscape and cars sped

up and down the narrow stony roads. Many of the homes sported newly planted flower

beds, and more than one resident showed off their sense of humor---I once saw a

homemade “Yard of the Month” sign planted in a lumpy square of dirt in front of a

FEMA trailer. Further down the way, someone else had artfully arranged a cluster of

garden gnomes around a “You Loot, We Shoot” banner. These droll beacons of comic relief cropped up in the otherwise barren landscape and seemed to communicate that the community was working to slowly, but surely heal themselves.

But lingering signs of storm damage persisted, and while conducting my

fieldwork, I’ve had the opportunity to observe some of this unsteady recovery closely.

I’ve lived continuously in the Gulf Coast region since August of 2005, with only a 4-

month hiatus when Tulane University, in an unprecedented move, closed its campus for

that entire fall semester.1 Over the course of several years, I’ve moved to different cities in Louisiana and Mississippi, and along the way met longtime residents who had literally weathered many dreadful hurricane seasons prior to Katrina. Listening to their stories

1 Tulane’s 14th president Scott Cowen closed major university operations for the Fall Semester of 2005. Many educational institutions did the same, scattering nearly 15,000 students to colleges and universities all over the country and even the world. I spend this “hurrication” semester at Rice University in Houston, TX.

gave me insights into the nature of the Southern coastal disaster experience in a deeply

humanistic and neighborly way.

For example, living in Bay Saint Louis, as a newcomer, locals positively relished

telling stories about the cluster of small towns located north and south of I-10. First, they would tell you that a number of celebrities hail from this region, such as NFL quarterback

Brett Favre from (“the”) Kiln, MS and Robin Roberts of Pass Christian, the news anchor for Good Morning America.2 The second piece of local color was far less glamorous. The

morning that Katrina made landfall in Mississippi; it touched down within the city

borders of Waveland. Immediately after, Bay Saint Louis met the full brunt of the

monstrous eye-wall as it smashed into the tiny town. After the 26 feet storm-surge

crushed the original BSL Bridge, Katrina effectively steamrolled the coastline leaving

behind 30 miles of flattened beachfront from Pass Christian to well past Biloxi.

It is here, in Mississippi, that residents often vented their frustration against what

they viewed as media favoritism because national news outlets focused the lion’s share of

intensive coverage on the plight of New Orleans and its dramatic levee breaches. Endless

imagery of the drowned urban landscape dominated worldwide attention and the result

seemed to downplay the extensive devastation throughout Mississippi and Alabama. A

neighbor of mine sums up the matter bluntly, “No matter what they say, it was a natural

disaster.” Undoubtedly, this comment speaks to the constant characterization of hurricane

Katrina as an unnatural or “man-made” disaster in Louisiana. The “man-made” part not only refers to the failures of engineered safeguards such as the levee system, but the spectacular destruction of the city’s already vulnerable economic, social, and political

2 The CNN news correspondent Kathleen Koch is from Bay Saint Louis, as is the actor Ian Sommerholder, and Yuki Northington, a finalist for the Home and Garden TV channel’s Next Design Star.

x structures. In other words, Mother Nature’s fury was “natural” enough for the rest of the

Gulf Coast without the astounding man-made failures in the beloved city of New Orleans.

However, these skirmishes over media attention were ultimately small distractions compared to the disquieting questions Katrina raised about the nature of race, poverty, class, civic responsibility, and social justice in the United States. Many weeks after

Katrina, conversations around dinner tables, lunch counters, and on the floor of the U.S.

Congress, cycled endlessly over the issues of poverty, racial struggles, and class conflicts lay all-too bare by the storm. To be sure, these were not new discussions in the South, but the extraordinary scope of the storm had the effect of reigniting national debates about the nature of race and stratification in the United States. In particular, one very big question loomed. During times of disaster, do some people matter more than others?

More questions would follow regarding the response of institutions, agencies, and civic society play in disaster recovery. Could more have been done for underserved communities during the hurricane? Did the federal government initiate and maintain disparate treatment among victims? And, if there was inequality, how much was attributable to entrenched systems of institutional racism? Ultimately, many citizens wondered if whether rebuilding coastal communities was not, ultimately, an economically and environmentally reckless act.

And then, not yet five years after the storm, a drilling platform explodes in the

Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 people and visiting extraordinary damage to the already burdened economic and ecological systems of the Gulf States. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also known as the BP oil spill, increased the complexity of an already impassioned discourse on race, poverty, class and environmental justice. Despite the

morass of issues surrounding the disasters, one theme did elicit consensus, at least among

scholars. For scientists, researchers, educators and other stakeholders, it became

imperative that efforts must be made to systematically study how a crisis such as Katrina

may transform cities into crucibles of social change (Philipsen 2007). How do disasters of

this scale alter communities, large and small?

For me, this project began with the simple goal of contributing to a small corner

of the rapidly growing Katrina literature, and then later, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

But given the sheer scope of both disasters, there were as many potential research

questions as there were corners of the human experience shaped by both crisis events. My

main predicament was that I did not know where to begin, or even how to start. Very

quickly after Katrina, an intriguing idea presented itself. When I first moved to New

Orleans, people often remarked to me that there was a Vietnamese community in the

eastern part of the city, and that I should “check them out.” I also heard the same

comment time and again while living in Mississippi.

Coincidentally, the Vietnamese in Biloxi also settled in the eastern part of their

city and locals were quick to point out that I should go ahead and visit these

neighborhoods as well. The majority of these comments came from individuals who

knew little of my role as a graduate student, or were unaware of my research interest in

immigrant communities. This conjured up my curiosity, “Oh, Really? Why me?” was the unspoken question on my mind. Yet admittedly, to ask this question in a naïve manner is

to be disingenuous, because I certainly could speculate as to why I was being directed to

these places and peoples.

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Frank Wu observes in his book Yellow (2002), that many Asian Americans3 are exhaustively familiar with “ambiguously raced” social interactions. As the receivers of seemingly earnest information or inquiries, a casual verbal exchange can be fraught with uncertainty. When an Asian person is told apropos of nothing, “Oh, by the way, there is this great Chinese restaurant in town,” it is at best, a puzzling exchange. What did they mean by that? Or did it mean nothing at all? More exasperatingly, to be asked the question, “Do you know where the best Chinese restaurant is in this town?” For Asian

Americans, these dialogues are unsettling, and they feel wary or confused when they cannot “read” the intentions of the other person. And, during blatantly rude or uncivil situations, Wu contends that unlike whites, Asians are constantly “plagued by the suspicion that it is for racial reasons” (9).

While there is a long sociological tradition of exploring racial imagery in the white consciousness, it has focused largely on a black vs. white binary. Contemporary

Asian American scholarship has moved forward from this dualistic view (as well as the immigrant/nativist binary) to include race and ethnicity studies in the 20th century

(Takaki 1989; 2008). Further, if race and ethnicity inject ambiguity into unremarkable,

everyday exchanges among people, then what happens when there is an extraordinary

crisis?

For me, then, before ever setting foot into the field, I understood that to study

Hurricane Katrina required the unpacking of the multiple notions of race. Indeed,

3 In this work, the terms Asian and Asian-American are used as separate categories despite the unclear conflation in some literatures. The term Asian has normally been reserved for pre-1965 immigrants from East Asian countries. The term Asian American is attributed to peoples of Asian descent, who during Civil-Rights era protests in the 1960’s coined the term to foster solidarity with the social movements of the time. See Zia (2000) and Takaki (1989) for a fuller treatment of the terms Asian and Asian American.

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evidence that the effects of the storm were raced had already been well-established in the

early research literature. If my objective was to propose an investigation into under-

theorized Gulf South immigrant communities, I had to first consider the project as a

Vietnamese American, who was also looking at a disaster that was deeply demarcated by

color lines. To better navigate this territory, I relied heavily on the important

ethnographic works performed by women of Asian heritage who themselves ventured

into Asian communities: Nazli Kibria (1995; 2002), Yen Le Espiritu (2003), and Karin

Aguilar San-Juan (2009).

In each study, the researcher recognized the peculiar advantages and

disadvantages of being an “insider/outsider.” While being perceived by members of

ethnically Asian communities as a person of Asian ancestry, you may gain initial entry

into a community, but it did not take long before each scholar acknowledged that her

race, gender, nationality, and even educational attainment, situated her within a social

matrix that simultaneously supports affiliation with her co-ethnics, but also elicited

suspicion within their communities. Linda Trinh Vo (2000), whose own fieldwork is

informed by her Vietnamese American background, describe this condition as a “process

that is shaped by simultaneous, ongoing negotiations” and that a researcher of Asian

ancestry can be an "ethnic and cultural member, but also a social stranger” (19-21).

Thus, the “helpful” comments I had been getting from neighbors, locals, and other

people outside the Vietnamese community were the first signals that race and ethnicity

(mine, the study participants, and even non-participants) would become important

analytical elements. It quickly became clear that many of these non-Vietnamese individuals, whether or not they had ever meaningfully investigated, or even visited these

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“Vietnamese parts” of town, consistently tendered a positive evaluation of what little they

knew of the community. They observed that the Vietnamese had been living in the area

for many decades, and that they were a “hardworking people” who seemed to possess a rich culture and a "tight-knit family" ethos. However, I had the feeling that even as long-

time residents spoke approvingly of the Vietnamese (both in New Orleans and in

Gulfport/Biloxi), they actually knew very little about them.

This vaguely positive evaluation reinforces the role of the Vietnamese community

as a human interest story for media outlets. And sure enough, national news reports

depicted Vietnamese residents in New Orleans East returning to their homes quickly, and

more pointedly, without hardly any supervision from city, state, or federal authorities.

The predominately Vietnamese neighborhood, called Village Lest (also known as

Versailles) had been established since the late 1970s as a small patchwork of

neighborhoods located approximately 12 miles from downtown New Orleans. Prior to

2006, they had lived in relative isolation, but not long after Hurricane Katrina, the City of

New Orleans proceeded with plans to open a landfill in their community to hold

potentially toxic storm debris. This prompted community residents to participate in

unprecedented community activism and launch a concerted protest campaign against the

city of New Orleans to orchestrate the landfill's closure.

Normally considered a low-activism group, the Vietnamese nevertheless

participated in a classic protest tradition of picketing, petitions, and bus transports. These

activities had the effect of bridging generational and linguistic barriers within the

community and spring boarded them into partnership with non-Vietnamese participants.

These partnerships facilitated the formation of coalitions with non-governmental

organizations which, ultimately, appealed directly to Mayor Ray Nagin and city

representatives. Their high-profile protest propelled Versailles into the public

consciousness, and media stories ran glowing editorials about the community’s rebuilding

successes.

Since there existed very few in-depth studies of what would effectively constitute

“successful” rebuilding for this community, such casually affirmative stories about

Versailles implied that once again, an industrious, independent Asian community

bypassed inept federal assistance in order to solve their own problems.4 How can anyone

suggest that a community that still struggled with pre-Katrina issues such as gang activity, illegal dumping, and deficient access to hospitals and grocery stores (much less lacking the middle-class niceties of franchised coffee shops and attractive playgrounds) be called successful? If the mere act of returning to a house that was still standing can be considered a success, what does that mean in a few years’ time if that house was still falling apart, or, worse, robbed? For me, equating a robust Vietnamese neighborhood return with success put to mind some uncomfortable, if unspoken, evocations of the model minority myth.

Meanwhile, in Mississippi, I had heard of the Vietnamese community located in the “Little Saigon” area of Biloxi East. But in searching for news of Vietnamese living in this area, or even of Vietnamese in South Mississippi in general, it was almost as if they were a footnote in the midst of copious Katrina stories. This area was also a longtime settlement for Vietnamese families with historically strong occupational ties to the

4 While Leong et al. (2006) refute the image of Versailles as perpetuating a model minority myth; their examination is narrowly focused on return rates. Recently, Tang (2011) addresses how African Americans and Vietnamese residents in New Orleans challenged the myth through cooperative mobilization.

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fishing and shrimping industries. From most accounts they had suffered greatly, but there

were no documentary film crews5 or primetime news shows detailing their endless trials

and tribulations.

Even later still, I heard about the tiny Alabama fishing village of Bayou La Batre

that is home to one of the most proportionally concentrated Asian communities in the

Gulf—at its population peak, one out of three people in this small town was of Southeast

Asian descent—and they were utterly devastated by the one-two punch of Katrina and the

BP oil spill. But no one had heard much about them at all, and in fact, there are almost no

academic studies, qualitative or otherwise, about the Alabama Vietnamese to date. Could

they be different from other Gulf Vietnamese communities? And what would the

meaning be if their recovery diverged significantly from Mississippi and Louisiana?

During the aftermath of the hurricane, I wondered about why one community,

New Orleans, seemed to mobilize so quickly while another, Biloxi, could not. And then, if there was yet another Vietnamese community impacted by the same disasters in

Alabama, how can we compare their progress to the others? My initial data collection indicated that there are few direct comparisons between each place, nor should there be.

Each community possessed an extraordinary story to tell, and it is difficult to measure success with one scale for all spaces.

For one thing, Hurricane Katrina visited damage upon every place she landed, but

the degree of devastation certainly was not uniform; the deck was unfairly stacked for

some areas versus others. Some places were only cosmetically marred or knocked about,

5 The 2010 Leo Chang documentary film, A Village Called Versailles, detailed the landfill protests in New Orleans East. It interviewed key players in the movement and garnered much attention from various pan-Asian groups.

xvii while other communities were simply wrecked beyond all recognition. Secondly, each place was traveling a specific economic, civil and social trajectory long before disasters had ever struck there. I would describe these circumstances as pre-histories of place,6 and they will matter a great deal from the perspective of post-disaster recovery.

What began as an attempt to tell two separate recovery stories (a tale of two cities, so to speak), grew into three stories (when an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico further highlighted the unique vulnerabilities of Bayou La Batre), until finally, I understood that the three communities cannot be classified as mutually exclusive cases. Finding the balance to see the three community sites independently, but also in relationship to each other, was my main intellectual goal. This study then, originated with the sociological purpose to catalogue the degree of both disruption and recovery in different spaces, but it eventually became a larger narrative on the nature of Gulf Coast Vietnamese communities.

While it is fair to say that the participants who so openly share their stories in this study are not the definitive account for every and all Vietnamese person living in the affected communities, I offer that, in taking the broadest view of the narratives, we begin to see how these individual Vietnamese stories are like colorful and unexpected threads woven into the culturally rich tapestry of this area. From a distance, these strands may disappear into the fabric, but, with this work, I hope to bring a greater validation and appreciation for the Vietnamese experience in the Gulf South.

6 I conceptualize this term, pre-histories of place as the pre-conditions of a recognized space, whether it is highly populous and delineated as a city, or loosely bounded such as a accepted community or acknowledged neighborhood. These conditions would include the economic, occupational, and infrastructure context of the place.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………….…………...... ii

FOREWARD………………………………………………………………………. . iv

LIST OF TABLES…………………………………………………………………. xx

LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS……………………………………………………….. xxi

LIST OF FIGURES...………………………………………………..…………….. xxii

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION New Vietnamese Organizations From the Ground Up...... 1 Project Overview and Findings…………………………………. 3 A Note On Disasters as Opportunities…………………….……. 6 Organization of the Dissertation………………………………... 8 Ethnographic Methods and Qualitative Inquiry………………... 9 Theoretical Context and Literature Review for Disasters……………… 14 The Missing Asians in Hurricane Katrina... 14 The Ethnic Experience of Natural Disasters …………….…….. 21 Asian American Communities in the South …………….……... 26 Literature Review for a Sociology of Organizations…………… 30 Organizational Theory and Asian American Organizations …….…….. 34 Additional Organizing Frameworks …………………………….…….. 43 Immigrant Settlement and Spatial Assimilation ………….…… 46 Community and Ethnic Placemaking …………………………. 49 Social Networks and Social Capital …………………………… 54

2. STORMS AND SPILLS Community Profiles Across The Third Coast……………….……... 58 Bayou La Batre, Alabama: The Hard Life Gets Harder in the Bayou 61 Biloxi, Mississippi: From Seafood Capital to Coastal Casinos …… 69 New Orleans, Louisiana: A Small Village Casts a Long Shadow … 76

3. THE PIONEERING PHASE The Move Toward Institutionalization in the Gulf Coast ……………... 84 Vietnamese Organizations Moving Toward Institutionalization………. 87

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From 1975 to Katrina: Vietnamese Organizations in the United States……………….. 89 BPSOS and The Push Toward Institutionalization ……………. 101 The 500 Leaders in 5 Years Program …………………….……. 104 Bridging the Gaps: How Organizations Understand Resident’s Needs……………. 112 Soft Skills for Tough Audiences ……………………………… 117 Resistance and Raffle Tickets: BPSOS’s Outreach into the Community……………………… 126 Future Research: Community Trust ………………………….. 141

4. THE PERFORMING PHASE Challenges and Troubles for New Vietnamese Organizations………... 146 One Church, One Man, Many Perspectives: Father Vien and MQVN-CDC ………………………………… 147 Keeping the Faith vs. Living the Faith ………………………… 154 “A priest should stay inside God’s House” ……………………. 162 A Burdened Symbol: Negotiating the Community Leader’s Role……………………. 165 Charisma and the Changing Nature of Church Leadership …… 173 VIET: “I Want Us To Be The Heart of the Community”……………… 178 Building a Bridge in New Orleans East………………………... 182 Too Fast, Too Much, Too Soon………………………………... 187 From Social Networks to Social Justice: VAYLA’s Work with Youth... 197 It’s About That Connection: Reaching the Youth……………… 206

5. CONCLUSION (Re)Constructing the Gulf Coast Refugee ………………………….…. 213 Building Up Organizations by Building Trust………………… 214 Building Knowledge, Creating Growth………………....…….. 217 Limitations of the Study and Future Research ………………... 222

Appendix 1. Research Design………………………………………………………. 225 2. Interview Manifest……………………………………………………... 250

BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………… 252

BIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………... 285

LIST OF TABLES

1. Pg. 2: TABLE 1: Vietnamese Organizations Before and After Hurricane Katrina and Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

2. Pg. 91: TABLE 2: Top Vietnamese Organizations by Revenue in the United States.

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LIST OF PHOTOGRAPHS

1. Page 200: Photo1 VAYLA Mural with Gerald Haney.

2. Page 200: Photo2 VAYLA Mural with Brandon Huynh

xxii

LIST OF FIGURES

1. Page 245: Figure A: In-depth interviews begin from the raw material of in-depth interviews where themes are identified and then fall out into categories or concepts.

2. Page 246: Figure B: Theoretical constructs are first identified and lead to separate “trees” for different themes and emergent codes branch from there.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

New Gulf Coast Vietnamese Organizations From the Ground Up

“I just felt that there was definitely a need here and I wanted to do something real, something that was important to help the community. And we [BPSOS] are really the only organized group for Vietnamese down here [in Alabama] and I hope maybe to start my own nonprofit someday.”

Louis Tran, Community Organizer Bayou La Batre, AL

“It hasn’t been easy to get people involved, especially the older generation. They don’t really see why it’s important to get organized…we have to work all the time to outreach and get them used to the idea.”

George Pham, Director of a Community Organization Biloxi, MS

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there has been a rapid and unprecedented

increase in the number of nonprofit and community based organizations serving the Gulf

Coast Vietnamese. Prior to August 2005, Catholic churches and Buddhist temples in the

cities of New Orleans, Biloxi, and Bayou La Batre anchored the Vietnamese communities

in their respective neighborhoods. Formal organizational structures and community

nonprofits were essentially non-existent, and even in New Orleans, home to one of the

most concentrated communities of Vietnamese families in the South, there had only been

one very modest nonprofit group.

Yet currently, the total number of nonprofit and community organizations serving the Gulf Coast Vietnamese increased from 6 civic and religious groups in 2005 to 17 nonprofit community organizations in 2014 (see Table 1: Vietnamese Organizations

Before and After Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill). The increase

is effectively a tripling of such structures in a region that saw very few services for Asian

immigrant communities in the Gulf South previously. Given this remarkable expansion of capacity, I argue that Vietnamese organizing occurred not just as a rejoinder to the deficient emergency responses of federal, state and local agencies, but as a way to capitalize upon the unprecedented opportunity for empowering Gulf Coast communities.

In short, Vietnamese locals directly impacted by the disasters, as well as Vietnamese

Americans from across the country, perceived that this was a prime opportunity to institutionalize around recovery.

TABLE 1: Vietnamese Organizations Before and After Hurricane Katrina and Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill7

Prior to 2005 Post-2006 New Orleans, 1. Vietnamese 1. Vietnamese Initiatives in LA Initiatives in Economic Training (VIET) Economic Training 2. Mary Queen of Vietnamese (VIET) Catholic Church 2. Mary Queen of 3. Chua Van Hahn Buddhist Center Vietnam Catholic and Temple Church – 4. Mary Queen of Vietnam 3. Chua Van Hahn Community Development Center Buddhist Center and (MQVN-CDC) Temple - 5. Vietnamese American Young Leaders Association (VAYLA) 6. Coastal Communities Consulting (CCC) 7. Southeast Asian Fisherman Association (SEAFA) 8. Boat People SOS / Gretna Branch Biloxi, MS 1. Chua Van Duc 1. Chua Van Duc Buddhist Temple Buddhist Temple 2. Vietnamese Catholic Church of 2. Vietnamese Catholic the Martyrs Church of the 3. Asian Americans for Change

7 This chart does not include organizations that may serve Vietnamese but are primarily pan-Asian in both leadership and membership compositions. An example of this type of organization is Asian Pacific American Society (APAS) which was established in 1997 as a social-cultural association in New Orleans.

Martyrs (AAC) 4. Gulf Coast R.E.A.C.H. (GC REACH) 5. Mississippi Gulf Coast Vietnamese American Fisherfolk and Families (MGCVAFF) 6. Boat People SOS / Biloxi Branch 7. National Alliance of Vietnamese Americans Service Agencies (NAVASA) Bayou La 1. Laotian Buddhist 1. Laotian Buddhist Temple Batre, AL Temple 2. Boat People SOS / Bayou La Batre Branch

But as we can see from the comments made by Louis Tran and George Pham, which open this chapter, creating and sustaining nonprofit organizations is both optimistic and frustrating work. When organizational stakeholders attempt to enter into these communities, they find a myriad of challenges. In this dissertation, I follow the development of several Vietnamese organizations in Biloxi, New Orleans, and Bayou La

Batre post-hurricane and oil spill. Specifically, I examine the uneven progression from informal neighborhood networks toward the development of formal community organizing. Drawing extensively on the insights of participants, I demonstrate how community organizers, like Louis and George, as well as community residents, struggled to create meaningful change while meeting the challenges that accompany starting and sustaining community organizations.

Project Overview and Findings

Drawing upon two years of fieldwork and 54 in-depth interviews of Vietnamese residents living in the Gulf regions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, this study examines community building via the formation of community based organizations and

4 identifies the myriad of strategies, dynamics, and internal logic of organizations seeking to establish themselves within the post-disaster landscape of Vietnamese communities.

In particular, I highlight the remarkable number of Vietnamese organizations that have formed across the three sites since 2005 and describe how, despite the differences among the study sites and community groups, one overarching theme emerges---new

Gulf South Vietnamese organization struggled to bridge the gaps as they sought to transition inexperienced, naïve, or complacent Vietnamese locals from informal networks to structured organizational forms.

In other words, how do stakeholders from a nonprofit organization mobilize groups that are largely unfamiliar with the tropes of organizing? I conceptualize the development of these Vietnamese nonprofits into two distinct but overlapping phases of growth as they sought to bridge the gaps with the communities in which they serve:

1) THE PIONEERING PHASE: The Move Toward Institutionalization in the Gulf Coast

2) THE PERFORMANCE PHASE: Challenges, Troubles and Sustainability for New Organizations

The first phase delineates the initial entry and establishment of a nonprofit into the community and the first articulations of their mission, purpose, and the earliest outcomes of community outreach as well as organizational response. The second phase follows the organizations after they’ve become established in the community and become absorbed in the day-to-day challenges of their work as well as plans for sustainability and growth.

I explore each of these phases as they occur within each study site and highlight specific organizations as they exemplify the findings. In the Pioneering Phase, we will examine how a nationally recognized Vietnamese organization, Boat People SOS

(BPSOS), carved a foothold into the Gulf Coast, as they attempt to bring formal practices

and training to Mississippi and Alabama. Examples of professional training and

development include leadership incubation such as when BPSOS attempted to launch a

leadership development initiative entitled 500 Leaders in 5 Years. The main objective of

this program is to propel BPSOS from a regionally-based nonprofit ethnic organization to

a multi-faceted, national brand. I contend that in the Gulf South, the agency was fulfilling

both their established social-service obligations, and capitalizing on the opportunity to

elevate their organization from its early grass-roots days into a nationally and

internationally recognized leadership development agency for Vietnamese Americans.

The Performance Phase focuses on what occurs after an organization becomes established and meets their first set of challenges in establishing trust and relevance within their community. I highlight Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church, as they open the community development arm of their organization—the CDC. MQVN-CDC initially struggle as they build programs, engage in political mobilization, and negotiate their new role as a grass roots organization emerging from an established house of worship. For this group, the main complicating matter is the presence of the charismatic and sometimes polarizing figure of Father Nguyen The Vien. As the parish priest and spiritual figurehead of MQVN, his involvement in campaigning, political outreach, and community activism ignite debate over the appropriate role of spiritual leaders.

Two other organizations in the east, VAYLA and VIET also received mixed receptions for their organizational agendas, at least initially. While they brought unique strengths and offered much needed services for the New Orleans Vietnamese, both groups also experience missteps as they sought to grow their organizational brand. This

section focuses on the performance of the day-to-day work of soliciting participation within their communities. I highlight the differences between the two groups by which differential outcomes occur between VAYLA and VIET. I describe these challenges in context of organizational performance and offer insight into this process of becoming an established community based ethnic organization. This study contributes to several different areas of research with a primary emphasis on the sociology of disasters, organizations, and immigrant communities as well as the field of natural disaster studies.

Additionally, Asian Americans in the Gulf Coast have been under-theorized and this

study addresses that deficiency.

A Note On Disasters as Opportunities

Framing disaster as an opportunity is not an unfamiliar concept. A popular

quotation from a 1959 speech delivered by John F. Kennedy illustrates this idea

precisely, “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke

stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger - but

recognize the opportunity.” Interestingly, two subjects interviewed for this study use this

same quotation as a post-script signature in their email correspondence.8 In disaster

research, this framing of crisis as the catalyst for opportunity occurs in both the private

and public spheres.

An example of a private sphere is represented in mental health research where

scholars in the fields of social work and psychology have made the connection between

trauma and psychological growth. That is, a crisis event need not entirely stunt growth, or

8 Madeline Mai Vo and Tuyet Duong electronic mail correspondence signatures.

derail human development indefinitely, and wellbeing may be achieved when victims

overcome brutal events and eventually achieve emotional expansion (Janos-Bulman

1992; Tedeschi, Park and Calhoun 1998; Tedeschi 1999; Hrostowski and Rehner 2012).

This kind of recovery, which is augmented by the process of catharsis, can be seen as a

post-stressor opportunity for personal growth.

Aside from an individual’s progress, some spaces and places may actually benefit

from disaster. For the crippled Gulf Coast, some scholars explore the process by which

Hurricane Katrina’s destruction, as a disruptor to the status quo, may be parlayed toward a desired change in a troubled sector (Comfort, Birkland and Nance 2010; Liu 2011). For example, the reorganization of the historically troubled New Orleans public school system9 (Harlin and Kirylo 2005; Schachter 2006; Robelen 2010; Carr 2013), or for reinventing the terrain of vulnerable neighborhoods in Orleans parish (Birch and Wachter

2006; Jackson 2006; Watkins and Hagelman 2011). The reorganization of schools in particular is the subject of much debate in some sectors, particularly, public schooling.

For one, the exponential growth and impact of charter schools in New Orleans (Frazier-

Anderson 2008; Akers 2012; Burns and Thomas 2012), the importance of stakeholders

and leadership during crisis (Beabout 2007; 2010) and the variegated topics detailing pre-

disaster planning and post-disaster recovery (Winters 2007; Lee, Parker, Ward, Styron,

Shelley 2008).

In keeping with the notion of framing disasters not as singular, unfortunate, and

destructive events, but as enduring catalysts for progressive rebuilding, I contend that the

9 Two documentaries examine the post-Katrina school system in New Orleans and explicitly remark on the creation of opportunity to revive and reinvent a historically failing educational bureaucracy: The Experiment (2010) directed by Ben Lemoine and Reborn (2008) by Stephen Brown and Drea Copper.

8 participants in this study, during the course of recovery, began to work not just toward the goal of returning to a pre-disaster quality of life, but strive for an enlarged vision of community solidarity. To be sure, the busy work of rebuilding activities in the immediate aftermath of Katrina was not deliberately geared toward this sophisticated agenda. Yet over time, Vietnamese individuals, as well as existent Vietnamese community organizations, begin to frame recovery not just as an end unto itself, but also as a platform for a renewed commitment to strengthening Vietnamese identity. This platform,

I will demonstrate, found its best expression in the form of organizational mobilization.

.kk

Organization of the Dissertation

In Chapter 1, I present the background of the study, the primary research questions, and describe the state of contextualizing literature. Specifically, I address the current state of Katrina and oil spill literature that looks to ethnic communities and highlight the dearth of coverage for the Vietnamese experience of disaster. I also offer a brief introduction to the sensitizing literature for the sociology of organizations. A fuller treatment of organizational literature is contextualized within the empirical chapters. I conclude this introduction with a brief overview of the ethnographic methods deployed in this project (a complete discussion of the qualitative methods, data collection and analysis is presented as Appendix A).

Chapter 2 details the history of Vietnamese settlement along the Gulf Coast, and an overview of disaster recovery in each community site. Chapter 3 presents the first empirical findings conceptualized as the pioneering phase, where organizations first become established by using the case studies of BPSOS in Alabama and Mississippi,

while the empirical Chapter 4 focuses on Louisiana’s Versailles community using

MQVN-CDC, VAYLA an VIET as case studies. Finally, Chapter 5 concludes with

future implications for how these findings may inform a sociology of organizations in

general and the nature of ethnic identity, community mobilization, and natural disasters in

particular. Throughout this dissertation, interviewees are presented using their own words as they articulate their views, experiences, and beliefs.10

Ethnographic Methods and Qualitative Inquiry

A complete account of the methods and theory of inquiry deployed in this study is provided in Appendix A. This section briefly describes how data for this study draws from 54 semi-structured interviews and extensive participant observation in the states of

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. There are multiple iterations of suitable definitions for qualitative inquiry, but Auerbach and Silverstein’s description (2003:3) is useful here where qualitative inquiry is “research that involves analyzing and interpreting texts and interviews in order to discover meaningful patterns descriptive of a particular phenomenon.” Additionally, Saldana (2011:3) clarifies that qualitative research functions as an “umbrella term for a wide variety of approaches to and the methods for the study of natural social life” in that multiple genres of methods include ethnography, semi- structured interviews, participant observation, and the study of archival material—all strategies deployed during the course of this study.

10 Pseudonyms are used throughout this dissertation in order to protect the privacy of participants. This author has made best efforts at identity protection particularly in the cases where interviewees may be readily identifiable due to professional or personal features, or community prominence. However, no participant descriptions have been altered and all interview excerpts in this study are reported verbatim.

In the early summer of 2009, I began my investigation in New Orleans where I

attended services at Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church (MQVN). I also began

contacting various community organizations in the greater New Orleans area, at first

concentrating my internet and phone directory searches on terms such as “Vietnamese”

and “Asian.” Later, I would reach out to community organizations in Biloxi using this

method as well. Over the course of many months, I became engaged in extended

participant observation at both the Chùa Vạn Hạnh Buddhist Center in New Orleans and the Chùa Vạn Đức Temple in Biloxi.

Volunteering eventually became my preferred entry method for not only recruiting participants and conducting fieldwork, but for building meaningful relationships at all three community sites. A sampling of events and projects that I helped to coordinate or where I took an active leadership role include the following:

1. Creating a “living timeline” display at the Black April commemoration of the Fall of Saigon at the Biloxi Community Center: May 2009.

2. Staffing a Tulane University School of Public Health booth at the Autumn Moon Festival in New Orleans. We promoted community health and offered bilingual information on local health resources: September 2009.

3. Helping to establish the charter for Gulf Coast Resilience and Empowering Asian Community and Heritage (GC REACH) in Biloxi, MS in November 2009.

4. Working with community members and the Mississippi Humanities Council on Journey Stories, an exhibit chronicling Vietnamese refugees’ stories of survival: December 2009.

5. Assisted with the planning of Asian Americans for Change (AAC) Health Fair by soliciting donations and vendors: February 2010.

6. Helped plan and performed volunteer work on the evening of the AAC Annual Gala: August 2010.

7. Mediating Community Political round tables at the Panda Palace Restaurant during a political fundraiser for Congressman “Ánh” Joseph Cao: November 2010.

8. Attended planning meetings, solicited vendors and small business donations for the Biloxi Autumn Moon Festival: October 2011.

9. Helping to organize and volunteering at the BPSOS Summer Community Carnival in Bayou La Batre: July 2012.

10. Accompanying Vietnamese seniors from Alabama on a trip from Bayou La Batre to the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans: September 2012.

I also made connections at community organizations such as the Vietnamese

Americans Young Leaders Association (VAYLA) and Mary Queen of Vietnam

Community development Corporation (MQVN-CDC) where I conducted interviews and made future contacts. Snowball sampling in New Orleans ultimately culminated in 20 in-

depth interviews (N=20, 38.4%). I utilized a similar strategy in Biloxi and Gulfport in

that I attended services at the Chua Van Duc Buddhist Temple and the Vietnamese

Martyrs Catholic Church. My attendance at meditation/mindfulness practice led by the

monks at the temple allowed me to meet several community members at one time. These

relationships would eventually become friendships, and culminated in not only 25 in-

depth interviews (N=22, 44.2%), the largest number of in-depth interviews, but also to

my active membership in the youth organization Gulf Coast REACH from 2009 to

2011.11

My research focused exclusively on Biloxi and New Orleans as sites for

comparison until April 2010 when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill became a major disaster event directly impacting the Vietnamese working in Alabama’s seafood industry.

Gaining entry into this community was initially difficult for several reasons. First, a

11 See Warren and Karner (2005) about going native, or developing relationships with interviewees during the course of fieldwork.

larger percentage of community members spoke exclusively Vietnamese and I could not comfortably interview them in English. Prior to the oil spill, there were no nonprofit

Vietnamese community organizations in existence for Bayou La Batre, which limited what previously had been a successful strategy for participant recruitment.

But the opening of a BPSOS (Boat People SOS) branch greatly facilitated my

involvement in Bayou La Batre when several community organizers allowed me to visit

their office for extended parts of the work day. I made weekly visits to Bayou la Batre

from May 2012 until September 2012 and volunteered at community events that

culminated in 10 in-depth interviews (N=12, 19.2%) and one impromptu focus group

with 9 Vietnamese elders.

Face-to-face interviews were scheduled at the convenience of participants and I

prioritized their preferences for meeting times and places. Many interviews were

conducted in homes, at coffee shops, workplaces, or during community events, and all

were consented, recorded and transcribed. Yet, these interviews were only a portion of

data collection. Several forms of field research helped me understand the participants and

their community contexts better. As mentioned earlier, I made significant efforts to

attend, volunteer for, or otherwise assist in organizing community events and projects.

On occasion, my efforts led to invitations from community members for my husband and

I to join a variety of social events revolving around their friends and family. In time,

social outings, birthday parties, weddings, and casual get-togethers flowed seamlessly into community meetings, formal celebrations, and organizational events.

Ethnographic researchers are required to account for the negotiated space between formal investigation and personal involvement in their work. Kornblum and Smith (1996)

13 observe that this is because, “Of all the methods employed in modern social science, ethnographic field research requires the most intense involvement with one’s subjects (3).

A few months into the study, my experiences with formal departures into field work became increasingly blurred with more casual occasions. Spending several hours with individuals in the course of a weekend naturally fostered a sense of camaraderie and, eventually friendship.

From the beginning, I have never been deceptive or covert in my intentions when approaching community sites or residents. Every Vietnamese person I met, particularly in the first months of my foray into their communities, knew that I was a graduate student who wanted to gain greater knowledge of Vietnamese lives post-disaster. In Lofland et al.’s (2006) profile of known and unknown investigators, I was the “known investigator” who initially and primarily inhabited an outsider participant role until my involvement in helping to create the charter documents for GC REACH.

The ethnographic perspective also helped to contextualize my understanding of the different Gulf Coast communities, and in chapter 2, I will introduce the city-sites in greater social and historical detail in order to explicate the framework of pre-histories of place. To reiterate, I emphasize the point that despite the similarities that post-1975

Vietnamese refugees have in common, each of the communities are subject to very different social, economic, geographic, and political contexts. The extent to which there are meaningful implications for a distinctly Vietnamese experience of disaster are not derived from inferences from similarities, but rather, on the intriguing intersections of their difference.

Theoretical Context and Literature Review for Disasters

The theoretical context and literature review serves to support my treatment of

Gulf Coast Vietnamese community building and post-disaster recovery as a sociological issue. In doing so, I establish the existent state of race and ethnicity within disaster research, and more generally the regional literature on Asian Americans in the South. As

I will show, while neither of these areas are particularly robust, but increasingly, sociological conversations on the role of Asian American community based organizations have found footing over time. Most of these studies, even if they use interview data are somewhat circumscribed by being grounded in theoretical frameworks of history, anthropology, public health, or education. For this study, I present the sociological discoveries of race and ethnicity for natural disasters and organizations.

The Missing Asians in Hurricane Katrina

One of the first scholars to point out that Asians were missing from the disaster coverage was the sociologist Grace Kao (2006) who rather unambiguously called out this deficiency in her piece, “Where are the Asian and Hispanic Victims of Katrina?: A

Metaphor for Invisible Minorities in Contemporary Racial Discourse.” Kao looked to the few newspaper and online media pieces created by Asian and Hispanic journalists and argued that these few articles could not counteract the simplistic reduction of Katrina to both a literal and figurative black-vs-white discourse.

More than an enumeration of articles, Kao considers how the very absence of media coverage concerning Asian and Hispanic populations and Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that local residents simply “do not want to be bothered with learning about

minority groups” (2006: 229). She concludes that it is apathy then, which drives most

Gulf Coast residents to quickly categorize Asians and Hispanics into either White, or

African American groups. This clumping of Asian plight into the larger category of the

Black conditions all but renders them invisible. This is also the main thesis of Lydia

Lum’s editorial Swept into the Background (2005). She argued that because the

Vietnamese historically harbor a distrust of governmental authority, most rely on an insular sense of self-sufficiency in times of crisis, which relegates them into the

“background” during social justice discussions. Interestingly, Kao’s use of “invisibility”

and Lum’s choice of “background” as metaphors in their writings is echoed by Le’s (2006)

work on the Biloxi Vietnamese which evokes much the same imagery. All three make the

point that the Vietnamese are somehow an obscure or inscrutable as a group.

From 2006 through 2012, academic research on Katrina and the Vietnamese has

increased, yet still number less than a dozen pieces and almost exclusively rely on the

Versailles community as the case study. Some findings are intriguing and warrant further

investigation as suggested by the authors. For example, Li et al. (2008; 2010) compared

Vietnamese and African American evacuation patterns from Katrina in New Orleans

East. Despite Lydia Lum’s presentation of the Vietnamese as a group that routinely

distrusts federal authorities, Li et al found that among their sample, “compared to African

Americans, there were higher percentages of Vietnamese Americans learning about

Katrina’s impending landfall from government sources, evacuating before Katrina’s

landfall, and being more satisfied with assistance provided by the government overall”

(2008: 263).

This statement suggests a counterpoint to the notion that the Vietnamese generally

reject or devalue governmental assistance. Additionally, Li et al. 2010 study looks at the

role of Versailles social networks during evacuation and finds that these associations do

reinforce a sense of ethnic capital, which in turn, promotes community return. This

finding fits comfortably with previous research that examines how Vietnamese

community’s benefit from forms of cultural capital (Bankston and Zhou 1995; Zhou and

Bankston 1999; Shelley 2001; Gellis 2003). Another category of research focused on the

role of psychosocial and cultural factors in ameliorating trauma. Norris, Vanlandingham

and Vu (2009) investigate the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among a sample of Versailles Vietnamese. They find that higher acculturation is associated with greater hardiness and lower reports of PTSD. Chen et al.’s work (2007) on prior trauma and prior migration shows a buffering effect from these events on health and mental health outcomes.

These studies are illuminating because they establish the relationship between cultural capital and health outcomes. They also can be placed alongside earlier works on this community that describe how family, institutional and social networks create a protective community buffer for otherwise vulnerable immigrant children (Zhou and

Bankston 1999) and elder Vietnamese (Airriess 1994; Airriess and Clawson 1991). In sum, these works extend the literature that shows how the Vietnamese, during their short history of settlement, drew upon social ties and social capital.

Work by Leong et al. (2007), Chamlee-Wright and Storr (2010), and most recently, Tang (2011) focus on the resiliency of New Orleans East. The first study argues that, “shared refugee experiences, the leadership role of the Catholic Church, and the

historically specific circumstances of Vietnamese immigrant settlement in eastern New

Orleans contributed to this community’s mobilization and empowerment” (770). While

Chamlee-Wright and Storr highlight how Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church

(MQVN) facilitated community redevelopment by drawing upon their reputation as a trusted ethnic institution. By looking at how MQVN merged social capital with the systematic distribution of club goods, which are defined as goods that social or religious groups that require membership in order to acquire a desired product, negotiate the discourse between structures vs. agency and demonstrate how a religious organization may effectively play a role in disaster intervention:

“In particular, because the MQVN church provided club goods, which allowed parishioners to create an ethnic-religious-language community, its members who would otherwise be disconnected and marginalized in the dominant culture can instead lead productive and connected lives; or in other words, they can exercise their agency more effectively. Because the church provides an organizational structure that facilitates complex social coordination, and individual’s decision to return to a post-disaster context is less likely to be an isolated choice; or again, the agency the individual deploys under such circumstances are rendered more effective (451).”

A limitation for Chamlee-Wright and Storr is that the authors associate robust organizational participation during a discrete period of time with an overall narrative of resilience in Versailles. Research in the community is truncated and therefore cannot speak to the long-term effects of local recovery after the initial momentum fades.

Tang’s 2011 essay, which builds upon his previous work (2007) describing the cooperative grassroots resistance work of black and Vietnamese residents in response to the Chef Menteur landfill, is the only one thus far to look at the relationship between the

Versailles Vietnamese and the African American community with whom they live closely together. Tang argues that in order to delegitimize African American claims for

18 social justice; stereotypes of “model minority” immigrant groups like the Vietnamese are evoked in a process called racial triangulation (RT). RT acts as a delegitimizing strategy where the grievances of the Black community are dismissed when pitted against that of another minority group. The strategy rests on two tenuous claims. First that these “other” minorities suffer identical challenges to Blacks (racism, stratified or unequal treatment), and that secondly, they somehow still compare favorably to whites on most socioeconomic dimensions and do not seem hindered by discrimination. In effect, the rhetorical question follows: if Asians and other minority groups are not unduly impacted, then why can’t other minority groups, such as Blacks get on the ball?

This twisted reasoning disregards the simple fact that racial and minority groups are not homogenous. Further, Asian immigrant groups in American are highly disparate in all manner of life outcomes depending upon their country of origin. For example,

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Americans generally surpass Hmong, Cambodian, Thai groups in both overall population numbers and levels of education, family income, and health outcomes (Takei and Sakamoto 2011). However, when East Asians of the former group are conflated with Southeast Asians of the latter group, it becomes difficult to see the real vulnerabilities of underserved Asians. These subtleties however, are lost on policymakers who ultimately curtail funding for initiatives that address disparities based on racial discrimination across the board and for all minority groups. Racial triangulation results in rejecting both Black grievances and Asian American needs (Kim 1999), and in his article, Tang deftly applies RT to the case of New Orleans.

Specifically, he describes how city officials disingenuously spotlight the

“industrious” Vietnamese as an independent group who managed to recover quickly and

seemingly without much assistance despite being ethnic minorities who are also subject

to racism and oppression like their African American neighbors. Tang points out that

triangulation in New Orleans east is ultimately thwarted by the community’s intertwined

narratives of social justice in the face of crisis. Both groups assert their grievances as one

collective in order to thwart any efforts that would pit them against each other, their

partnership would leverage shared recovery narratives in order to challenge triangulation.

Finally, the only study to look at the Gulf Coast Vietnamese outside of New

Orleans also relies on semi-structured interview data. Park, Miller and Van (2010)

describe the state of Biloxi’s “Little Saigon” community as a tight-knit group that had been buffeted over the years by changes in their livelihoods, neighborhoods, and social networks, only to then be devastated by Katrina in 2005. Based on participant stories, they paint a picture of modest recovery and conclude that despite resilience narratives from residents, “these changes [from Katrina] are experienced by the community members as profound losses” (101). The primary value of this work is that it takes a community ecology perspective which transcends individual trauma (and the personal stressors that attend the idiosyncratic experience of crisis), and prioritizes individual narratives of community recovery. Additionally, this study supports my initial impression that Biloxi, compared with New Orleans, was an under-recovered community.

A final area of research explores psychosocial dimensions for Vietnamese recovery. That is, how do some psychological aspects of the Vietnamese refugee experience inform their experience of natural disasters? Park, Miller and Van (2010) look to the “inoculation process,” a notion initially introduced into the disaster literature separately by Bolin (1985), and Quarantelli (1985), and later expanded by Norris and

Murrell (1988). The inoculation process argues that a traumatic event, previously experienced, may serve to cushion individuals to the detrimental effects of subsequent traumatic events. While the new crisis may differ from the previous one in circumstances, researchers argue that the coping skills and increased psychological competencies that became part and parcel with the first disaster may ultimately support the survival of a new crisis event.

Each one of these studies present pieces of an incomplete picture. And with the advent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the opportunity presents itself to understand if there is a distinctly Vietnamese experience of disaster that prevails beyond the singular

Katrina event of 2005. As stand-alone works, many of the pieces unwittingly reinforce the notion of the post-Katrina Vietnamese as a well-recovered, self-sufficient community despite growing evidence to the contrary. Works such as Leong (2007) and Tang (2011) explore how recovery and mobilization in Versailles may seem like a fulfillment of the model minority paradigm, while Chamlee-Wright and Storr’s (2010) overtly makes this assessment.

Yet, without a more thorough understanding of how and why community members across the different cities deploy cultural capital after disaster, there is danger of leaving the story of the Vietnamese and Katrina as a superficial morality tale where an undefined immigrant ethos prevailed across all regions and circumstances. This condition was reinforced to me by interviewees who themselves made this observation, such as when the former one-term Congressman Joseph Cao noted, “I think to most people think, or would say, we are doing alright. Like, ‘look at those Vietnamese,’ they are going to be

21 alright. But the truth of the matter is that our community suffered a great many setbacks.

And part of [my] job was making sure that this is not forgotten.”

This concern for how model minority paradigms could overshadow the very real, and ongoing issues that not only cropped up just from the storm, but had historically plagued Vietnamese neighborhoods provided a segue way for residents to address issues both new and old in one fell swoop. If indeed, “Katrina really put us on the map” then the disaster event itself could be the opening to not only restore their communities to their prior functioning form, but to also elevate their neighborhoods to better-than-pre-storm levels.

The Ethnic Experience of Natural Disasters

The literature in disaster studies is punctuated with new contributions each time a major crisis or catastrophe strikes somewhere in the world (Rodriguez, Quarantelli and

Dynes 2006). This pattern especially holds true for the hurricanes of 2005 and the oil spill in 2010; Hurricane Katrina by itself has produced an extensive body of work not long after the storm (Lindahl 2007) with a great variety of books, films, and other media.

The Deepwater Horizon event is currently under litigation as of this writing. In

2013, despite an $8 billion dollar settlement agreement to victims, the company concedes that there will be years of continuing environmental and industrial cases

(www.bcom.org). As noted previously, works by Grace Kao's (2006) and Lydia Lum

(2005) point out that non-black racial minorities were overlooked during Hurricane

Katrina, but this observation has held historically true for the overall body of disaster research in general (Quarantelli 1995) and in Rodriguez, Quarantelli, and Dynes’s

22 comprehensive Handbook of Disaster Research concedes that the “historical and cultural complexities of race and ethnicity are typically not investigated in any real depth in the disaster literature (2007:17).”

Regarding ethnic communities, disaster literature tends to address practical disaster-related topics that are relevant to the study of disaster response overall such as responses to evacuation warnings, community mobilization, the effectiveness of rescue efforts, or the calculation of morbidity or vulnerability—but do so for specific groups

(Wisner, Blakie, Cannon and Davis 2004; Li, Airries, Chen, Leong, Keith and Adams

2008; Scanlon 2008). Therefore, traditional disaster research prioritizes the disaster event itself, rather than the population at hand. In this author's observation, an overview of the disaster literature reveals that the balance of works on community disaster response and recovery fall broadly into four overlapping categories:

1. Reestablishment Literature: One body of research is focused primarily on the re-establishment of infrastructure, businesses, homes, and transportation after the first-tier concerns of evacuation, sheltering and return are resolved (Peacock, Dash and Zhang 2006; Quarantelli 1995).

2. Institutional Literature: Scholars have explored the role of institutions and organizations in the aftermath of a disastrous event. Charles Perrow and Karl Weick (1995) proposed the notions of "normal accidents" and "sensemaking" in organizations. Perrow’s concept describes how multiple procedures within complex systems interact in counterproductive or potentially disastrous ways—such as when a space shuttle launch results in disaster due to failures within the organization. Sensemaking in organizations is a creative process within structured confines. Addressing organizational life, Weick uses the sensemaking metaphor in order to “focus attention upon the study of the symbolic processes through which reality is created and sustained” (2001:11).

3. Sociological Literature: There has also been increased scholarship toward examining the interplay of race, class, gender, and poverty and the nature of crisis (Bolin and Stanford 1998; Cole and Buckle 2004; Enarson, Fothergill, Peek 2006; Mulcahy 2009). These types of studies address the differential outcomes of disasters for particular groups, but also delve into

strengths that stakeholders possess that they may leverage toward resilience (Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche and Pfefferbaum 2008).

4. Communities Literature: Currently, there is a bid toward a more far sighted model of recovery that looks at how sites of catastrophe may sustain or enhance their recovery through the structures that create "community" (Becker 2006; Smith and Wenger 2006; Solnit 2009; Chandra, Williams, Plough, Stayton, Wells, Horta and Tang 2013).

Yet, the majority of this domestic literature does not fully address the notion of

race and disaster per se. Arguably, the overwhelming evidence for racial disparities in the

wake of Katrina created more literature on the topics of race and disaster than ever

before. Books, journal articles and other scholarly contributions on the Black experience

of Katrina have been plentiful, intersecting with, or prioritizing topics such as economic

development, federal response, environmental justice, and culture (Henkel, Dovidio, and

Gaertner 2006; Squires and Hartman 2006; Potter 2007; Marable and Clarke 2007; Levitt

and Whitaker 2009; Bullard and Wright 2009). The most promising arenas for an ethnic

study of Katrina are within the realm of sociology. Sociologists who study disaster are

increasingly focused upon how communities of color respond to catastrophes that are

both natural and technical12. The majority of domestic disaster research since the 1980’s

present race and ethnicity as variables that bring about different outcome measures for

different groups (Fothergill, Maestas, Darlington 1999).

Prior to Hurricane Katrina, evidence points to how intersections of race, ethnicity

and class contribute to disproportionately negative outcomes for communities of color

regarding two major areas of storm response: 1) pre-disaster circumstances or activities that occur in preparation for the disaster, and 2) post-disaster outcomes or response

12 Scholars differentiate between natural and technological disasters where the latter results from human- made interference such as plane crashes, bridge collapse, nuclear reactor breakdowns and events perpetrated by organizational dysfunction as articulated by Charles Perrow’s notion of “normal accidents” (1984).

activities in the aftermath. Studies on perceptions of risk, diffusion of information during

the crisis event, and the subsequent evacuation indicate that non-whites perceive lower

risk, exhibit fatalistic attitudes, engage in less pre-planning and rely on social networks in

equal measure to mainstream media outlets to inform decision making (Turner, Nigg, Paz

and Young 1980; Perry and Mushkatel 1986; Gladwin and Peacock 1997; Blanchard-

Boehm 1997; Morrow 1997). In response to disaster, several sources note that language

barriers prevent Latino and Asian groups from receiving the same disaster related

services as whites (Phillips and Ephraim 1992; Subervi-Velez, Denney, Ozuna, and

Quintero 1992).

In later stages, long-term structural vulnerabilities associated with non-white, lower socio-economic indicate that these groups have higher unemployment or overall under-employment rates, lower savings and income, and less insurance coverage. All of these factors negatively impact the chances for full recovery (Bolin and Bolton, 1986;

Dash, Peacock and Morrow, 1997; Cherry and Cherry 1997). While these studies provide important quantitative data on differential disaster outcomes for people of color, none have precisely described the manner or process by which ethnicity or race interact with disaster.

Further, another feature of these studies is that they reduce race and ethnicity to descriptive attributes of the respondents. Such generalizations render individuals into passive subjects who are acted upon, rather than embody them as active agents. The passive subjects are “acted upon” first by natural disaster, and then by the process or circumstances (usually negative) of disaster recovery. Fothergill, Maestas, and Darlington

(1999) summarize the gaps in the pre-Katrina literature in this way:

“We recommend that more detailed, in-depth qualitative research be done to uncover the ways in which race and ethnicity contribute to vulnerability in a disaster…In terms of subjects, we need more research about Asians and Native Americans” (168).

This study, in examining the relationship between ethnic community and disaster, argues that it is not enough to traipse across the physical landscape in order to acquire measurements of damage and revival. Thus far, for the Vietnamese, post-Katrina studies emerge from the areas of public health, resilience, and mental health, as well as the role of culture and community evacuation (Chen, Keith, Leong, Airries, Li, Chung and Lee

2007; Silove, Steel, Bauman, Chey, McFarlane 2007; Norris, Vanlandingham and Vu

2009), plus the two studies that look to the relationship between return rates and the notion of self-reliance in New Orleans (Chen 2006; Leong, Airriess, Li, Chia-Chen Chen,

and Keith 2007). Yet, there is a marked lack of research on the overall Asian American

experience of Katrina (Kao 2006), much less a pan-coastal examination of the

Vietnamese experience of natural disaster.

Currently, the field of natural disaster studies has grown amendable to looking at

more subjective rather than objective measures (as characterized by operationalized,

quantifiable criteria). Tierney’s (2007) review describes the field of disaster research as

being at a “crossroads” where existing works have shown an emphasis on empirical

collections of data with little effort toward theory building. The review outlines the

disparate studies and closes with the recommendation that the future of a sociology of

disaster is best served by emphasizing the main themes throughout the field in order to

create coherence; Tierney asserts then, that a sociology of disaster should “concentrate on

problems that are meaningful to the discipline…core sociological concerns, such as social

inequality, societal diversity, and social change” (520). And, as we have seen, there is a

void in the intersection of race and ethnicity (Marsella, Johnson, Watson and Gryczynski

2008). This study answers that call in the form of an ethnographic study of one group, the

Vietnamese in relationship with two disasters, Katrina and the oil spill.

Asian American Communities in the South

An additional contribution of this work is to shed light unto an geographic area of

research that has become increasingly populous with Asian Americans, yet Asian

American popular histories, research and literature are not distributed uniformly among geographic regions. The lion’s share of scholarly and literary attention takes on West

Coast-centric interpretations (Zia, 2000; Tsui 2009). Given that Asian populations have increased three-fold in the metropolitan areas of California since 1980 (Census 1980,

1990, 2000, 2010), it is understandable why researchers treat West Coast Asians as exemplars for all Asian Americans since they represent 13% of California’s population alone. Data on settlement for this group indicate that roughly 41% of all Asians live in just 8 of the largest metropolitan centers, including large populations in Los Angeles,

New York, and San Francisco (Skop and Li 2005).

However, recent trends indicate that immigration patterns have changed significantly in places previously not known for those populations--such as in the

American South (Singer, Hardwick and Brettell 2008). Asian groups, especially the long- established Vietnamese, and the growing Latino groups are becoming increasingly recognized for their contributions to this new immigrant landscape (Bankston 2003;

Marrow 2011). Intriguingly, a 2013 Pew Research Report indicates that between the two groups, it is Asian Americans, rather than Latinos that are the fastest growing immigrant

population within the US. In 2010 the increase in Asian immigrants topped 36% growth

in comparison to Latinos with a 31% growth among all immigrant groups---the first time

in history that Asian immigration outpaced Latino immigration (Pew Research Center

2013). The US Census Bureau reports that in the ten years between 2000 and 2010 total

Asian populations have increased 43.3% so that Asians are now 5.6% of the overall

population. While Latinos still remain the largest racial group after whites at 16.3%,

Asian populations are still projected to grow. The rise of non-traditional immigrant

gateways coupled with this population growth should encourage new theorizing of Asian

American communities in understudied regions of the U.S.

Existing regional-specific research on Asian communities now pave the way

toward utilizing in-depth interviewing and participant observation. The use of qualitative

methods help to illuminate the complex and dynamic process of how different nationality

groups integrate into different American geographies, For example, on the East Coast

(the second most populous region for Asian American populations), Meyers (2006), Tsui

(2009), and Wood (2010) have written new understandings of how the Chinese,

Vietnamese, and Koreans have settled in large metropolitan areas. Excellent examples of

investigations into Vietnamese communities include Nazli Kibria (1995), who chronicled

the harrowing adaptation of refugees in Philadelphia, and Karin San Aguilar (2009),

whose bi-coastal work focuses on Vietnamese place-making and racial formation in both

Orange County, California and Boston’s Fields Corner.

In the Midwest, studies of the Chinese in St. Louis (Ling 2004) and Asians in the

Midwest (Kim 2001) indicate a growing trend in this region. In particular, Barbara Kim’s

2001 work explicitly expounded on the interactions of region, culture, race and emergent

28 ethnic identities. However, to date, Southern reflections have focused mainly on the

Mississippi Delta Chinese (Jones and Quon 2012); although some works have taken a pan-ethnic perspective (Bow 2010). Robert Seto Quan’s Lotus among the Magnolias

(1982) and John Jung’s historical investigation of Chinese laundries and groceries

Southern Fried Rice (2006) and Chopsticks in the Land of Cotton (2008) serve as personal memoirs as well as investigative accounts of small Chinese communities in the

South. Other historical or academic treatments of the Chinese include Loewen’s (1988) examination of race relations among Chinese grocers in Mississippi, Jianli Zhao’s (2001) work on Chinese settlement in Georgia, and finally Dao’s (2012) overview of the

Vietnamese in Mississippi.

In New Orleans, Airriess and Clawson (1994) looked at Vietnamese market gardens and later, Airriess (2006) went on to focus exclusively on Versailles’s formation of an ethnic economy in Versailles. Most notably, Zhou and Bankston’s Growing up

American: How Vietnamese Children Adapt to Life in the United States (1999) examined the experiences of youth and the explication of family and community dynamics in New

Orleans. This work still remains the most complete treatment, thus far, of Vietnamese community in this region of Louisiana. While there has been more research in examining the South and Southwest as sites for Asian community development (Brettel 2008), the existent body of Southern immigrant integration literature has shown the greatest growth

(as mentioned earlier) in the examination of Latino communities (Lippard and Gallagher

2011; Marrow 2011; Odem and Lacy 2009; Smith and Furuseth 2006; Torres, Popke and

Hapke 2006; Schmid 2003; Mohl 2003).

Thus, Asian incorporation in the South should be a valuable topic for sociological

research as new immigrants bypass traditional gateway cities in the New York and

Chicago in favor of settling in other states (Mclain et al 2006, 2007; Mantero 2008).

While the majority of foreign born individuals reside in the states of Texas, New York,

Florida, California, New Jersey and Illinois, two Southern states in particular have seen enormous growth, North Carolina with over 270% expansion and Georgia at 233% in their foreign born population (Waters and Ueda 2007). Singer (2008) further distinguishes among different immigrant entries into metropolitan areas by describing 5

types of gateways: former (such as Buffalo and Pittsburgh), continuous (New York),

Post-World War II (Houston, Los Angeles), emerging (Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth), and

Re-emerging (Seattle and Minneapolis-St. Paul).

These new avenues of immigrant incorporation signal a trend toward regional scholarship that focuses on Asian Americans in general, and Vietnamese Americans in particular are one of the fastest growing racial and ethnic populations at 18.2 million and

1.73 million respectively (Census 2011). This study then, expands the existent body of literature investigating Vietnamese refugee settlement in the United States (Hein 1998;

Freeman 1995; Gold 1993; Rutledge 1992) and contributes to the growing research on

Asian ethnic transformation of the South in general and for the Gulf South in particular.

Specifically, this ethnography contributes to a regionally distinctive perspective of Asian incorporation along the Gulf Coast and answers the call for additional research on immigrant communities in the American South (Bankston 2003; Ling 2009; Marrow

2011).

Literature Review for a Sociology of Organizations

In the little isolated peasant villages from which they came, life was, and is still, relatively fixed and settled. Under such conditions, custom and tradition provided for all the exigencies of daily life…In America, where there are vast distances and no traditions, where the population is mobile and everything is in process, the peasant discards his habits and acquires “ideas.” In America, above all, the immigrant organizes.

Robert E. Park, 1920

Undoubtedly, Robert Park understood that immigrants formed organizations to cope with and adapt to their bustling, modern host country, but he might well be surprised by how rapidly, thoroughly and creatively such green “peasants” organize themselves today. A fuller treatment of this section on Asian American and ethnic organizations appear in the empirical chapter 3 to better contextualize the findings presented there. In general however, there are several limitations of the current research on ethnic organizations in general and Asian organizations in particular. As it stands now, there is very little research on immigrant nonprofit organization, the earliest observations include from O’Neill (2002) that “The resulting influx led to new social service activity from established organizations as well as new agencies in the principally Asian and Latin

American immigrant communities.”

The definition of immigrant nonprofit organization (INPO) may apply to groups that both serve and are served by immigrants---although all INPOs by necessity must serve an immigrant population, it is less clear if the organization itself must be staffed by immigrants. Chi-Han Richard Hung (2007) points out these soft definitional borders are limited because “research on these organizations had not begun in earnest until very recently” (710). Ultimately, I argue that immigrant organizations have generally been under-theorized in the sociology of organizations.

There are currently over 1,500 nonprofit groups representing Asian cultural and ethnic advocacy as registered with the IRS Business Master File for exempt organizations

(www.guidestar.com). These collectives represent a wide spectrum of goals, accomplishments and financial strengths. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco reported an income of 23.4 million in 2006 adding to the already sizable value of their holdings of over 130 million. More modestly, groups such as the Wisconsin Organization of Asian Americans claim zero employees and a 2006 income of merely $6,129. And in a very recent burst of growth, the Wing Luke Memorial Fund and Museum in Seattle,

Washington received a 12 million dollar infusion from fundraisers in 2006, culminating to a total of 23.2 million as of February 2008 (www.triad.bizjournals.com).

Similar searches for nonprofit organizations representing Latino, African

American, South Asian, or Latin American groups yielded collectively tens of thousands of such groups servicing all areas of interest and community needs ranging from adult education, rotary clubs, and civic engagement to public health and economic entrepreneurships. A cursory search for Hmong nonprofits reveals almost 300 organizations nationally. At the very least, the healthy numbers of ethnic organizations that have sprouted since the 1990s prove to be an intriguing counterpoint to Robert

Putnam’s (1995) research on the increased disconnection of citizens from their community due to breakdowns in social relationships and decreased engagement with civic activities.

In addition, some of the most prominent ethnic organizations, particularly those that advocate for the preservation, promotion and guardianship of the art and culture of their heritage, have become increasingly professionalized and sophisticated in the

production, promotion and management of their organizations. These events are

occurring in tandem with expanding coffers and growing ties between ethnic

organizations and powerful institutional affiliations; thus begging the question as to

whether ethnic organizations are undergoing a change in the staging and management of

their goals in order to become powerful entities themselves. In the case of the Wing Luke

Asian Museum, an organization charged with the curatorship of Asian American history,

culture and art, it has become the first Smithsonian Institution affiliate in the Pacific

Northwest (www.triad.bizjournals.com).

The well-heeled Asian Art Museum of San Francisco mentioned earlier had

outgrown their original facilities and in 2003 reopened in San Francisco’s Civic Center

with the help of a 15 million dollar infusion of donations (www.asianart.com). The

quantity and plurality of ethnic organizations in the nonprofit sector does not even reflect

the variety of other ethnically featured organizations such as churches, informal

community networks, and voluntary groups situated in ethnic enclaves, urban areas and

metropolitan centers in the United States.

This trend of growth seen in ethnic cultural organizations is also found in another

type of ethnic organization that in recent years, have faced downturns in their national

budgets—ethnic community based organizations. Ethnic organizational expansions reflect growth of first and second generation immigrant populations of immigrants and their native born children (Zhou, 2004; Zhou and Bankston, 1998 and Hein, 1995). For the year 2002, Schmidley observes that there were nearly 32.5 million individuals of foreign born descent in the United States. Further, projecting from census data collected in 2000, Waters and Jimenez (2005) state that approximately 34.2 million people in the

United States, or 23% of the population were foreign born or the children of the foreign

born. As stated earlier, this growth in the number and reach for many types of ethnic

organizations has occurred even for community based organizations (CBOs) which serve

immigrant populations (Tseng 2005). In contrast to their glitzier cousins, CBOs such as

the Chinese Immigrant Service Center have faced encroaching budget cuts but still report

expanding services to immigrants (annual report, 2005).

More significantly to sociologists, there exists no satisfactory literature that would

explain how ethnicity interacts with any area of organizational theory. Nkomo (1992),

challenged peers by asking, “Why do we as organizational scholars continue to

conceptualize organizations as race neutral? Why has race been silenced in the study of

organizations?” Most recently, Tseng (2007) conducted a case study of the environment,

functioning and structure of two Chinese and Vietnamese community based

organizations. He notes that there is an echoing lack of research and evaluation of

organizations in both the immigration and organizational literature and sought to

conceptualize ethnic community organizations by constructing a model that incorporated

a resource dependence explanation (from organizational theory) with assimilation, social

capital and network theories.

Research such as Tseng’s will become increasingly significant as the United

States, compared to any other time in our history, becomes more ethnically and racially

diverse (Gottdiener and Hutchison, 2006). Classical works in the field of organizational

studies are indeed race and gender neutral, orientated toward a rationalist, hierarchical

view of organizations and with a concentration upon static characteristics of the organization such as structure, goals, and size. Later scholarship then gravitated toward

understanding more dynamic topics such as culture, conflict, leadership, power,

authority, politics, and change (Scott, 2004), but do not specifically acknowledge ethnic

engagement with organizations. Most recently however, new theories of organizations,

with their varied emphasis on non-hierarchical structures, symbolic and non-material

factors and the role of the social environment signal a new intellectual climate conducive

for understanding ethnic organizations and the impact of race and ethnicity on

organizations.

Organizational Theory and Asian American Organizations

Many scholars have observed how contemporary formal organizations have come

to fully and decisively dominate social life (Lune 2010). Etzioni, writing over 4 decades

ago, offers a blunt assessment regarding the complete and comprehensive nature of

modern formal organizations.

Our society is an organizational society. We are born into organizations, educated by organizations, and most of us spend most of our lives working for organizations. We spend much of our leisure time paying, playing and praying in organizations and when the time comes for burial, the largest organization of all - the state – must grant official permission (Etzioni 1970:1).

Given this infiltration, it is not surprising that immigrants entering into American society must necessarily interact with formal organizations. Indeed, nearly half a century earlier than Etzioni, Robert E. Park observed that:

Most immigrants have been peasants at home. They are likely to be laborers there, participating more or less in all the turbulent cosmopolitan life of our modern industrial cities. In the little, isolated peasant villages from which they came, life was, and is still, relatively fixed and settled. Under such conditions custom and tradition provided for all, the exigencies of daily life. Conduct was based on face to face relationships, that is to say, speech and neighborly gossip. In American, where there are vast distances and no traditions, where the population is mobile

and everything is in process, the peasant discards his habits and acquires, ‘ideas.’ In American, above all, the immigrant organizes (1922: 494).

Thus, Park is observing the manifestation of German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies’ 19th century model of historical change, where the a peasant’s rural routines becomes transformed from a Gemeinschaft context toward a Gesellschaft one.

Today, immigrants cannot properly be called peasants. The current tier of immigrants, continuing a long tradition of post-1965 immigrants who hail from South or

East Asian countries, arrive with advanced degrees in science and technology fields, and consequently command higher incomes and possess greater resources. These advantages effectively allow them to skip traditional ethnic enclaves, crumbling urban centers, or classic migration gateways altogether in favor of settling into newer suburbs, or gentrified city centers (Skop 2002; Skop and Li 2006; Singer 2008). Also, these advantaged groups exhibit a pronounced facility to network (Brettel 2005), and contemporary research indicates that all immigrants, regardless of their migratory background, can be drawn into coordinated and mobilized groups, thus increasing their power (Vo 2004; Kang 2010; Lai 2011).

But once they are in the U.S., what are the organizations that they join? Who exactly are these immigrants who join these ventures? And what activities do they engage in once they are in groups? We can once again follow the observation of Lune (2010) who argues that organizations are entities that primarily act on behalf of its members, or

“constituents,” and that they do so within an environment, or “setting.”13 Given this

functional understanding, we can understand what immigrant organizations are by

13 Lune also acknowledges and distinguishes other terms for organizational environment such as “niche, field, domain, and industry” (2010:5).

36 looking at what they do. For one, most immigrant organizations are nonprofit organizations, Lune further acknowledges the difficulty in defining “nonprofit” organizations given the vast scope of sizes, purposes, and structures, but offers a definition based on what they are not: “Virtually all organized entities that people create for any purpose other than business or government fits here” (133). This simple categorization may well provide the umbrella term that encompasses other groupings of nonprofits, such as nongovernmental organization (NGO), social service organization

(SSO), civic organization, ethnic voluntary agency (EVA), and the previously mentioned voluntary agency (VOLAG), and mutual assistance agency (MAA).

Despite the great variety of forms that organizational sub-categories can take, the above definition is a serviceable one. Further, nonprofit organizations provide services that address socioeconomic issues, cultural maintenance, or provide education for an identifiable community. The most technical aspect of this nonprofit definition is that stakeholders must operate under the federal guidelines for non-corporate management with a de-emphasis on generating profits or dividends for the sole purpose of reinvestment (Drucker 1993). For our purposes, we can more finely deconstruct nonprofits down to community-based nonprofit agencies (CBOs), if they are; in fact, nonprofits that advance social change or promote social advocacy (Lune 2010; Walker and McCarthy 2012).

With this definition, then arguably, the discipline of sociology has played an important role in community-based organizing for immigrant groups--dating back to the work of Jane Addams and her early 20th century development Chicago’s Hull House for destitute European immigrants (Iglehart and Becerra 1995). During this early stage of

sociology, academic interest and the philosophy of social uplift overlapped as researchers

such Jane Adams and W.E.B DuBois applied systematic intellectual insight for the

purposes of alleviating social problems. As a whole, members of the Chicago School

were just beginning to comprehensively observe immigrant adaptation and how

organizations facilitated or impeded the process of incorporation.

Still, over a century later, contemporary investigations of ethnic nonprofit

organizations have been under-theorized (Tseng 2003). Classic literature for a sociology

of organizations crystallized in the 1960s and 1970s by describing characteristics of

formal organizations such as delineating structure and describing hierarchy. Such is the

work done by Peter Blau, who, in partnership with other authors, informed his work

using Weberian notions of bureaucracy, specialization, offices, rules, and formal

administration (Blau and Scott 1962; Blau and Schoenherr 1971). Despite the growing

proliferation of research, some have found the progress lacking and have gone on to note

that, “generalizations and substantiated theories are few and far between. The field has

lost a clear theoretical thrust, and the connections between works are no longer

perceived” (Hage 1980).

In the face of uncertainty, organizational theory by the 1990s proceeded to

systematically describe the structures and features of organizations. Major areas of this

scholarship focused upon leadership, power dynamics, management styles, typologies of

organizations, or on the general development of systems theories (Hall 1996; Scott 1997).

Also, at this time, classic works are re-examined and expanded to further explore how organizations operate in context to their environment (Shafritz and Ott 1996) and today, many concepts remain robust in organizational theory such as the notions of agency,

38 bureaucracy, power, scientific management, and systems theory (Lune 2010; Luhman and Cunliffe 2013).

It is also during this time that organizational theory begins to integrate concepts regarding race and gender—ideas that have been neutralized in the past. In the middle

1990s, Ferree and Martin (1995) addressed the void that existed in the both the fields of organizations and feminist theory in understanding the nature of feminist organizations.

By inviting scholarship from different disciplines, Ferree and Martin focused on the variety of practices and structures that feminist organizations take on, and then they looked at the challenges these groups encounter as they challenged traditional patriarchal and bureaucratic forms of organizations.

Minkoff (1995) provides a more comprehensive study that examines both voluntary and activists organizations in which women and racial minorities occupy primary leadership positions. She draws from African American, Asian American, Latino and women’s organizations to examine the conditions under which these groups falter or thrive, and how they do so within their ecological contexts. Eventually, Minkoff debunks the idea that minority and women’s organizations rely on social movements and political opportunities to sustain their organization, but that once their legitimacy is established, they can survive with new missions and objectives.

This is a valuable insight for sustaining so-called special population groups such as those delineated by race and gender. The major drawback to this work is that it only reviews a time span between 1955 to 1985. While it is significant that the organizational data is culled over a 30 year time period, the cases by now are almost three decades old and many of these organizations no longer exist. Therefore, a large research literature that

advances theory specifically in context for racial-ethnic organizations does not yet exist.

Overall, ethnic organizations cannot be easily classified because they are derived from different fields and are diverse in their academic relevance. Indeed, this is one of the enduring challenges for the field of organizations and sociology. As an example, early studies such as by Renkiewiscz (1980) detail the workings and history of Polish

American organizations that sell life insurance, and describe how minority businesses cope with increasing assimilation among their ethnic consumers. This work is interesting in that it demonstrates the dynamic nature of immigrant integration by looking at how a relatively “foreign” consumer product, such as insurance, act a proxy for understanding

assimilation.

More recently, a number of studies describe how ethnic and immigrant

organizations form, maintain and act and under a variety of political and social contexts

(Olzak and West 1991; Diez 1994; Schrover and Vermeulen 2005). Additional categories

of studies evaluate the effectiveness of ethnic organizations that offer resettlement or

social services to immigrants (Finnan and Cooperstein, 1983; Desbarats, 1985; Hein,

1997; Iglehart, 2000; Majka and Mullan, 2002; Cordero-Guzman 2005). Others assess

how political mobilization is directed and channeled through different forms of

immigrant communities (Olzak 1983; Marquez 2001, Okamoto, 2003). In particular, Sue

Olzak and Elizabeth West (1991) provide special insight into the emergent relationship

between ethnic organizations, ethnic boundaries, and ethnic identity formation.

Olzak and West’s work is featured in Jeremy Hein’s (1997) research on the

formation of ethnic organizations. Hein contextualizes how social welfare programs

received various degrees of federal support via a welfare-state channeling theory, where

organizational development is significantly impacted by external factors. Hein comments

on Olzak and West’s observation that in the process of growing, ethnic organizations

form by way of conflict. In the original Olzak and West (1991) work, the authors

examine the relationship between negative pressure or attacks on immigrant communities

give rise to the formation of ethnic newspapers. Their work is aligned with Hein in that

they show how an immigrant’s identity does not exist within a vacuum, but is

significantly shaped by external forces from their native country. Olzak and West are

especially notable for their empirical demonstration of how ethnic identity may be

operationalized and how they can be linked to the emergence of new organizational

forms.

However, the limitations for Olzak and West’s work remain significant. First,

they highlight ethnic newspapers as a proxy for the notion of organizational capacity.

Doing so positions ethnic newspapers as an organizational form that encompasses other

organizational forms, such as immigrant service organizations. While it is reasonable to

assume that both an ethnic newspaper and an ethnic service organization would play roles

in the creation of cultural boundaries for a community, it is not entirely given that they do

so in particularly similar ways. Secondly, this study looks to African American, Swedish,

and white immigrant newspaper groups, but not Asian Americans, nor to any group that

is both a racial and ethnic minority.

Given the invisibility of race and ethnicity in organizational theory, the weak status of this kind of social research should not be surprising. Nkomo (1992:489) asks the question, “Why do we as organizational scholars continue to conceptualize organizations as race neutral? Why has race been silenced in the study of organizations?” For research

on Asian Americans, various editorials and brief reports shed light on how such

community organizations may improve their outreach and effectiveness for their

constituents (Hoyt 2003; Ramakrishna and Viramontes 2006; Lee 2010; Dang 2011), and

in recent years, researchers address the twin concerns of fitting in and standing out.

“Fitting in” may be understood as how ethnic organizations help immigrants adjust to life

in the US by fostering social capital or facilitating acculturation (Nee and Sanders 2001;

Tseng 2006; Sakamoto, Wei and Truong 2008; de Leon 2012) while the notion of

“standing out” is demonstrated in how organizations develop political capacity and

empowerment to garner more influence within their host societies as they themselves

become stakeholders rather than mere foreigners (Vo 2004; Portes Escobar and Arana

2008; Lai 2011).

But a recent article by Hung and Ong (2012) highlight how Asian American

organizations have experienced significant growth since the 1980s and 1990s. Using year

2000 census data from the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S., the authors consider

the factors that facilitate sustainability of Asian-American nonprofits. The dataset, culled from Guidestar.com is wide-ranging and sizable, and also indicate that by the Census year 2000, there were more than 2000 community organizations classified as substantially serving Asian-Americans. Despite this robust number, an initial analysis

show that over half of new AA organizations become inactive within 10 years. The

hardiest nonprofits are Chinese-American, and/or situate themselves as serving a more

inclusive pan-Asian or Asian-American community

Other large categories of research that relate Asian immigrants to new

organizational forms investigate the assessment or promotion of good physical health,

various topics on public health, or the state of mental health among different Asian

groups (Pernice and Brook 1996; Lum 2010; Vu, Schwartz, and Austin 2011; Nguyen,

Hood and Belgrave 2012). Most prolifically, research evaluating the roles and influence

of the ethnic church in Asian American communities remains robust and is one of the

largest categories of research literature that looks at formal organizations and Asian

ethnics, co-ethnics, and pan ethnic churches (Jeung 2005; Cha, Kang, and Lee 2006;

Canaan 2009). Past works have focused on the role of the ethnic church for the

Vietnamese (Bankston and Zhou 1996; Phan 2006), Chinese (Fenggang 1998, 1999; Cao

2005; Chen 2006) and Korean (Kwon, Ebaugh and Hagan 1997; Ock 2007; Pae 2008;

Kwon 2008; Kim 2010; Choi 2010; Boddie, Hong, Im, and Chung 2011).

In Versailles, Li, Airriess, Chia-Chen, Leong, Keith and Adams (2008; 2010).

Later, Airriess, Li, Leong, Chia-Chen and Keith (2008) and the separate group of Leong,

Airriess, Li, Chia-Chen and Keith (2007) explore the role of MQVN post-Katrina. The

first of the two articles examines the role of social networks and a sense of an

“attachment to place” between the comparison groups of Vietnamese and African-

Americans in New Orleans east. While Airriess et. al. and Leong et. al. have already

evaluated the role of social capital, political resources, the article positions MQVN as the

institution in which social capital and networks coalescence and then are deployed in the

service of crisis amelioration. Thus, these recent offerings of Vietnamese communities

and the role of one particular type of immigrant organization, the ethnic church, meshes

with the growing body of literature that is assessing Asian or Asian-American

organizations (Tseng 2003; Hung and Ong 2012).

In conclusion, we conclude that organizational theory has done a mediocre job of describing the increasingly complex characteristics and needs of Asian American organizations, even in the face of their rapid proliferation in the United States. Phase I and phase II of this study which focus on how organizations become established and proceed to grow is presented through the lens of three years of field work and interviews with organizational leaders and the beneficiaries they serve.

Two extraordinary factors regarding a study of Vietnamese organizations bear reminding here. First, the unprecedented groundswell of Vietnamese community organizations in the Gulf Coast occurred in record time and numbers, and secondly, this growth occurred in the most “unnatural” circumstances of social ecology---in the aftermath of natural and technological crisis. Both these factors are contribute to the significance of this study in that it informs an understanding of nonprofit, ethnic organizations in general, and the nature of Vietnamese communities in particular.

Additional Organizing Frameworks

In this final section of chapter 1, I present additional organizing frameworks that inform an analysis how the Gulf Coast Vietnamese engaged in post-disaster community building by drawing upon existing understandings of immigrant settlement, incorporation and assimilation. The theoretical context and literature review section above contextualizes this study in the established research so that the findings presented here may expand on what is already known on the nature of immigrant communities and natural disasters. By extension, but in contrast, this section on organizing frameworks situates this study in the flow of ongoing conversations on the role of immigrant social

networks, ethnic placemaking, and the effect of social capital for immigrant communities.

In sum, the presentation of literature provides the placement for my findings, while the

organizing framework further contextualizes them.

Most pointedly, this study seats its findings within the ethnic placemaking research as explicated by Karin Aguilar-San Juan (2009), Joseph Wood (1997) and

Elizabeth Chacko (2003). It also draws upon how understandings of immigrant communities, such as a theory of heterolocalism, (Zelinsky and Lee 1998; Zelinsky

2001), engages with classical and new understandings of the ethnic enclave (Logan, Alba and Zhang 2002; Wierzbicki 2004), which in turn, refers to previous research studies that examined the role of community space and personal identity (Eyles 1985). In particular, it is Aguilar-San Juan’s work that grounds this study.

Beginning from 1994, and occurring during long and short intervals until 2002,

Aguilar-San Juan investigates the “Little Saigon” community of Orange County as well as the Vietnamese residing in Boston’s Fields Corner. Hers is an exploration into how

Vietnamese build ethnic communities and “stay” Vietnamese in disparate host milieus.

The researcher demonstrates how post-1975 Vietnamese immigrants first migrated and carved out a distinctive, economically robust presence in the city of Westminster in

Orange County, a sprawling suburban region that had historically been conservative and white. Aguilar-San Juan compares this to the looser organization of modest neighborhoods that share space with different racialized minorities in the port city of

Boston. Initially, the author is intrigued by the counter-intuitive logic of how a quintessentially post-suburban area such as in Orange County could develop so completely and aggressively as a culturally commercialized Vietnamese community,

while Fields Corner “is not as much of an intensely Vietnamese neighborhood as Boston’s

history of immigrant neighborhoods would lead us to expect” (2009:32).

Aguilar-San Juan ultimately finds the differences laid out in historical,

geographical and institutional intersections that result in divergent results in the two

different cities, but more importantly she promotes an understanding of Vietnamese

incorporation into the United States as a creative, iterative and dynamic process rather

than a static one. In this study, Vietnamese refugees do not attempt to wholly recreate

their native homeland in America---they actively create new group identities that are based in their host locales but referential of homeland. They do so by engaging in organizational-building and place-making strategies as Aguilar San-Juan notes:

In fact, staying Vietnamese is not an act of constancy but of purposeful, and ultimately strategic, shifting and changing in order to arrive at new ways of being Vietnamese in a U.S. context. This thoughtful and deliberate recalibration of culture and identity allows Vietnamese Americans in Orange County and Boston to find a new “equilibrium state” in which Vietnamese-ness is redefined so as to serve myriad of simultaneous and sometimes contradictory social and historical functions. I think of this equilibrium state as an evolving sociospatial condition that requires adjustments not only inside the Vietnamese American community in any given region but also across the U.S. nation as a whole (xxvii).

Thus, from this reasoning, strategic Vietnamese American placemaking may be

occurring in the U.S. Gulf Coast but has yet to be revealed. Here too, are there

“sometimes contradictory social and historical functions” that are the result of purposeful

acts to create ways of being and staying Vietnamese. While Aguilar-San Juan’s work looks to the role of physical space as both a contribution to and a product of ethnic identity building in Boston and Orange County, geographical space is but one factor for

46 this study. For the Gulf Coast, the singular disruptive events of Katrina and the oil spill acted as a mechanism for change.

Immigrant Settlement and Spatial Assimilation

Early 20th century immigration of Europeans into the United States prompted the first systematic studies of ethnic enclaves. At the University of Chicago, Ernest Burgess offered the foundation for spatial assimilation by observing how urban areas become compartmentalized within urban areas first by class, which in turn, will function as proxies for further sub-identification of racial and ethnic minorities (1927). Thus, urban centers are spatially catalogued by race and ethnicity, thus intertwining the notions of class. New immigrants become sorted within these spaces until they become assimilated through acculturation, intermarriage, and increased amassment of economic resources.

Gradually, the newcomers move into suburban centers.

It is Burgess’s mentee, Robert Park (1928), who builds on this spatial sorting work and articulates an even more comprehensive theory of spatial assimilation. New arrivals possessing few resources settle into enclaves as they bided their time and amassed economic and cultural capital. The enclave serves as a safe place and a proving ground for naïve newcomers until they disperse outside of the central cities and business districts. This movement away from residential urban enclaves also represents the distancing of the individual from native customs, language and culture until only symbolic features remain (Massey 1988). The conventional theory of spatial assimilation is then enfolded in Park’s articulation of a cycle of race relations, which delineates 4

stages toward assimilation: contact, competition, accommodation and then ethnic

assimilation (1928).

But Chinese, Japanese and Korean enclaves, particularly populated by post-1965 immigrants, challenge the logic of each of Park’s stages (Alba, Logan and Crowder 1997;

Alba and Nee 2003; Le 2007), and in general test the underlying assumptions that they may eventually be completely subsumed in any one of the three structural assimilation outcomes of the melting pot type: Anglo conformity, or cultural pluralism type. And while contemporary understandings of spatial assimilation illuminates the issues of stratification and segregation inherent in urban life for ethnic immigrants (Massey 1988;

Massey and Denton 1993) many theories of assimilation fall short in capturing the nuances of Southeast refugee migration and settlement (Zhou and Portes 1993; Wood

1997). One reason for this shortcoming is that spatial assimilation theory assumes a logical, linear path towards a particular destination---ultimately, completes integration of the immigrant into the host society.

Further, the theory describes the conditions of an immigrant, rather than that of the refugee. The Gulf Coast Vietnamese in this study arrived as refugees, a condition of forcible self-exile that is distinct from migration that is facilitated by purely economic reasons. Some researchers make the case that refugee and immigrant conditions overlap, in that refugees may be “pushed” by threatening political catastrophe, but they still are subject to “pull” factors such as occupational opportunity (Gold 1992). However, in the case of the Vietnamese, identification as a refugee group necessitated federal and state intervention; initial settlement was partially due to federal directives (Hein 1998).

In April of 1975, nearly 132,000 immediately fled after South Vietnam fell to communist forces. Subsequent waves of these so-called boat people fled from Southeast

Asia and eventually numbered nearly 300,000 by the mid-1980s in the US. Officials engaged in a nationwide dispersal program of the refugees so as not to overwhelm the social service agencies of any one US region (Phan 2005; Rutledge 1992). The funneling of Vietnamese refugees to all corners of the US made for chaotic logic and after their initial settlement, many of those 657,296 Vietnamese would engage in a secondary migration. Despite being deliberately placed in diverse and far-flung cities by the resettlement system, many would seemingly vacate entire states. This was the case for

Alaska, Montana and Vermont when all combined, received 1,263 refugees over 20 years, most of who would eventually move to metropolitan centers and suburban communities (Office of Refugee Settlement 1995).

Such conditions call for a more nuanced interpretation of spatial assimilation models in order to explain refugee adaptation (Haines 2002). Contemporary research offers a model such as segmented assimilation theory as an alternative to the spatial frame by looking at economic and structural factors (Portes and Zhou 1993; Zhou 1999).

Segmented assimilation offers a response to one of the most important critiques to classical assimilation theories that seem to present assimilation as a seamless and inevitable procedure. Segmented assimilation posits logically that if immigrants arrive with different resources and migratory contexts, it is entirely possible they would have divergent fates.

Further, would these settlement differences emerge in the outcomes for the offspring of immigrants in later generations? Do the roles of race and ethnicity matter?

Portes and Zhou (1993) demonstrate divergent pathways of assimilation: 1) conventional

upward, or “straight line,” 2) downward assimilation, and 3) selective acculturation and

many scholars have applied these insights for immigrant youth (Perlmann and Waldinger

1997; Hirschman 2001; Kroneberg 2008). For the Vietnamese, segmented assimilation

has been applied to understand the social adjustment of Vietnamese adolescents

(Bankston and Zhou 1997) and this study will consider the applicability of both models in

explaining how respondents perceive their integration into their respective Gulf Coast

milieus.

Community and Ethnic Placemaking.

For sociologists, a definition of community has always been problematic. Efforts to characterize immigrant, ethnic or racial minority communities becomes ever more challenging. Despite best efforts, a universal definition of community remain elusive, although Etzioni (2000) argues that, “as I see it, this ‘cannot be defined’ is a tired gambit”

(188) and offers a utilitarian definition that provides structural understanding but allows

room for assessing conflicts and interactions,

“Community is a combination of two elements: A) a web of affect-laden relationships among a group of individuals with relationships that often crisscross and reinforce one another…B) a measure of commitment to a set of shared values, norms and meanings, and a shared history and identity---in short, to a particular culture” (Etzioni, 1996: 127).

As far as identifying ethnic community, it is Howard Becker in his popular book about social research, Tricks of the Trade (1998) who describe a practical method for

identifying ethnic communities. Referencing his mentor Everett Hughes, Becker explains

how one could extricate oneself from a “definitional conundrum” by identifying mutual exclusive distinctions:

An ethnic group is not one because of the degree of measurable or observable difference from other groups; it is an ethnic group on the contrary, because the people in and the people out of it know that it is one; because both ins and the outs talk, feel and act as if it were a separate group” (Hughes, 1984 in Becker, 1998:2).

While there are several dialectics about identifying, operationalizing and

measuring community and ethnic community, contemporary sociologists seek not only to

understand community, but to also investigate how the notion of community changes

over time. This investigation into the transformation of community is as old as Ferdinand

Tonnies notions of Gemeinshaft and Gesellschaft (1887). In the former category,

preindustrial families and small assemblages of people cultivate feelings of community

togetherness. Eventually, communities increasingly rely on transactional relationships

between individuals and among groups in an urban, capitalistic society. Durkheim

([1984] 1893), during approximately the same time frame of the latter 19th century,

interprets this loss in a functionalist manner, where community relationships drift from

shared values to shared interests.

But then, what of immigrant communities and ethnic enclaves? The classical

community format, as contested as it was, becomes further complicated by transnational

politics and a post-capitalistic influx of racialized minorities (Bloemraad 2006; Kang

2010). While immigration scholars deliberate the relative importance of political push

factors vs. economic pull factors, most recognize the limitations of traditional models of

community to inform present-day migration (Portes and Rumbaut 2006; Zhou 2009).

Older models are in special need of reinterpretation because they rely on an assumption

of migration where individuals from a rural context move into an urban one. As we have

seen, this is no longer the case for most contemporary Asian immigration where new

arrivals are able to skip central cities altogether and arrive directly into the suburbs. For

these groups. what are the new understandings of nationalism, assimilation, and ethnic community for these groups?

Increasingly, researchers who look at contemporary Asian American communities have crafted less rigid definitions of community that is unbounded by the limitations of

physical space. While old definitions of community depend on geography, such as

neighborhoods, buildings, street signs, and other tangible structures, new designations of

community are unbounded by geography and a result, can take on greater degrees of

personalization (Vo and Bonus 2002). This phenomenon is reflected in the rise of virtual

communities where an individual may take on increasingly specific identities.

Examples abound, such as the making and remaking of an online transnational

Filipino community, or the political mobilization of panethnic communities in California

(Ignacio 2002). Other groups are even more delineated such as the advocacy collectives

for gay and lesbian Asian Americans, or the networks that consist entirely of young

Asian American professionals (Liu, Geron and Lai 2008; Choudhury et al. 2009). These

new definitions of community rely on intersecting identities rather than absolute

identities; these communities corral together an otherwise diasporic cloud of disparate

individuals. It follows then, that if the building of “community” is no longer geographically bounded, and then there are many different avenues to the creation of community. Researchers have identified this form of independent creation as ethnic placemaking.

In urban literature, research on ethnic placemaking argues that community

organization can manifest in places that normally would not be hospitable for maintaining

a strong ethnic presence. Minorities can resist the strong slide into assimilation by

planting markers that act as footholds within strongly non-ethnic neighborhoods or

otherwise racially heterogeneous communities. Wood (1997) positions ethnic identity

maintenance within an ecological framework by looking at how Vietnamese residents

create spaces in the suburbs of North Virginia. He traces the “labyrinthine”

neighborhoods west of Arlington where Vietnamese refugees had settled into racially

diverse areas.

Wood points out that over time, Vietnamese entrepreneurs appropriated an aging

mini-mall, named Eden Center, to transform it into a bustling shopping plaza fully

populated with stores exclusively supplying Vietnamese goods and services. On any

given day, the space is a beehive of activity where Vietnamese music blares from

speakers and every other shop window displays colorful posters of Vietnamese foods and

faces. While this so-called Eden Center is a commercial property, it projects vibrant and

consistent nationalistic “costuming” which ultimately serves several different purposes:

Eden center is also a refuge. It serves for Northern Virginia the same social functions as the community gardens of Versailles do for New Orleans (Airriess and Clawson 1991, 1994). Spending Sunday afternoons at Eden Center has become an important Vietnamese American family custom. Many patrons are veterans of war and of postwar reeducation camps, and the yellow-with-red striped flag of the former Republic of Vietnam flies boldly alongside the Stars and Stripes (68).

Wood’s observation of Eden Center as a place to be, act and create a sense of

Vietnamese-ness is reinforced by Meyer’s interviewing of residents frequenting the complex in 2006. In her multiple observations of the multiple generations of consumers

at the Center, she notes that “Eden Center’s visibility as a Vietnamese cultural center thus

makes a physical reality of the imagined community” (70). The critical modifier is

“imagined” since many in the younger generation of interviewees have never been to

Vietnam. Yet, they could also acknowledge the shopping center as not an identical representation of what they left behind. Thus the act of ethnic placemaking is not to merely replicate one’s homeland but to reconfigure an inherited space.

Elizabeth Chacko (2003) interprets the placemaking literature into immigrant

strategies for survival. Can the act of placemaking create a sense of emotional safety for

an otherwise vulnerable immigrant group? Does placemaking play an integral, if as yet

under-theorized role in facilitating immigrant incorporations? The argument on whether

ethnic enclaves either help or hurt co-ethnics is an active discussion within immigrant

literature (Sanders and Nee 1987; Kwong 1997; Kim 1999; Mazumdar 2000) although

Chacko focuses on how immigrants utilize strategies for preserving ethnic identities and

to parlay such identities into survival tactics such as finding employment, jobs and

housing.

These economic and occupational strategies may be deployed by building ethnic

spaces that in turn, cultivate strong economies. The presence of small businesses that

offer goods and services may shape the landscape in dramatic ways, as argued by various

authors in Kaplin and Li’s Landscapes of the Ethnic Economy (2006). The three sites of

Bayou La Batre, Biloxi and New Orleans present very different ethnic economies and

engage in different types of placemaking strategies. We will examine how residents in

each location deploy different strategies dependent on their particular ecological and

geographic contexts.

Social Networks and Social Capital

The research on how immigrants draw upon social networks has shifted from unilaterally declaring the usefulness of networks to offering a more nuanced picture

(Menjivar 1994). The established canon has initially described how networks act to buffer the hardships for new immigrants in the following ways: entry into employment

(Amuedo-Dorantes and Mundra 2007), small business and entrepreneurial activities

(Portes and Shafer 2007), accessing health services (Ralston and Escandell 2012), and generally facilitating acculturation (Wierzbicki 2004).

These categories arise from the traditional vulnerabilities that are characteristic of post-1965 new immigrants, such as limited language access, educational deficiencies, lack of employable skills, and an inability to access traditional means of funding such as with bank loans or credit etc. (Parks 2005). Despite the plethora of advantages offered by networks, contemporary research now demonstrates that there are obstacles as well as benefits to networks.

Hagan (1998) in a comprehensive review argues that the advantages of networks may depend on the quality and strength of networks, the maturity of those channels, and the endurance of these connections over time. Others have observed that some networks impede upward mobility depending on whether household members are employed and may economically absorb newcomers (Enchautegui 2002). A major factor affecting the changing role of networks is that new immigrants of the late 20th century and the early

21st century immigrants look considerably different from their predecessors (Singer,

Hardwick, and Brettell 2008). Increasingly, assimilation theories, which were addressed in the previous session, also contribute to the variegated impacts of networks. Newer

assimilation models do not assume a linear, unbroken, and complete incorporation of immigrants into the host society where arrivals like the Vietnamese become fully absorbed and indistinguishable from the general US society (Portes and Zhou 1993).

This study finds that the Vietnamese called upon social networks and community

ties during the crisis events of Katrina and the oil spill. In the three sites for this study, the

Gulf Vietnamese communities construct local economies and create ethnic spaces in both

highly concentrated neighborhoods such as in Versailles, and in the dispersed and rural

contexts of Biloxi and Bayou La Batre. Living in their far-flung communities, the

Vietnamese are still able to maintain social ties that do not entirely rely on proximity.

This is particularly true in Biloxi where Vietnamese families had been slowly dispersing

from their recognized neighborhood of Biloxi east to adjacent communities but residents

still identify themselves collectively as Mississippi Vietnamese. This is no doubt in large

part to the continuous landscape of the region’s coast, which blend city demarcations

seamlessly.

Additionally, in multi-generational families where middle-aged and younger

members speak fluent English and effortlessly mingle in different social milieus, social

organization may be maintained in what Granovetter (1983) would deem as “weak ties”

(the connection among people who inhabit social worlds that we do not frequent but who

are acquainted with our “strong ties” circle of family and friends). Such networks

however, are not in of themselves useful unless they are reinforced with a pool of social

capital.

Research in the field of urban studies struggle with defining community; it is

further complicated by community’s problematic relationship with the notion of social

capital in that the two are often conflated (Colclough and Sitaraman 2005). According to

Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992) however, their definition of social capital is embedded

within a network:

“Social capital is the sum of the resources actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” (119).

Thus, social capital works through the nodes and runs of a network rather than in diffuse

form floating freely within a community. Therefore, relationships act like channels

through which resources are ferried. For the Vietnamese, ties among one another are vital

to every aspect of life even among groups that profess to be isolated. Research has

shown, true to the majority of social network research, that social networks yield

advantages as well as disadvantages for Vietnamese immigrants in ameliorating mental

and physical health (Fu and Vanlandingham 2012).

During disaster, residents deployed network knowledge to evacuate and eventually return, but this study shows that the cultivation of networks as a means of creating social capital, particularly among those entering as strangers into the Gulf such as young, West Coast community organizers who had never been in the Gulf South

before.

What they will find, once they arrive, is an unexpected amalgamation of “Little

Saigons” intersecting with the unique regional characteristics of Gulf Coast communities.

Before explicating the empirical findings for nonprofit community organizations, I present deep descriptions of the community sites by which the data for this study is derived. Each of the Vietnamese communities situated in the coastal sites of Louisiana,

Mississippi, and Alabama are described in order to establish a regional context before the introduction of the empirical chapters.

CHAPTER 2: STORMS AND SPILLS

Community Profiles Across the Third Coast

V: Have you ever heard of the term, ‘Third Coast’ to describe the Gulf Coast?

JD: No, but that sounds like a good idea (laughs)…

V: What does it make you think of?

JD: Well, Third Coast is third place. No, that is too negative but what I mean is that it’s not like we’re from California or New York, those communities are so big and they have a lot of resources--but it’s like people really know you around here…like you can’t, you don’t get lost in the crowd. Jackie Dinh,14 Biloxi

In March of 2010, I was attending a conference in Seattle when I met a person

who, upon learning that I had arrived from Louisiana, asked me what it was like “living

on America’s Third Coast.” I had never heard of this term before, but it made sense that

the Gulf Coast is referred to in this conversational shorthand. I took it to mean that this

expression is used in the same manner that the monikers of “West Coast’ or the “East

Coast” are evoked when talking about California or New York. Therefore, it makes sense that in a collective American consciousness, large wedges of the Southern Gulf states possess a distinctive regional disposition.

I began to ask a few interviewees if they ever heard the term and what they thought of it. How exactly then, does one characterize the Third Coast? What loose constellation of impressions, feelings, spirit, or temperament embodies the term? In other

words, what is the geographic makeup of the Third Coast and what are the evocative

14 All interviewees are identified with pseudonyms; see Appendix B for detailed roster of participants.

meanings for the people who live here? Despite a general agreement on which states

comprise the Gulf Coast, there is surprisingly, a wide variety of perspectives on how to

characterize the region. Describing the Gulf South is not an easy proposition because of

its conflation with fanciful, quixotic notions of the American South, which themselves

are loosely defined as the geographic region bounded by the Gulf of Mexico, the Ohio

and Mississippi River systems and the Atlantic Ocean (Harris 2006). Sentimental

impressions of the South evoke antebellum romanticism and nostalgia, while Gulf South

fables conjure up images of frontier-like adventures near the water.

The metaphors of a dreamlike Dixie or a bluesy Bayou are romantically

superficial at best. However, in examining the historical literature of the region, and in

listening to the narratives of life-long residents, it is a fair conclusion to describe the Gulf

South as a distinctive, difficult, and at times, daring place to live (Gaillard, Hagler and

Denniston 2008). Not the least among its challenges is the historical morass of racism,

poverty and political corruptions. Howard Zinn (1967) once declared in his memoir, The

Southern Mystique, of his time working with the Southern civil rights movement that:

The South is still the most terrible place in America. Because it is, it is filled with heroes. The South is monstrous and marvelous at the same time. Every cliché ever uttered about the South, every stereotype attached to its people, white and Negro is true; a thousand other characteristics, complex and subtle, are also true (Zinn 1967:5). Even if Zinn offers an intentionally provocative observation, it is reasonable to assert that the South is complicated by its history of Jim Crow disenfranchisement. But within this racially divided scene, how do other racial and ethnic15 minorities function?

Leslie Bow (2010) describes the peculiar status for nonblack groups as that of being

15 The definition of ethnicity is a contested one, but Bankston (2000) suggests that ethnicity may feature shared linguistic, religious, and nationalistic characteristics.

“partly colored” because they existed “‘outside’ the frame of racial reference” (30). As a consequence, Bow goes on to outline a framework for understanding the “interstitial

Asian” in the complex racial histories of the American South by analyzing pre and post-

1954 US film, literature, government documents, and ethnographies. She finds that

“third-race” individuals such as Asian, Native American, and Mexican not only help define, but also defy the binary colorline.

Today, ethnic composition across the South varies widely. States such as

Louisiana and Florida possess greater experience with migration, and have inherited a variety of immigrant groups over longer periods of time. Other southern states, Georgia,

South Carolina and Texas16 are currently experiencing a new status as 21st century

immigrant gateways (Singer, Hardwick, and Brettell 2008). Mississippi is the least

ethnically varied state in the country (Bankston 2012) and is comparable to Alabama in

that it continues to struggle with a burgeoning influx of new immigrants, as well as

negotiating with established ethnic groups and Native American tribes. However, it

should be noted that both of these states experienced significant influxes of Vietnamese

refugees during the late 1970s into the early 1990s and settled into Gulf cities such as

Bayou La Batre and Coden (Gaillard 2003).

Once they arrive, the Vietnamese must then navigate the uneven terrain of their host communities in order to integrate. And they have been engaged in this day-to-day

process of incorporation since their initial settlement. I observe that viewing these daily

activities as a whole, rather than as isolated actions serves to illustrate that the process of

incorporation itself is a long-term, community-making project. And if the daily work of

16 Texas’s status as a predominately Southern or Gulf state versus a Southwestern one is debatable, see Griffin, 2006.

building a community may be viewed in a project-like framework that ultimately creates a sense of community. What then follows, is my unique contribution that argues that in the aftermath of disaster, recovery and rebuilding activities accomplish the same goal of community building (except now it is re-creation, rather than creation).

The profiles of each community below serves to support my main argument that

Gulf Coast communities engaged in community building via community rebuilding because each city had to contend with differing population size, commercial industries, as well as different catchments of social and network capital. These unique pre-disaster cultural, economic, and city contexts in turn, resulted in differing recovery patterns for

Biloxi, New Orleans, and Bayou La Batre. I argue that these profiles show that each community had a unique prehistory of place, and of which I will more fully explore in the final discussion chapter.

While all Vietnamese residents struggled enormously after the hurricane and oil spill, these community profiles indicate that the foundation for building community organizations and the creation of Gulf Coast Vietnamese identities was laid long before disasters struck. Here now, I provide an overview of each community site, the extent of disaster damage in each area, and demonstrate that, in essence, the state of a community prior to the disaster, greatly impacts its recovery trajectory after the disaster.

Bayou La Batre, Alabama

The Hard Life Gets Harder in the Bayou

Tony Nguyen felt his heart sink when he heard the news. Since the explosion of a drilling platform in the Gulf, on April 20th 2010, many boats, including those of Vietnamese fisherman and shrimpers, had been docked for weeks. Some hope for the fishermen resurfaced when BP and the US Coast Guard commissioned some

boats for clean-up duties in a program called the Vessels of Opportunity program (VOOP). However, controversy erupted when out-of-state boats began receiving most of the work contracts while local fishermen sat idle onshore. Many residents of Bayou La Batre could not endure another season of paltry catching, and Tony’s family, who owned a small crab shop, saw the high price of boat fuel rising with no end in sight. Since Katrina, it had been a tough five years. During the storm, Tony had been stationed in Iraq. He remembered the feeling of horror as he caught the news about Katrina. Soon after his honorable discharge, Tony came back to his hometown, “I knew I had to come back and help rebuild my community.” Then, the oil spill happened and everyone had to start over again. “I started to notice how underserved the Vietnamese community was here.” With his youth and skills, and the opportunities offered by his military service, he had the option to begin a career in a bigger, more prosperous city. Instead he chose to work as a community organizer, and the next few years confirmed what he always knew---that life in “the Bayou,” was not meant to be easy, but if you worked hard enough, it was a life worth preserving.

Located at the most southwestern tip of Mobile County, the fortunes of this small fishing village had never been prodigious, but until the beginning of the 2000s, Bayou La

Batre offered a level of reasonable occupational security for those willing to gamble on the unpredictable nature of Bayou living. Since its founding in 1786, Bayou La Batre’s diverse racial and ethnic groups settled their families along a sliver of land just 4.2 miles wide. With a population of 2,558 (2010 U.S Census), the town’s demographics comprised of 60.3% whites, 24% Asian, 12.3% African American, 2.8% Hispanic and Latino, and nearly .5% Native American.

Since the late 1970s, it has been home to a substantial Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian population that ranged from an all-time high of 33.29% Asians in 2000 (770

Asians) to a 2010 Census figure of 558 individuals—which is still nearly a quarter of the community. Despite this steep decline over a decade, almost 400 of the Asian residents identify themselves as Vietnamese. While this number is over 15% of the population, the peak of Vietnamese population occurred in the early 1990s when approximately 1,500

Vietnamese men, women, and children were counted along with nearly 900 Cambodians

and other Southeast Asians (1990 Census).

The first Southeast Asian refugees arrived in 1977 but their numbers did not

increase in earnest until 1981, and then, almost immediately, the new arrivals began

occupying seafood processing jobs, deck work, and trawling (Herndon 1988). Within a

few short years, many began buying their own boats or retrofitting leisure craft for

commercial fishing purposes at such a pace that by the mid-1980s nearly 1 in 3 license

holders in Bayou La Batre was registered to a Vietnamese person. During 30 years of

settling into the area, and after initial struggles with American fishermen, most

Vietnamese and Cambodian fishermen found that extractive work offered one of the few

viable avenues to financial security. Arriving from circumstances of severe hardship,

most of the Vietnamese families did not belong to the more privileged and educated first

waves of Vietnamese who evacuated immediately after the 1976 fall of Saigon (Rutledge

1992).

Among this group of refugees, they found that their willingness to work

exceptionally long hours and under less than ideal conditions established something of a

common ground with the generations of Alabama fishermen living in the area. American

fishermen, (a term used by the Vietnamese to distinguish themselves from white fisher- families) have long occupied the South Alabama seafood industry, and initially viewed the refugees as interlopers. In particular, the practice of using unpaid family labor was unsettling for American fishermen who viewed this structure as exploitive while maximizing Vietnamese profits via a method they did not practice nor could compete against.

Yet, for shrimpers such as Truong Nam’s story, illustrated below, the inevitable culture clash would eventually became increasingly functional and respectful. “Yes, they

work hard, we work hard. I don’t know why we fight because người Mỹ [American] just

like us, we all want the shrimp.” Mr. Nam arrived in Bayou La Batre in the early-1980s but lived with his wife and children in the nearby town of Coden with his sister, his brother-in-law, and their family who had arrived prior to Mr. Nam.

Very quickly, the brother-in-law found work for Mr. Nam as a deckhand and also procured jobs for his wife and oldest daughter picking crabs. The family kept a rigorous work schedule that required many long days and nights, but, as Mr. Nam recalled the difficulties of his early years, he spoke also of the relief he felt when he realized he could make a living in his adopted country.

TN: You get up very early every day, you wake up 2am and drive to, to go to pick the crab and the shrimp They pick the crab and they work very hard…my wife very good she can do over 100 pounds, maybe more in one day.

V: That’s amazing---that sounds like a lot of work. And you were out on the boat?

TN: We go for many weeks out to sea.

V: What about your family? They must have worried about you.

TN: Worry for what? I fish a long time, no worry, I learn from my father and I live on a boat. In Vietnam we can live on the boat, eat and go for a long time in the water, it easy for me…we come here and my brother he say I can fish and make money and I say ‘okay!’ because I know how to do that.

Despite Mr. Nam’s possessing virtually no formal education, and possessing only a limited grasp of English, the opportunity to parlay an existing skill set into a sustainable occupation was enough to allay many anxieties. This is not an unexpected response since

Starr (1981) noted this very same logical reasoning from his early interviews of

Indochinese refugees in the late 1970s. He found that the majority of Vietnamese settlers

arrived with fishing experience and therefore naturally met the needs of the seafood

processing and extractive industries.

Further cementing their place in Bayou La Batre, the Vietnamese eventually made themselves indispensable by capitalizing on the needs of seafood processing-plant

owners, brokers, and buyers. Many Americans in the industry utilized Vietnamese labor

to sell, extract, package or otherwise handle the product. While American fishermen

exhibited some feelings of hostility, most industry brokers welcomed the additional

revenues that the Southeast Asian workers were able to generate (Gaillard 2003; Hill and

Beaver 1996). In newspaper articles of the time, most American fishermen initially expressed resentment toward the unorthodox methods employed by the Vietnamese. At first, with a quiet grumbling, American shrimpers and fishermen began to more vocally express their suspicion that the refugees received additional, and undeserved governmental support (Larmer 1986; Herndon 1988). In time however, culture clashes over work customs and fishing etiquette eventually receded under the more salient ethos of living in Bayou country.

Historians note that the Alabama Gulf Coast is a place where “residents freely acknowledge that life on the edge of the continent is hard…the work was hard, but the people found satisfaction in the harvest---shrimp and oysters, fish and crabs depending on the season” (Gaillard et al. 4). Its appears that Vietnamese fishermen like Mr. Nam called

upon his philosophy of endurance as a form of common ground that bridged American

and Vietnamese families, “We very tough here…we work so much because it so hard to

shrimp, every year, it’s a very hard life like in Vietnam.” This sentiment was shared by

many Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees in Alabama and previous research has argued

that it is this attitude that allowed Indochinese refugees to craft a viable living in an

otherwise inhospitable place (Hill and Beaver 1996). This collective spirit of gritty

survival and philosophical acceptance would become sorely tested, first during hurricane

Katrina, and then, brought to a breaking point after the oil spill.

Damage in Bayou La Batre was extensive. In an intriguing historical precedent, decades before the National Hurricane Center kept official meteorological records; Bayou

La Batre endured its own “storm of the century,” in 1906, nearly a century before

hurricane Katrina came ashore. The unnamed storm effectively flattened the community,

and it is still considered one of the most violent disasters in Southern Alabama history.

Until, that is, Katrina’s storm surge came barreling onshore, crashing its 20 feet wall of

water into the tiny town, requiring a 95% evacuation of the residents. The 200 people left

behind to bear witness to a near obliteration of waterfront businesses and homes

(Henderson 2005; Koch 2010). In the aftermath of the storm, 23 shrimp boats lay

grounded after the waters receded. It is then that many of the Vietnamese experienced the

first series of labyrinthine exchanges with federal and state authorities that were

replicated during the Gulf oil spill. Linh Chi Ma, who owns a crab shop, articulates the

deepening frustration with the convoluted insurance claims process:

LM: I can’t even tell you how much stress there is. Right away I fill out my claim, I learn from Katrina that you have to be quick because last time…it was just two weeks and they tell you it’s over, you can’t file no more. And now it takes so long, it is always, ‘pending’ and it will go 3, 4, 5 months and you still don’t know.

V: How do you check on your claim? You have a caseworker?

LM: I look on the computer. I wait for my status to change. I check every day.

The recovery process was complicated by federal and state debates over how to

best distribute the different forms of funding assistance. Initial responses did seem

promising in that FEMA apportioned $589.4 million for immediate relief efforts (i.e.

supplies, crisis counseling, emergency shelter, food assistance), and long-term efforts

(small business loans, insurance, housing)—reaching $946 million on Katrina’s two year anniversary (FEMA recovery reports, 2006). However, these figures have not been entirely distributed, nor do they account for what are still significant ongoing recovery issues concerning the future of Alabama’s industries such as ship building, seafood processing, marine supply and repair, and commercial harvesting (Gill, Picou, and

Ritchie 2012).

Many residents believed that both the national media and the federal government effectively ignored Mobile county and the extensive damage to Bayou La Batre in favor of highlighting New Orleans, and later, Mississippi. Despite the fact that seafood work brings in revenues ranging in 35-40 million a year, accounting for nearly 85% of the region’s economy, the plight of fisher-families remains precarious (Blitz and Mann 2000;

Busby 2011; Lowther 2011). Bayou La Batre residents have already recognized the volatility of the seafood industry, and since the early 2000s have looked to the area’s other behemoth industry, ship building, to bring in new, sustainable, and skilled revenues for the community (Juhasz 2011). Yet, power struggles between local business leaders and longtime residents have complicated this set of new economic goals. Some fishermen express skepticism that the entire city, even one that is relatively small and compact like

Bayou La Batre, could diversify quickly enough to make a difference for residents.

There is cause for optimism, however. Among Vietnamese and Asian residents

who intend to stay, the opening of a Boat People SOS (BPSOS) branch office on S.

Wintzell Avenue provides a beacon of relief. This small office is located close to the two

remaining Vietnamese stores and one Vietnamese restaurant in the area----the second

Vietnamese restaurant was closed shortly after Katrina. Prior to Katrina, the only Asian

organizations of any kind in the Bayou and nearby Coden were the Laotian Association, and the Vietnamese Buddhist and Vietnamese Catholics. These groups formed around their temple and church communities. The BPSOS branch office opened just 6 weeks after Katrina and relied on a skeleton crew of workers and volunteers. One volunteer,

Mike Dang, who would later be hired as a caseworker, described the overwhelming amount of work they faced in those chaotic months: “We knew we had to stay and hire people to help with all the FEMA claims and SBA applications…and there were so many families who needed help with trailers and food, and just everything.”

The office quickly became swamped with the sheer number of families in need,

Tony Nguyen, working with BPSOS, estimates that over 70 Vietnamese families on their caseload are still feeling the effects of the oil spill, but many have expressed gratitude that a community organization such as BPSOS existed to help them. Residents have a variety of expectations. Some only desire short term help in applying for food stamps;

others need short term translation services as they submit disaster claims. Parents

especially look to BPSOS for after school programs to occupy their children, or otherwise

home-bound elders. Others have greater expectations in that they would like for BPSOS

may help them transition out of the fishing industry, altogether.

BPSOS workers hold hopes and expectations themselves. Most are content to

focus on working with the community day by day. “I feel like I’m being useful. There is

so much need, so much to do. And you just put your head down and work.” (Heather

McKay, BLB). Others harbor more ambitious plans and hope to transform their diverse

group of Asian immigrants into a more functional and stronger pan-ethnic Asian

community. This is the anticipation of Tony Nguyen, “That’s why I’d like to someday start my own nonprofit organization for the youth…we need to see more things for them because they need to see there is still a future here.” It remains to be seen how the presence of Vietnamese organizations and an emphasis on youth development can bolster life and facilitate recovery in this small fishing community.

Biloxi, Mississippi

From Seafood Capital to Coastal Casinos

Sitting in her living room, Cathy Vu shakes her head as she realizes that nearly all the memories of her childhood she can recall occurred within the confines of 3 square miles in Biloxi East. “That’s incredible, I’m sure we were all over the place in Biloxi but we lived right down there” pointing her thumb in the general direction of the quiet houses along Howard Ave. Her father was a well-respected boat captain for many years and he raised his 10 children (adopted and biological) to be proud of their Vietnamese heritage. In the decades of living in South Mississippi the Vu family worked in the two primary industries that have cyclically predominated in the region, seafood and gaming. When they first moved to Biloxi, they worked in seafood processing and then in fishing. And later, as the casinos built offshore, some family members found work as valets and dealers. Over the years, Cathy’s siblings also branched out into owning small businesses and real estate. When the hurricane came, their family home was lifted from its foundation and nearly washed away. Rebuilding had been problematic for the entire family. Cathy recalls, “My father got really sick after Katrina. He was having health problems before, but everything that happened just made it worse. Then my sister’s business had some serious recovery issues and we had to make some changes, and mine was bad, too.” Various siblings saw massive reductions in their shrimping revenues and while some business had picked up since the oil spill, many were worried that cheap imported shrimp and national perceptions of tainted Gulf seafood may have permanently crippled their livelihoods, “What if

there is no future in seafood here anymore? I can’t believe that, but I just don’t know.” When the city of Biloxi incorporated into a township in 1838, just two decades after Mississippi became a state, the city began cultivating its reputation as the “Queen of the Watering Holes,” Attracted by the promise of cool Gulf breezes, denizens of Alabama and Louisiana built summer homes in order to escape the oppressive heat of Mobile and

New Orleans and several grand hotels opened in response to the demands of wealthy tourists and families (Schmidt 1995; Boudreaux 2011; Schmidt 2012). While the majority of these homes and resorts were built in Biloxi proper, many small cities began incorporating along the stretch of beach inbound from Louisiana such as Waveland, Bay

Saint Louis, Pass Christian, Long Beach, and the large city of Gulfport from the west.

And from Mobile, picturesque towns like, St. Martin, D’Iberville and Ocean Springs offered their comforts close to the water as well. Soon, Biloxi, along with the larger city of Gulfport, established a reputation as a recreational outpost where gracious structures such as the Magnolia Hotel and the now historic Biloxi House provided elegant amenities and fresh seafood (Boudreaux 2011).

It was this availability of seafood that became the foundation for a thriving local economy reliant upon seafood processing and extraction. Before we consider the entry of the Vietnamese into this region, it is intriguing to note that in Biloxi, the Vietnamese were not the first major group of immigrants to work closely with the seafood industry. In fact, many even settled into the same patterns of location and employment as those who came before them. Gutierrez (1984) describes how the Polish were the first to arrive during the last two decades of the 19th century. Biloxi’s small population of 1,540 during

1880 could not sustain the needs of the first cannery that opened in 1881. These first

workers resided in bunk houses manufactured by the canneries. Later on, they

constructed for themselves, make-shift sites that became known as “bohemian camps”

which awaited the arrival of the Polish every season. By the early 1900’s, Biloxi had

established several canneries and oyster dealers that required workers to work in their

land-locked plants as well as on boats (Hulsey 2000). French Cajuns from Louisiana,

Croats from Yugoslavia, Serbs and Slavonians increasingly settled along the Gulf Coast.

Over time, their numbers significantly increased the population of Biloxi and helped

generate the impetus for seafood capitalization (Sullivan and Powell 1984).

Two major events spurred on economic development. World War I, and later, the

failure of the sugar cane crop in Louisiana, both served as catalysts to catapult Biloxi’s

expansion for nearly six decades. Then, in succession, Italians, Irish, Germans, French-

Cajuns, Scotch and Slavic groups arrived to work in the seafood processing industry and

settled in the water-edged points of Biloxi known as Point Cadet and the Back Bay. By

the time the Vietnamese arrived in the late 1970s, they were traveling a well-worn path living in the very same Point Cadet and Back Bay areas of the former Bohemian camps first established by the Poles. Very quickly, businesses, shops, restaurants, and commercial services established by the Vietnamese for their community became available. Cultural foods, goods and amenities became available in noodle shops, convenience stores, and retail shops. Today, these stores as well as larger grocery markets continue to exist in Biloxi east.

Residents observe that while the city continues to celebrate and preserve the heritage of Poles, Slavonians and French Cajuns, there does not seem to be as much inclusion of the Vietnamese in Biloxi. This marginalization is not lost on Vietnamese

locals, yet does not seem entirely upsetting either. One resident talked about the

difference between her experience of living in Biloxi and what she perceives as the

experience of previous generations of immigrants:

Around here you have the fishermen, who their family have been fishing for generations, and they can be Polish or from European countries and they still are very proud of being from that country…but when you are Vietnamese you cannot stop being Vietnamese because you look like this, but now you can be a white fishermen and be proud too of that history, and that culture. I mean, I am proud to be Vietnamese but it’s always with me, I don’t need to start a club to celebrate it. Theresa Vu, Biloxi

This statement refers to the various culture and social clubs that had been popular

for Slovenian immigrants and their descendants since the 1880s. Biloxi’s Slavonian

Lodge, which was built in 1938, destroyed by Katrina in 2005, and rebuilt again in 2010.

The lodge has proven to be a popular venue for Vietnamese weddings. Over time,

European immigrants shed their language and everyday rituals so that generations later,

whatever ethnicity that is invoked becomes largely symbolic. This process is ideally

explicated by classical assimilation theory and fulfills an ideologically pure impression of

assimilation in which immigrants arrive, become “Americanized” and may selectively (or symbolically) celebrate their ethnic heritages (Gans 1979). Theresa is expressing from her own experience, an alternative reality that challenges the classical model---the plight of “otherness”. Asians are a “racialized” group that due to the discrimination from the mainstream majority, cannot count on the progression of time and the natural pull of assimilation to fully integrate them (Portes and Rumbaut 2001).

Currently, the number of people who identify themselves as Vietnamese or of

Vietnamese descent in Mississippi is estimated to be 7,025 (2010 Census), making them the largest Asian subgroup by far (Asian Indian: 5,494; Chinese 4,474). In context,

Biloxi’s 44,000 residents combined with Gulfport’s population of nearly 68,000 constitute the Gulfport-Biloxi Metropolitan Statistical Area—the largest MSA in Mississippi. Prior to the storm, the 2000 census reported a population of 5,387 Vietnamese residents with the most concentrated communities located in the Southern Mississippi areas of Biloxi,

D’Iberville, and Gulfport, (see Table 1 below).

TABLE 1: Major Areas of Settlement in Southern Mississippi of Vietnamese 1980 1990 2000 2010 Biloxi 472 1,936 1,707 1.034

D’Iberville 89 126 432 609

Gulfport 0 109 258 297

Ocean Springs 158 212 215 255

Pass Christian 12 269 193 156

Long Beach 0 172 171 172

St. Martin Not Reported 131 355 607

Pascagoula 35 94 116 *

Waveland 0 29 65 *

Gautier 0 28 74 121

Bay St. Louis 9 10 23 140

TOTAL in Mississippi 1,477 3,815 5,387 7,025

TOTAL in United 231,120 617,747 1,212,465 1,548,449 States United States decennial Census figures for the domestic population of Vietnamese in Mississippi

Thus, the Vietnamese in Southern Mississippi differ than the community in Bayou la

Batre in that along the Mississippi Gulf coast, they are not as concentrated in one area but live all along the corridor of cities east and west of Biloxi. While we see that the neighborhood of East Biloxi is a historic economic enclave, it is also becoming less of a

cultural hub as Vietnamese have been settling away from the old quarters in favor of the

nearby towns.

However, in recent years, there has been a regression toward an emphasis on the

leisure, tourism, and most recently, the gaming industries. This latest development

toward gaming and related industries such as leisure and tourism serve as a reaction

against as trend of weakening of seafood revenues. Beginning in the late 1990s and

escalating annually, enormous quantities of cheap, quality shrimp from foreign countries

flooded the US market and drove the price of domestic shrimp to record low levels

(Cleveland 2003). As a result, American shrimping interests fell to less than 10% of the industry worldwide. Vietnamese shrimpers in Mississippi, who currently own an estimated three quarters of the fishing boats in the state, found that they were in direct competition with seafood powerhouses from China, South America and coincidently, the country of Vietnam (USDA, GAIN Report 2007). It was this decline in the shrimping and seafood industries that prompted the city to permit offshore gambling in 1991.

City official began to emphasize a cultivation of gaming, entertainment, and

tourism economies to diversify city revenues. The momentum prompted the construction

of 9 casinos built on floating barges near the shoreline by 2005. The location of the

casinos near downtown, Biloxi’s Back Bay and Point Cadet allowed for an encroachment

into neighborhoods heavily populated by the Vietnamese. Area residents found

themselves burdened with higher property rents, prices, and taxes; effectively rendering

land values prohibitively expensive (Le 2006). One resident, Cathy Vu related to me that

her Vietnamese neighbors initially met the building of casinos with overall enthusiasm,

“There were a lot of rumors that the casinos were going to take over and bring a lot of

jobs into the city. It was a good thing too because it seemed to be something to do, and

the old folks thought it was a really great idea.”

In the midst of this economic transition Katrina brought great uncertainty. In East

Biloxi, there are nearly 8,500 residents of which roughly 20% or 2,000 are ethnic

Vietnamese. As noted earlier, a cluster of several Vietnamese families lived in the spot

known as the Back Bay, just at the tip of a peninsula that jutted into the rush of a 30 foot

storm surge (Lewis 2006). These neighborhoods border the shoreline near six different

casinos along US Hwy 90. Some of these casinos, as noted earlier, had been built

offshore in 1991 but have moved inland after Katrina when the city allowed the

construction of land-locked gambling. The major streets for residents and retail business

are located on the Oak Street, Division Street, and Howard Avenue as well as the

numbered streets of 3rd through 9th.

Post-Katrina assessments regard East Biloxi as severely damaged with the majority of commercial properties and 80% of the housing stocks are considered uninhabitable17. Residents hold a wide variety of reactions to the latest round of

revolving industries. One resident offers what seems to be a philosophical interpretation

that seems fatalistic and optimistic simultaneously:

That is just life, when you have a disaster like this, it happens all the time, and even though it was very bad, you don’t have a choice. Sometimes you are very lucky and you have everybody, you have your family, and other times you don’t get to be so lucky. But bad things happen all the time…we were in the camps in Malaysia before I ever came down here and it was so

17 City of Biloxi, Katrina Statistics, [www.biloxi.ms.us/katrinastats.html], March 2006.

scary because you never knew what was going to happen. At least here you know you can rebuild because it’s easier in the US than in Vietnam. Anh Nguyen Leong, Biloxi

This type of fatalism, especially in context of the Biloxi Vietnamese community, has been deftly analyzed by Park, Miller and Van (2010) as a misconstrued interpretation of the Asian pragmatism that equates fatalism with a culture of passivity. They note that

“in our view, this is a reductionist analysis, reflective of the universalizing tendencies of

Western psychological models, (92). Multiple interviews of Biloxi residents offer a complex view of this community which seems to split its history along racial and ethnic lines, but also can be seen through successive economic chapters (first seafood, then to leisure, seafood, and back to leisure and tourism). This study will explore how the Biloxi

Vietnamese grapple with changes within their community and in comparison to their neighbors in Bayou La Batre and New Orleans.

New Orleans, Louisiana

A Small Village Casts a Long Shadow

Minnie Huynh sat in the kitchen of her parents’ home in New Orleans East and watched her mother methodically sort packages of dried shrimp into plastic bags, rolling them tightly into a cooler. That morning she watched the televised press conference where Ray Nagin the mayor, surrounded by a cadre of grim-looking officials, announced that there would be a mandatory city-wide evacuation. Katrina had just attained the frightening category 5 status and an agitated Minnie just wanted to tell her mother to forget the food and hurry. “I knew it was dead serious, I was so scared.” Instead, her mother was carefully inventorying ingredients to make her staple Vietnamese recipes, pondering potential menus during their evacuation to Houston. “There was this big picture of this hurricane just spinning right into us; they played it over and over again.” Yet her parents, who lived by themselves in the family home since Minnie and her sisters moved to the West Bank years ago, seemed impervious to the panic that was mounting in the city at large. They would only evacuate because most of their neighbors were going, and some of those neighbors were leaving only because they had attended Saturday mass the previous evening at the Mary Queen of Vietnam church when the priest announced everyone should go. Living in Louisiana nearly all of her life

she could understand the inclination to ride out the storm, but it was frustrating how her parent’s indifference isolated them from the “American” world beyond Versailles. Now, her mother was wrapping delicate strands of lemon grass into paper towels and all Minnie could do was worry and wait.

The population of Vietnamese for the New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area

(MSA) indicates a remarkable growth and has been a trend for every decennial census since 1980. Total populations from 1980 at 7,751 (1980) doubled two decades later at

14,868 (2000). In 2010, the decrease in the region’s MSA’s Vietnamese population to

5,994 reflects a post-Katrina dip of nearly 40 percent. Yet this remains a sizable concentration of Vietnamese residents outside of the two largest majorities of 581,946

California and 210,913 in Texas which together, comprise nearly 51 percent of the total

2010 U.S. Vietnamese population of 1,548449. Given that a significant number of research studies have focused on the “New Orleans Vietnamese,” it is important to specify the demographic, geographic and spatial parameters that delineate this community.

Located 12 miles from the New Orleans central business district, the concentration is due to the fact that most residents of the Versailles ethnic-Vietnamese community center around three developed areas: Versailles Arms, Versailles Gardens and

Village Lest (Airriess 2006). Despite the total population size, the “Village called

Versailles” is generally recognized as the neighboring Census tracks of 17.41 and 17.42.

Together, the proportion of ethnic Vietnamese report 280 and 3,642 respectively. This indicates that the majority, over 65 percent of the Vietnamese in the New Orleans MSA reside in New Orleans East. However, it is important to note the multi-ethnic nature of this community. During the 1960s, sizable tracts of Eastern New Orleans became developed as suburban residential neighborhoods for white professionals. In the 1980s, these neighborhoods saw some deterioration with the development and subsequent

78 requisitioning of apartment buildings into lower income housing. Over time, black middle class families populated the subdivisions and New Orleans East then became an amicable co-residency of African American and Vietnamese residents.

Christopher Airriess and co-researchers have periodically revisited this enclave since 1994 and in their various studies of the agricultural, economic and geographic terrain of Versailles, write in manner that implies that the near totality of Vietnamese experience happens within New Orleans east. While this may have been the case that

Versailles was the favored locale for many ethnic Vietnamese from the middle 1970’s until roughly the early 1990’s, many Vietnamese have gravitated away. Residents like

Minnie Huynh reflect on the push toward the outlying communities of New Orleans as an inevitable and natural progression for many families as they strive to balance closeness to the houses they grew up in, and a drive toward a different suburban milieu: “It is important to live near my parents because it wouldn’t be right to be so far away, but when we got engaged and wanted to start a family, it was better to live in Gretna. I like that its small but close to everything—and I see my parents all the time.” But despite her relocation away from Versailles, she kept in constant contact with her family and felt even closer to them when Katrina destroyed her parents’ home.

In fact, the degree of damage was extensive for Vietnamese property and residences in the east. A Housing Unit Damage Estimate Report, compiled by the City of

New Orleans in February 2006, reported that there were 1,781 home owners in the

Village Lest area, of these homes, 1,585 (89%) of which were evaluated as “severely damaged or destroyed.” As well, a portion of these owners, 37% report possessing only hazard or no insurance at all. In Biloxi, in an area located on the East side, Le (2006)

79 estimates that, “over 60% of the East Biloxi households inside the flood zone do not have flood insurance. In many cases for Vietnamese Americans, their mortgages were already paid off and their insurance companies had not advised them to retain flood insurance”

(13). This area, along with Plaquemines Parish, is among the largest swaths of the city where flood waters drained the most slowly after the Katrina made landfall (Leong,

Airriess, Li, Chen and Keith 2007). Almost immediately, national press coverage spotlighted the Catholic church’s orchestration of recovery in the Versailles neighborhood. Soon after, articles such as those by the New York Times evoked powerful tropes of immigrant community cohesiveness:

The Mary Queen of Vietnam Roman Catholic Church, abandoned just a few weeks ago in the deluge, is now bustling with neighborhood groups planning home repairs and giving out tetanus shots. The stage where the Vietnamese residents of this city celebrated Chinese New Year has been transformed, now covered with tables laden with free hot lunches and emergency housing applications…[this] could serve as a model for other areas trying to reconstitute themselves after Hurricane Katrina, the Vietnamese residents have slowly started to re-knit their neighborhood. They say the preservation of their traditions explains why their ties, stretched during the upheaval of the hurricane, did not break (Hauser 2005).

Five months after the storm, a national waste disposal company reopened a municipal landfill within 2 miles of the Village Lest homes. Issued by Mayor Ray Nagin, the 100-acre landfill would hold 2.6 million tons and border the Chef Menteur highway

(Eaton 2006a; 2006b, Schwinn 2006). Despite assurances from the Louisiana Fish and

Wildlife Services and the Army Corps of Engineers that the landfill was both safe and necessary, NOLA East residents wondered whether the moldering site posed a toxic risk

(Choi, Bhatt, and Chen, 2006). The Vietnamese then went on the offensive and partnered with a coalition of scientists, national environmental agencies, and city council members

80 to effectively shut down the landfill on August 15th 2006---many people took this activity as a promising sign of social mobilization in an otherwise quiet community (Lee 2010).

In 2009, Leo Chiang’s documentary film A Village Called Versailles is released and follows the landfill closure movement associated with the Mary Queen Church.

Several participants in all three communities cite the film as a crystallization of their views about Versailles. While they had always believed their community was as a unique one with strong cultural anchors, it was through the documentary that they had a touchstone to articulate these feelings. Jasmine Xuan Li, who was a high school junior at the time of the landfill protests, recalls her astonishment and admiration when she saw how her parents became intimately involved in the protest campaign.

JXL: It was really weird but amazing how my mom and dad really got into it. They talked about how important it was to get involved and that this is something they wanted me to see.

V: What was so weird about it?

JXL: It just surprised me because all my life they were always saying how we should mind our business, we should not get involved in politics because it was pointless…in Vietnam you didn’t get involved in politics.

V: So they were at city hall and riding the bus there and all that?

JXL: Yeah! They made signs and helped organize people and there was this feeling like we had to be a part of it and it was people you knew from the neighborhood too. And later when we watched the documentary together at the screening I felt so proud to see my mom cry because she was watching her friends on the screen and it was our story.

For Jasmine, A Village Called Versailles was a representation of her family and her community that she had always held, but had never seen properly expressed before.

Many Vietnamese participants would later cite this film as a shorthand for an idealized

Vietnamese community, even among those who lived elsewhere and who did not

experience the landfill movement firsthand. No one expressed resentment that there was

less coverage for their own communities, but rather, like Tai Ly, a community organizer

in Biloxi noted,

“I saw that little documentary, A Village called Versailles and I only lived an hour away but I didn’t know all that possible, all that was going on, how people united and stood up for what they believed in. It made me want to do community work because I saw how the community got together and I wanted to see that here too.”

Thus, the New Orleans Vietnamese, despite their geographically isolated position, seem

to take on the status of disaster survivors for all Vietnamese living along the Gulf Coast.

New Orleans then, in comparison to Biloxi and Bayou La Batre, possesses the following

characteristics: 1) Greater overall population size, 2) Larger metropolitan statistical area,

3) More expansive media coverage, and finally 4) More robust and diverse economic

industries.

Yet, in the 9 years since Katrina, there has been a resurgence of chronic social ills

that had long existed in prior to 2005. High crime rates, drug use, teen pregnancy,

violence and the lack of safe public spaces. And now, in post-Katrina Versailles, there are

a plethora of post-disaster issues like illegal dumping, lack of amenities, limited access to health services, and educational controversies concerning charter schools. One interviewee provides insight into the uneven progress of New Orleans east recovery.

GH: There are pockets of vast improvement, and pockets of no change or no improvement. It seems like that the organizations like VIET and VAYLA and others are stronger, but um, the businesses in the east have not made a dramatic increase. There's still no hospital, there's still no like, we can't go out and find a coffee shop within 6 miles. So that's coming back real slow…in some ways, it’s worse that it was. More dumping, more trash, less street lights. That’s a noticeable thing, less police visibility these days now.

Another community member, Jackie Dinh, further emphasizes the persistent

deterioration of the neighborhood but takes care to point out that the look of the

community should be considered rather pleasing given the shocking condition of the neighborhood just after the storm.

JD: My cousin had a, almost, a mountain of garbage. It looked like a hill right outside his house. We got a haul-away for that but it was so high, just full of nails and boards. It was like that in a lot of places, just piles of people’s garbage.

V: Sounds so awful. And so, what did you see like, just walking around the neighborhood?

JD: Trash. You know how it’s just broken pieces of everything in your house all put together in these piles. So now you can’t see it anymore, but the trees and the grass were all brown and dead. It’s not so pretty now, but at least it’s gone. And some of the green you can see again, and they took away everything so that’s a lot better.

These two interviewees highlight one of the main tensions still plaguing New Orleans

East—that the early momentum of post-disaster recovery coupled with the successful bid to protect their community against a landfill has stalled. Currently, it remains to be seen how residents will ultimately benefit.

This is not only true for the Vietnamese but for other neighborhoods such as

Gentilly and the Lower 9thWard. In these places, residents had long claimed that city officials willfully neglected their eastern neighborhoods when developing rebuilding plans (Corely 2006; Howell and Vinturella 2006; Robertson 2010). And, over time, blight and the perceptions of high crime rates and poor police protections have taken their toll on the community’s morale (Clark 2012). In the next chapters, we will see how powerful new nonprofits such as VIET, VAYLA, and MQVN-CDC have facilitated their

83 community’s recovery. It remains to be seen whether the New Orleans Versailles community will be able to fulfill its potential and capitalize on its initial momentum.

CHAPTER 3: THE PIONEERING PHASE

The Move Toward Institutionalization in the Gulf Coast

“Oh, no, no--- there were no organizations, but if you were for example, Catholic, there would be a parish council. And if for example there was a funeral for one of the parishioners, well, the parish council would be responsible for trying to get donations to give to this family that recently lost a loved one, to help pay for the funeral costs. That's one thing they did, but there was no organization.”

Bich Hong Nguyen, Biloxi

“You have the church. What else do you need?” Lam Vu, New Orleans

New Vietnamese Nonprofits Post-Katrina

So, what do we do now? In large part, this was the question most Vietnamese asked one another in the bewildering days after Hurricane Katrina. Many expressed a strange mixture of survivor’s exhilaration and numbed shock. One resident, Derek Ngo, remembered picking through rubble of his home (which had been cleaved in half, and deposited on two different city blocks) and marveled at how the damage seemed fantastically unreal, “like a movie.”18 But reality quickly set in as he and others pondered their future. One of the earliest conclusions they came to was that the recovery should be a cooperative effort, rather than a divided or individual endeavor. Disaster researchers have long observed that, contrary to popular belief, most communities do not descend into abject lawlessness or Durkheimian anomie in the wake of a crisis. In the majority of cases, people pool resources and often achieve a level of fellowship that had not been the norm previously.

18 Three different interviewees uttered this particular comparison in their interviews, although this figure of speech describing natural disaster as “unreal” or like a “movie” may be somewhat commonplace in the parlance of figurative speech.

In the case of Katrina, Vietnamese residents found themselves working with a new sense of intimacy. Derek Ngo recounted how he helped an older gentleman who lived down his street with clearing the man’s yard and learned more about him than he had ever known, “He was saying he had a son and telling all these stories…I had no idea he even had children. All these years, I would see him, but I didn’t even know the basics.” Derek goes on to note that if it hadn’t been for Katrina upending and fracturing the very foundations of their street, he likely would have never achieved even this rudimentary level of knowledge about his neighbors. The false belief that crisis creates separation within communities and propels people into social disarray is attributed to a set of beliefs framed as disaster mythology.

This notion is first articulated by Wenger, Dykes, Sebok and Neff (1975) and later, by others (Fischer 2008, 1994, 1988; Drabek 1986; Wenger 1985) and argues that the natural thing to happen after crisis is the collaborative return to order rather than a descent into chaos. For the vast majority of weather-related emergencies in history, the aftermath is often calm, civilized and draws upon a community’s most humane instincts

(Solnit 2009). Fischer explains that these altruistic impulses are “an emergent norm process that occurs resulting in the adoption of those behavioral guides that subscribe to the belief, or value, that humans in trouble must be helped…Survivors share their tools, their food, equipment and most especially their time” (2008:71). Research in New

Orleans provides strong evidence that following Katrina, there was a rise of pro-social and self-sacrificing behaviors (Rodriguez, Trainor, and Quarantelli 2006).

With this cooperative spirit, and within weeks of Katrina, Gulf Coast Vietnamese communities began the slow work of recovering their neighborhoods. Residents

86 eventually came together around the idea of organizing around the shared tasks of not only clean-up, but what eventually emerged was a long-term vision of recovery. Prior to that time, most Vietnamese relied on their family, friends, and informal networks to find supplies, share information about FEMA, puzzle over insurance claims, and generally labor through daily tasks.

Naturally, this is a process that non-Vietnamese communities all over the city had been engaged in as well. But the notion of actually establishing formal channels of organizing rather than solely depending on informal networks began to take hold. Formal channels, they reasoned, could provide concrete, structured, and more expert forms of information; they could also streamline community mobilization, and address specific

Vietnamese needs such as language access. Thus, creating formal organizations to provide culturally competent services became increasingly attractive.

This was not a new idea. Many Vietnamese residents in the Gulf Coast had long suspected that their region was something of an organizational backwater. One interviewee described the paucity of community mobilization as comprised of equal parts disinterest and ignorance. Elizabeth Tran, a director of a small nonprofit located in New

Orleans’ West Bank wryly observes that: “It’s such a foreign concept to us to all get together and sit in an office and fill out forms, and besides, who’s going to do the work?”

Those living in southern Alabama and Mississippi saw the empty landscape of ethnic organizing as merely a badge of living in an area where there wasn’t much organizing for anyone, much less for an immigrant community. And, in fact, some residents described a slow but steady fragmentation of their communities as younger generations left for better

occupational and social prospects in larger cities, thus dimming the possibility of the new

generation taking on local civic engagement.

Given these pre-existing apathies--what set off the quantum leap of organization-

building post-Katrina? Two major ingredients for this burst of nonprofit organizing

include the influx of volunteers from across the country, and an increase in recovery

grants and non-profit funding streams (Report to Congress/Committee on Transportation

and Infrastructure 2010). In essence, after crisis, Gulf Coast Vietnamese residents saw the

opportunity to raise the profile of their communities in order to address chronic, pre-

existing community needs within the larger disaster recovery narrative of a troubled Gulf

Coast. They did this through the development and support of new and existing

community organizations.

Vietnamese Organizations Moving Toward Institutionalization

This section describes how one national Vietnamese organization, Boat People

S.O.S., (BPSOS) became established in the Gulf Coast post-Katrina by first opening one office in Biloxi in 2005, and then later in Bayou LA Batre, after the oil spill of 2010. One of the first things to note about BPSOS is that despite being one of the few high profile nonprofits for Vietnamese Americans in the US, it had only managed to open offices in

Mississippi and Alabama as of 2013, but could not infiltrate the most populous

Vietnamese community of Versailles in Louisiana.19 Given the proximity of already

existing BPSOS satellite offices in Houston and Atlanta, it would seem an ideal location

19 BPSOS’s Louisiana office is now located in Gretna, LA in a small shared office space since 2013. Attempts to reach this office have been inconsistent and office hours seem to be intermittent or redirected to the Mississippi office.

for a new office in Village Lest, yet the organization demonstrated marked difficulty in

infiltrating this prized concentration of Vietnamese residents.

A different national Vietnamese organization, NAVASA, (the National Alliance of Vietnamese American Service Agencies), also opened their offices in Biloxi East rather than New Orleans. In lieu of these two major entities, three small groups piloted by local leadership attained the most success in Versailles. First, the Mary Queen of

Vietnam Community Development Corporation (MQVN-CDC) emerged from MQVN’s church. Then, in rapid succession, the organization VIET (Vietnamese Initiatives in

Economic Training) grows exponentially after several years of operating out of a small office prior to 2005.

After Katrina, VIET expands their modest services into creating a much larger, more comprehensive offering of community programs. Finally in 2006, VAYLA, an organization that focuses on neighborhood youth and teen populations, founded by Minh

Nguyen, opened its doors for the community and has since found consistent success in fostering relationships with teens and young adults in Versailles. Outside of Versailles, the Southeast Asian Fisherfolk Association (SEAFA), and Coastal Communities

Consulting (CCC) chartered their organizations with offices in New Orleans’s West

Bank. This regional preference for local groups in lieu of national nonprofits such as

BPSOS and NAVASA may point to how local power, authority, and leadership may play a central role in ethnic organizational development therefore providing an edge of advantage over national organizations. However, in Biloxi, despite the competition of

BPSOS and NAVASA, small upstart groups such as Asian Americans for Change

(AAC), and GC REACH also manage to create a presence. However, before we delve

into the interplay of local power vs. established entities, we will examine the specific case

of how BPSOS facilitated their presence in the Gulf by looking at a brief overview of

Vietnamese organizations in the United States.

From 1975 to Katrina: Vietnamese Organizations in the United States

BPSOS, founded in 1979, is one of the oldest community organizations

specifically serving the Vietnamese. They offer a variety of social services and the

organization itself emphasizes outreach, advocacy, and most recently, the crafting of

political and entrepreneurial networks. This platform stands somewhat in contrast to the

plethora of Vietnamese civic organizations that emphasize programs that mainly promote

Vietnamese heritage and cultural preservation. During the mid-1970s, BPSOS was little more than a small clutch of former refugees who helped to settle the masses of Southeast

Asian refugees fleeing from their collapsing countries. Like many of these early groups that were staffed by Vietnamese people, BPSOS began as a mutual assistance agency

(MAAs).

MAAs provide direct services to the growing second and third waves of new refugees living in larger cities. The logic of these agencies rests on the premise that ex-

refugees are a uniquely situated groups that are empowered to act as emissaries for new

arrivals into the US. Having lived the refugee experience themselves, MAA caseworkers

can ease the transition for refugees by acting as co-ethnic advocates, directing their settlement in a culturally competent manner. Their employment also creates an occupational niche within the MAA at the same time (Rutledge 1992). The exodus of

Vietnamese citizens following the fall of Saigon in April of 1975 is well documented and

90 need not be exhaustively recounted here, but many sources describe President Gerald

Ford’s commission of an interagency task force (IATF) to be the beginning of the United

States’ coordinated handling of the coming refugee emigration (Hein 1995).

The IATF was expressly charged with the evacuation and resettlement of over

200,000 Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians most vulnerable to communist prosecution due to their U.S. affiliations or sympathies (Rutledge 1992; Gold and Kibria

1993). Additionally, IATF coordinated first with the Pentagon for immediate evacuation and processing (one of the central images of the Vietnamese refugee experiences come from this time when thousands of Vietnamese were airlifted during a frenzied rush in helicopters and planes), and then eventually, they worked with one of nine voluntary agencies in the US to begin the incorporation process for this first wave of refugees (Hein

1995). As a group, this “first wave” of Vietnamese possessed higher levels of education, wealth, as well a history of political and professional affiliation with US companies and agencies (Zhou and Bankston 1998, Vo 2005).

The significant number of Vietnamese Roman Catholics prompted voluntary agencies (VOLAGS), such as the United States Catholic Conference, to become the logical choice for many refugees to partner with in order to oversee their settlement in the

United States. Thus, the first formal American outreach some Vietnamese refugees encountered were VOLAGS that strived to find them sponsors in cities across the United

States, often working in tandem with MAAs. MAAs offered the unique feature of being staffed by former refugees who were able to provide language proficient services. Later on, MAAs also proved to be especially useful to the increasingly motley crews of refugees arriving in the later 1970s and through the mid-1980s. In contrast to the 1975

91 cohort of Viet, the second wave of “boat people” refugees were so named because of their improvised use of fishing boats and other small craft as escape vessels.

These families were much more likely to be from rural regions, possess fewer years of education, and fewer resources with have almost no familiarity with Americans

(Le 2007). Upon arrival in the US, many required assistance for bewildering activities such as finding employment and enrolling children into schools, much less even the most mundane of activities such as grocery shopping, reading bus schedules, and navigating city streets (Rutledge 1999). Many Vietnamese found this time of cultural adjustment confusing at best, and emotionally devastating at worst (Vo 2005; Do, 1999; Pelaud

2011).

One 63-year-old interviewee, Lam Huu Quan recounted his earliest memories of settlement in the United States as a “very black time” alluding to the intense feelings of loss he had felt upon arriving in Virginia in 1982. “It was so cold, and I had never been so cold before! And my wife and family were not there. I feel bad all the time.” Quan credited the regular meetings with fellow new arrivals in an elementary school gymnasium (to learn English, find employment, socialize) as a vital step in obtaining equilibrium in a strange new place. Thus, MAAs became increasingly important not only in a social service capacity, but as a place for networking, commiseration, and mutual support.

In this way, the organizational mission of an MAA may be characterized as the intersection of public service goals (that is, ameliorating the dire straits of a suffering group of people) that meets with governmental goals (the efficient dispersal and settlement of refugees). Over time however, as refugees became acclimatized,

independent, and increasingly embedded within their communities, MAAs eventually

expanded their operations by articulating an agenda of social and political advocacy of

behalf of their clients. Rutledge (1992) notes that as MAAs became more established,

they took on more comprehensive missions such as political advocacy and educational

initiatives.

Eventually, some would take on broader geopolitical programs that centered on

their home country. These Vietnamese MAAs would “lobby their congressional representatives concerning refugee issues and matters germane to Southeast Asia”

(1992:57) thus, demonstrating the shift from social services to political advocacy. In this

way, we can see how the refugee experience comes full circle from vulnerability to

activism. The trend toward increasingly sophisticated organizational missions can be seen

in many Asian Americans organizations across the country, particularly for Chinese and

Japanese American community groups.

For example, wealthy, long-established civic organizations such as the Japanese

American Citizens League, established in 1929, initially addressed racism and

discrimination directed toward those of Japanese descent, but in recent years has

spotlighted heritage maintenance and cultural preservation (Spickard 2009). These newer

objectives directly result from the community’s perception that overtly racist and

xenophobic campaigns toward Japanese Americans is on the decline (www.jacl.org;

Pulido 2002). Thus, its original mission of political activism has expanded, prioritizing

forming coalitions with other Asian groups while attending to the needs of a growing

mixed-ancestry Japanese American community.

Interestingly, the population of mixed ancestry Japanese has increased to such a

number that the JACL must now look to heritage maintenance as a major objective—the

loss of Japanese culture in the US Japanese community has replaced Japanese American

activism as a primary mission. Therefore, it seems that the functions of an organization

depends largely on the needs of its community, and like JACL, BPSOS no longer

exclusively focuses on the concerns of a group made vulnerable through relocation or

xenophobia, but on matters of increasing institutional capacity. Today, contemporary

community-based organizations are increasingly defined by complex needs, issues, and

motivations that change over time (Tseng 2003; 2005).

In the four decades since 1975, many more community organizations that serve

some form of Vietnamese interest have become established. Using the nonprofit search

engine Guidestar.org, a general search for “Vietnamese” organizations, yields 844 results

with the majority describing religious or spiritual affiliation to Catholic, Baptist or

Buddhist groups. A listing of the top 15 Vietnamese organizations without religious

affiliations and reporting the largest revenues as recorded by tax returns filed in the

public record are as follows:

Table 2: Top Vietnamese Organizations by Revenue in the United States20 Organization City/State Income 1. Boat People SOS Falls Church, VA $9,252,228 2. Vietnamese Community of Santa Ana, CA $2,966,712 Orange County Inc. 3. Vietnamese Initiatives in New Orleans, LA $2,042,258 Economic Training* 4. Vietnamese Association of Chicago, IL $1,929,341 Illinois 5. Vietnamese American Dorchester, MA $1,922,431 Initiative for Development

20 Compiled by author using IRS Form 990s available on Guidestar nonprofits database on February 15 2010; www.guidestar.org

Inc. 6. VIET Heritage Society San Jose, CA $1,701,405 7. MQVN-CDC* New Orleans, LA $1,367,044 8. Vietnamese Mutual San Jose, CA $1,061,856 Assistance Fund 9. Vietnamese League of Garden Grove, CA $783,213 Orange County 10. Vietnamese Youth San Francisco, CA $700,063 Development Center 11. Vietnamese Voluntary San Jose, CA $570,722 Foundation 12. Asian Americans for Change* Ocean Springs, MS $363,622 13. Vietnamese American Young New Orleans, LA $331,492 Leaders of New Orleans* 14. National Alliance of Falls Church, VA $323,858 Vietnamese American Service Agencies 15. Vietnamese Culture and Houston, TX $305,289 Sciences Association 16. Maryland Vietnamese Mutual Silver, Spring, MD $178,239 Association Inc. Coastal Communities Consulting Gretna, LA $10,450

Southeast Asian Fisherfolks Gretna, LA $0 Association**

However, an accurate count of Vietnamese organizations in the US is complicated

by major hurdle in identifying these groups. First, the strict definition of a non-profit

organization requires the attainment of a 501(c3) tax exempt status. Only those groups that are recognized as 5013(c3) appear on databases, or have public records of their status. The tax exempt status therefore precludes the recognition of other forms of

Vietnamese groups as organizations. The vast majority of neighborhood Vietnamese

social clubs, local church groups, or associations that are loosely structured around an

already existing church or temple, for example, do not meet the formal, legal threshold to

be recognized as an organization. The result is that of having a great deal of “organized”

civic activity, often sheltered within an institution, but is not, in of itself, an organization.

Example of this may be a small league of Vietnamese elders who take it upon

themselves to organize a New Year, or Autumn Moon Festival. The community may

recognize them as a group, and donate small amounts to sponsor the event, but these

groups do not possess, nor do they aspire to, formalized fiscal measures, especially since

the monies required to run the groups are modest. These groups operating within their

communities and “staffed” by civic leaders operate with periodic fundraising projects,

and are funded by private donations, or informal membership drives. Ethnic churches

may properly file tax returns, and may also claim the majority of their parishioners are

Vietnamese descent, but may or may not encapsulate community service or development

programs, thus rendering the plethora of Vietnamese organizations confusing.

Currently, some organizational scholars have made efforts to develop typologies that categorize formal organizations (even as they caution that any framework attempting to create categories should be applied conservatively).21 For Asian American groups,

Chi-Kan Richard Hung (2007) has developed a functional typology for classifying ethnic

community based organizations (CBOs) by subdividing the groups by the purposes they

serve to the community:

1. Religious organizations are usually houses of worship that serve as social and spiritual hubs; these churches and temples plan activities that mainly serve their congregation.

2. Cultural organizations have an arts and heritage-enhancing purpose where the organizations aim to preserve the traditional and ethnic identities of the groups.

21 See Richard H. Hall (1998) Organizations: Structures, Processes, & Outcomes for additional discussion on types of organizations, typologies and their uses.

3. Service organizations address needs that are important to immigrant communities such as language access, employment, housing and education.

4. Public interest organizations are as diverse as private foundations, professional organizations, civic organizations, and advocacy groups with the shared goal of representing the immigrant voice on matters important to the constituency

Using Hung’s framework, we can see the evolution of BPSOS as they evolved from a Type 3 service organization during their early years to their current status of a hybrid 3 and 4 organization. They did this by focusing exclusively on at-sea rescues and settlement services in refugee camps in the middle to late 1970s. Then, by 1980, they opened their official headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia, where a growing Vietnamese population had settled close to the nation’s capital.

Today, BPSOS’s mission has taken on multiple advocacy and political platforms while still providing a plethora of basic social services. Currently, they are emphasizing the engagement of Vietnamese Americans with domestic political policy. This means taking on what were previously “boutique” or special causes that did not fit comfortably into a strict social services framework such as global social justice work, and human trafficking---thus transforming BPSOS into a hybrid entity that mixes the organization types of 222 plus 3 and then, 4 as Hung describes above.

Throughout the 1990s, BPSOS continued their expansion and currently operate 17

field offices, 5 of which have been opened in the past decade. Today it is one of the

oldest Vietnamese nonprofit community organizations still in existence, and in 2011

reported revenues exceeding 9 million dollars (Guidestar). In a message from Dr. Thanh,

22 While BPSOS contend they promote and preserve Vietnamese culture and does fit Hung’s category 2 type organization, there is a subgroup of cultural ethnic organization that focuses exclusively on the arts such as a Chinese opera company or Japanese drama troupe (Rosenstein and Brimer 2005).

97 the founder and Executive Director, BPSOS indicates exactly how the organization accentuates their work as a type 4 public interest CBO:

Our top priorities over the next ten years include mobilizing the entire Vietnamese American community around social justice issues such as business development, political empowerment, civic participation, and language access; engaging more talented and successful Vietnamese Americans to participate in community and public services; organizing Vietnamese communities via civic organizations, non-profits, trade associations, and professional institutions; and protecting the human rights of Vietnamese victims of persecution or modern-day slavery in Vietnam and overseas.23

Therefore, with their sizable budget and multiple branches that employ over 100 employees, BPSOS is arguably an organization that possesses the institutional capacity to influence Vietnamese citizens in the US. During one of his visits to the Biloxi BPSOS office in 2012, Dr. Thahn spoke at length about BPSOS’s campaign to help end human trafficking in Vietnam. While he gave data about the number of Vietnamese transported from Vietnam to the US for the purposes of forced labor and sexual trafficking. Thanh makes it clear that the campaign was designed to work extensively as a grassroots cause in Vietnam, with the purpose to raise action not among overseas Vietnamese, but rather, those in-country.

This demonstrates that BPSOS’s mission has expanded considerably over the years. While they had never worked extensively with domestic disaster relief, Thanh noted that there was “never a doubt we would be involved.” Their move into the Gulf

Coast was intuitively appropriate given their agenda for organizational expansion, and the dire need of the communities seemed to align perfectly. Yet, in the next section, we will

23 Message from Executive Director: http://www.bpsos.org/mainsite/about-us/message-from-the-executive- director.html#sthash.3pvDTVUa.dpuf accessed November 11, 2012

98 see that BPSOS’s entry into Biloxi and Bayou La Batre is met with a mixture of anticipation and excitement but also something akin to wariness and suspicion from residents. While Vietnamese locals acknowledged that their community was in dire need of services, those who worked for BPSOS observed the irregular consumption of such services and the sometimes puzzling reluctance of those who were clearly struggling to take advantage of opportunities to alleviate their financial and social stressors.

Community organizers also sought to create not only a semblance of professional ritual, but to also offer encouragement to fledgling groups as they struggled to lift community ventures off the ground. In several interviews with different community organizers, including those in important stakeholder positions, I have noted the earnest and enthusiastic endorsement of their organizational missions. The director of Asian

Americans for Change, Kaitlin Truong, once avowed at a public meeting being held at the Biloxi offices of the HOPE Community Development Association (HOPE CDA) that she wanted to take AAC “global.”24 Despite the fact that AAC was still a very young and untried organization, Kaitlin’s aspiration had led her to quickly gain the attention of

BPSOS’s director Dr. Thanh and fostered his a mentor-mentee relationship within a short period of time. This level of ambition was not atypical, and most workers within nearly every fledgling organization in this study that I’ve encountered expressed high hopes for their organization’s success. However, observers, such as Biloxi resident Hong Luong, were already expressing skepticism of her newly acquired role as community organizer:

V: So, who would you say is a community organizer? If I were to come into town and ask, ‘who is the leader?’ Who would you name?

24 Field note May 14th HOPE CDA, Biloxi, MS. Community meeting organized by several agencies, advocates, law firms and national non-profits to assess needs of fishing and shrimping communities.

HL: People who aren’t Vietnamese might say, "Oh it's Chi Thao, or, oh it's the priest, or its Thay Tri, or Kaitlin." Because they don’t know the scope of the Vietnamese community and how big it really is.

V: You mean there are lots of community leaders?

HL: No, that’s not what I meant; it’s more like we have people who are respected in the community, the older boat captains who have the big vessels. The families who have been here forever. But they don’t do stuff like fundraisers, they aren’t high profile. Like you would never see them on the news, they are just known, you know? Like, if you were out you know who they are because they make a lot of money, or have, or no, they don’t even need to be wealthy or anything, it’s just…

V: Like respected?

HL: Exactly, like you know they are a good family, and important one. But yeah, everyone knows Chi Thao though because she works with the United Way.

V: So they would point to those other people because they are more public, or more identifiable?

HL: Yeah, probably because they cross the racial divide. More so because they are bilingual and they work in non-profits or other public services. Like Kaitlin does the Health Fair and that was kind of like, I mean she was well known in the Vietnamese community long before that too, but now she does this.

V: And how has that worked out so far, you think?

HL: Mm, it’s kind of all over the place. It depends on the way people are, if they are willing to listen and their attitudes are right. There is only a small percentage of Vietnamese in that in-between age, you know, only the group of us. Danny, Chi Thao, Peter Nguyen, Kaitlin, you guys are the middle generation. And in a few years we may step up. But Kaitlin needs to help other organizations as well. If she wants those other organizations to help, she has to help them too.

V: So, like you mean she does not help? What do you need her to do?

HL: She is real independent, she has her family and they all do what they need to, but like she’ll work with only BPSOS, but not with anybody else.

100

V: Why don’t people say something to her? Before the reputation goes bad?

HL: But Vietnamese people feel like they don’t need to say anything to her. She should be grateful and not just care only about her organization. That’s what AAC is doing, she says it’s her family, and her responsibilities, but so does everybody else, they have families and things they have to do, but they make an effort. If she wakes up and nobody comes to her AAC events, then she should know why. You have to reciprocate. She has to be careful, once she abuses people's help. People will not help you.

From this brief excerpt we can glean several major points about the Vietnamese community in Biloxi, as well as the status of the local leadership. First, we are informed by Hong, who is a woman in her early 30s, that there appears to be two types of leadership within the community. These are the families who are established, well-known and well-regarded by others in the community, but do not appear to perform civic work in the classic manner. Whereas, those individuals she named are likely to be known in the community precisely for their civic work. This group “cross the racial divide” according to Hong because they share characteristics that bridge the cultural gap. All are in the early

30s to mid-40s, are fluently bilingual, have acquired at least a high school education or further in the United States. And most importantly, they move seamlessly between living and working within an otherwise insular Vietnamese community and performing the civic and voluntary work associated with non-Vietnamese nonprofits and community organizations.

Hong distinguishes between the two groups mot pointedly by noting that the former group are not the group doing fundraising and are “not public,” implying that community organizers like Kaitlyn are self-styled and are creating certain tensions within

101 the small but burgeoning organizational community. Here we have the first indicators that there is a disconnect between the Kaitlyn’s attempts to establish her organization and the apparent competitiveness of others. The fact that this observation is made only 5 years after Katrina, indicate the rapid acceleration of community mobilization as well as its accompanying troubles.

BPSOS and The Push Toward Institutionalization

During the summer of 2011, I attended BPSOS’s first annual National Summit of

Vietnamese American Leaders in Washington D.C. That previous spring I received a mass-email from the main office in Virginia that highlighted the event and later, a personal invitation from the Biloxi office and its director George Pham, who I had interviewed the previous year. By 2011, I had become a regular fixture among the Biloxi

Vietnamese community through volunteer activities and event participation. Becoming a familiar presence at these offices enabled me to receive updates on the activities of the local branch of BPSOS--the “Biloxi Branch,” and was on good terms with staff and clients, sometimes going to lunch with staff members from BPSOS or with NAVASA

(whose office was located next door on Howard Avenue). Being included in this BPSOS

Summit invitation became a prime opportunity to observe the workings of a Vietnamese organization at the national level.

Frankly, I was intrigued by the rather exalted wording of the invitation. The invitation enthusiastically asked attendees to “take part in a movement to change the dynamics of our community, elevate its levels of being and performance, and lay the

102

foundation for progress for generations to come.25” The soaring phrases struck me as

somewhat incongruous to the day-to-day operations of BPSOS, which focused on much needed, but certainly routine, community programs such as English classes, computer literacy for senior citizen, or assistance with citizenship/naturalization paperwork.

Specialty programs that focused on home foreclosure assistance or a grant-funded micro- lending program were also promoted for a time, and particularly addressed the needs of the Vietnamese community after the financial crisis of 2008. But the exhortation to

“elevate its levels of being and performance” struck me as an agenda that was simultaneously ambitious and vague. It exemplified what the Director, Dr. Thahn Nguyen

(known colloquially within the Vietnamese community as simply “Dr. Thanh”) had told me was BPSOS’s concerted effort to “institutionalize.”26

From 2009 until 2012, I conducted interviews and field work with the staff and

volunteers of BPSOS in Biloxi and Bayou La Batre. During this time, I also volunteered

to either assist with or attend community events either directly sponsored by BPSOS

(such as carnivals, food drives, and cultural event fairs), or occurred in partnership with

various other community organizations. During these years I met numerous community

organizers from the various regional BPSOS branches, as well as assorted groups of

affiliate community organizers and many others. I observed that members of the

organization were often young (interns and caseworkers ranged from early to late 20s),

vibrant, enthusiastic and idealistic. While some workers were attending college or had

obtained a bachelor’s degree, many of those I met had never attended and nor harbored

plans for college, but most possessed intimate knowledge of the Vietnamese community

25 http://www.bpsos.org/mainsite/media-room/press-releases/39-national/64-first-national-leadership- summit-sets-new-direction-for-vietnamese-american-community.html 26 From field note August 21st 2009.

103 and all were bilingual. This last feature was a particular point of pride for the regional

Director of the Biloxi BPSOS office, George Pham who pointed out that, “People see we are from here, or are living around here, and that is important because this means people really know us.”

Thus, during these three years of field work, community participation, and interaction with staff members, clients and community residents, I observed how BPSOS strived for increasingly professional polish in the local leadership they employed from the community. The following field note was taken during a leadership workshop given by

BPSOS in July of 2012, and which illustrates the high value given to increasing organizational professionalism.

Field note: They had rearranged all the student desks in the back room to four rows…and pushed all the mismatched tables and molded plastic kiddie chairs against the wall. The room was dark except for the screensaver screens on the desktops and the projector screen (which I had never seen before—is it new?). Neatly laid on each table was a spiral notebook, a pen, an agenda, and printed hand-out of the power-point presentation. Just last week this room was full of kids…doing crafts with Heather, there was white glue, magic markers and paper confetti everywhere. The room was very sedate and clean now.

…Everyone had arrived dressed in professional clothes. I felt immediately self-conscious in my jeans and casual top---basically the same kind of outfit I had worn every single time I visited, and the staff wears pretty much the same thing to the office except for some khaki thrown in once in a while. Seeing them in button down shirts and blazers is disconcerting.

…I asked Dave how often they had done this form of professional development with guest speakers (live and via Skype), an agenda that included phrases like “develop outreach platforms” Dave admitted this was something they would do, but seemed sheepish as he said this. Perhaps this was something new to him.

This emphasis on professionalization was also shared by other new Vietnamese upstart groups as well. New organizations across the Gulf such as Asian Americans for

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Change, Coastal Communities Consulting (CCC in New Orleans), and MQVN-CDC recognized from the beginning the importance of organizational identity, professional imaging, and well-crafted mission statements. Specifically, we will see how Gulf Coast

Vietnamese organizations struggled to navigate the unfamiliar terrain of organizational branding while building institutional capacity. In the highly competitive world of nonprofit organizing, Vietnamese organizations endeavored to gain legitimacy by engaging in two major objectives. First, they implemented practices that contributed to the organization becoming increasingly professional, bureaucratic and/or administrative.

And secondly, they developed leadership training in the form of soft skills and community outreach. The first strategy is exemplified in the creation and implementation of a program launched in the Summer of 2011 during the aforementioned leadership summit: The 500 Leaders in 5 Years initiative.

The 500 Leaders in 5 Years Program

The evening prior to the first day of the National Leadership Summit, I attended a happy hour event not far from the Capitol Hilton Hotel where the 2 day event was taking place. Mingling at the bar, and not seeing anyone I recognized, I felt somewhat awkward.

Eventually, I ended up striking up a conversation with Carol Li, a conference attendee from Texas. At one point, more out of a motivation to continue with our small talk than a premeditated curiosity, I asked her “Why is this a summit?” She looked at me quizzically,

“What do you mean?” I explained that I was struck by the term itself, and that the official name of the event was a summit, and that while I had attended professional conferences and meetings before, I had never, to the best of my recall, ever attended a summit. I

105 wondered how the structure or purpose of such an event differed from other types of professional gatherings. We both looked at each other blankly, but could only agree that the term “summit” seemed a more sophisticated term than merely “meeting” or

“conference,” yet we were both at a loss as to how the program (complete with key note speakers, workshops, gala dinner and other conference-style trappings) constituted a summit.

In a humorous bid to join our conversation, a fellow conference attendee from Los

Angeles, who had been standing near the bar and close to our small circle, deftly produced his cell phone and quickly tapped out a Google search for the dictionary definition of summit. After fumbling through several entries such as, “the highest level of ground, on top of a hill or mountain,” we settled on what seemed the most applicable, “a meeting of high level leaders in order to shape a program.” I recall that we gently kidded one another as to whether the group of us deserved such a dignified designation but it did seem to set the conference’s tone for the next two days. However, I did not fully appreciate how apropos this definition was until the next morning, when it was revealed how the characterization of the conference would perfectly align with the elevated narrative and mission of BPSOS.

The following morning I mingled over breakfast with fellow attendees who seemed mostly culled from the ranks of different BPSOS offices. Additional participants were individuals from community partnerships and coalitions. I found that BPSOS appeared quite successful in cultivating alliances with many Vietnamese and non-

Vietnamese organizations over the years. For general attendees, there appeared to be a motley assortment of Vietnamese entrepreneurs, self-styled motivational speakers,

106 graduate students (such as myself), Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese academics, non-

Vietnamese community organizers, program officers, political aides, Vietnamese small business owners, and many service agency representatives. Attendees sported a mixture of corporate conference attire such as business suits, plastic affiliation lanyards, and free tote bags while others wore business casual outfits.

There was also the pleasing sight of several ladies wearing colorful silk ao-dais with elaborate floral motifs, bold geometric patterns, and bright bursts of color. There also seemed to be an even distribution among young, middle-aged and older participants who were speaking both Vietnamese and English in a pleasant cacophony that permeated the meeting rooms and public spaces. I noted the pleasure that many attendees greeted one another as if they were familiar colleagues but realized that some were meeting for the first time. I had never observed at any other conference this type of warm familiarity and easy camaraderie---especially among those who had no relationship prior to meeting for the first time that day. Perhaps it was the shared language and ethnic space where everyone acknowledged that “being Vietnamese” could be taken for granted. I find myself often being greeted by those I do not know in a casual and friendly manner and quickly felt relaxed despite the formality of the occasion.

The structure of the conference revolved around shepherding attendees around three central “tracks” of educational workshops held in different meeting rooms: (1) social development and community organizing, (2) economic and entrepreneurial initiatives, and (3) political empowerment. After opening remarks from Director Thanh and several special guests, attendees were allowed to circulate among the several workshops dedicated to each track. One could, for example, attend a talk on minority

107 business development on the economic track, and then sample a seminar that discussed voter mobilization hosted within the political empowerment track. The organizers for the political empowerment track had also announced their intention to launch a Political

Action Committee, (PAC), complete with initiatives to “identify, cultivate and fundraise” for future Vietnamese politicians. Despite my interest in the political empowerment track and its burgeoning PAC, I considered that the economic track, with its roster of “business and community leaders” held better prospects for understanding how ethnic economies may potentially become sites for mobilization. Research has also indicated the potential for immigrants to deploy their business networks into increasingly larger-scale enterprises (Kaplin and Li 2006).

Scanning the program, I settled on attending a session called “Moving beyond the

Mom-and-Pop Economy: Building Long-Term Capacity for Your Business” in the morning, and then sampling the other two tracks throughout the early afternoon. As I entered an attractive conference room with chandeliers and soft rugs, I noted that there was a palatable excitement. Dr. Thahn began his opening remarks to rousing applause and announced the programmatic centerpiece of the conference—a leadership development initiative within the communities being served by BPSOS. Over the course of 5 years, individual BPSOS offices will engage in a comprehensive outreach and training program aimed at the recruitment of hundreds of individuals to become community leaders: The 500 in 5 Years Leadership Initiative. In his 30 minute speech,

Dr. Thanh outlines the systematic strategies for recruiting and training Vietnamese

Americans with three objectives in mind: ”1) develop the mind of a strategist, 2) develop competencies in managing resources and projects, and 3) develop skills critical for

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success such as decision making, social networking, effective communication, conflict

resolution, problem solving, negotiation, advocacy etc.”27 An extended mission statement

included in the materials describes the ideal type of leader as well as the skills required

for carrying out a large social justice and cultural mobilization programs:

‘Leaders’ are defined as individuals with the capability of finding solutions to social issues. Aspiring leaders in that category must develop the mind of a strategist, know how to marshal and grow resources, and build a self-perpetuating mechanism and infrastructure to sustain the efforts until fruition. Most leadership training programs generally train participants on skills and competencies of a tactical nature. Such skills and competencies are necessary to carry out tasks and implement programs but not sufficient to address systemic issues faced by the Vietnamese American community. The 500 in 5 Years: Mobilizing Compassionate, Ethical, Effective Vietnamese Leaders of the Future not only trains participants in skills and competencies, but, more importantly, also trains them in attitude, perspective, and way of thinking. It will be officially launched at BPSOS’ National Leadership Summit on July 2, 2011. (http://www.bpsos.org/mainsite/)

Several participants address leadership directly or indirectly in regards to

community organizations. Employees of BPSOS uniformly cite the unique opportunity

offered by their work to be engaged in meaningful service to their community. Further,

they believe that their association with BPSOS not only offers them a space to perform

consequential work, but the opportunity to work in the field of social services at all. This

is not surprising given the weak occupational landscape of Mississippi and Alabama for

nonprofit and social service industries, much less work that could deploy their unique

cultural knowledge of being Vietnamese. Louis Tran, who holds a high school diploma,

and whose family owns a small home-gifts and silk floral arrangements store in Mobile,

AL, acknowledged that the professional prospects for bilingual local residents such as himself were limited:

27 From field note taken July 2nd, 2011 and promotional materials taken from BPSOS’s National Summit of Vietnamese American Leaders; Washington DC.

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LT: Being here, I learn so much. And I don’t really interview well (laughs). I mean, here I work with Vietnamese people, and they need so much help. And me, I heard they needed translators and I signed up, but you need to be certified to do BP translation, so I did that…there is a test you pass that they [BPSOS] help me get certified.

V: So, what would you be doing if you weren’t working here?

LT: Oh, my family has a store, and I help. There are things I can do, like work in Mobile, or do deliveries. But this is different, working for the grant…I get to teach, you know, and be a teacher to the kids.

His colleague, Tony Nguyen, whose story was introduced in chapter 2, was also determined to return to Bayou La Batre after he was honorably discharged from the military in order to provide support to his family. Despite the larger occupational prospects in Mobile county, Tony found a natural fit with working in community outreach largely due to his family’s ties to the local seafood and boat-building industries.

Both Tony and Louis have expressed enthusiastic interest in continuing community work, even as they acknowledge the unpredictable nature of their grant-funded positions.

Interestingly, they both ponder the possibility of establishing nonprofit Vietnamese community centers or organizations one day. Additionally, Tony had also contemplated a future political career for himself one day in local or possibly state representation. It seems then, that the very presence of BPSOS was enough to offer a small bastion of opportunity in Bayou La Batre by expanding the horizons of ambitious individuals like

Tony and Louis, but it is not yet entirely clear at first as to what these opportunities may culminate toward.

In the nonprofit sector, the research on leadership and its deliberate cultivation is currently focused on increasing effectiveness in organizational endeavors (Austin, Regan,

Samples, Schwartz and Carnochan 2011) but there is very little research that specifically

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explicates the nature of Asian-American leadership in nonprofit organizations. The

earliest work that is tangential to this realm does not look to Asian Americans at all, but

positions Asians (as an aggregate overseas group that includes Chinese, Koreans, and

others) as counterparts to American and European corporate leaders. Hofstede (1993)

finds lower levels of individualism and masculinity traits along with other socio-cultural

explanations that distinguishes Asians from others; otherwise, the organizational

literature on Asian American leadership is thin. Only in the fields of health, psychology,

and education has there been considerable research for examining the role of cultural factors in distinguishing Asian Americans from their non-Asian counterparts, but do not speak specifically on leadership cultivation. Currently, the most tenable source for further explorations on Asian American leadership may well be the literature that examines young, professional, or pre-professional Asian Americans in college or university settings.

This very specific focus on minority leadership in higher education may be due to the consistently increasing numbers of Asian American college students since the 1960s

(Zia 2000); thus providing the best opportunity to study Asians and their orientations toward leadership. Hu (2008) sampled AAPI faculty and administrators at several community colleges in Los Angeles and found that advancement and leadership issues were moderated by an especially high regard on mentor-mentee relationships in contrast to their white counterparts. Hu argues that Asian American students infuse the relationship with their mentor with greater complexity and authority than their non-Asian counterparts. Additional research on Asian American students examine how college students merge their cultural identity with leadership identity (Jung & Yammarino 2001)

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or explicates the group vs. individual orientation of student leaders (Arminio 2000; Kuo

2001). While many of the leadership in BPSOS are certainly of the AAPI population

exemplified in this group of literature, it cannot be meaningfully applied to the few

BPSOS workers interviewed in this study. However, in the future, this research could be

greatly extended by interviewing the young professionals from BPSOS in order to inform

the nature of Asian American leadership and the burgeoning area of ethnic leadership

development.

Having established that leadership as an important tool in BPSOS’s training

arsenal by first defining the qualities of leadership and then cultivating a training mindset

towards it, BPSOS also provided an important model for formal organizing overall by

adding the facet of community outreach. If leadership is one side of their success coin,

then, community outreach is the other side. While their organization appeared on the Gulf

South scene with experience, resources, and skills that have worked well enough in their

establishment of several regional branches, it would turn out that they also would deploy

the use of “soft skills” in the crafting of a successful outreach campaign. I contend that

while the many residents were not particularly hostile or belligerent to outsiders,

Vietnamese residents of Bayou La Batre were unaccustomed to community based grass-

roots organizing.

Community organizers then, called upon a skill-set not based on form of knowledge capital, but increasingly on interpersonal and relational outreach. In the excerpts below, we see that both residents and community organizers recognize this elusive quality that emphasizes human connection and will eventually encourage its cultivation as a feature of leadership---soft skills. However, before we explicate the

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specific definitions and applications of soft skills. We must first look at the dynamics of

local Bayou La Batre resident expresses their general needs to the organization. We will

see there is a general gap between the native expressions by the community of their needs

and the organizational interpretations of the community’s needs---a notion that is

reflected in the data as gaps that require bridging.

Bridging the Gaps: How Organizations Understand Resident’s Needs

As stated in the introduction, I present that despite the differences among the study sites and community groups, one overarching theme emerges---new Gulf South

Vietnamese organization struggled to bridge the gaps as they sought to transition inexperienced, naïve, or complacent Vietnamese locals from informal networks to structured organizational forms. This is demonstrated in the interaction below where

Mr. Kiet Thanh Do, a shrimper in Bayou La Batre expressed his assessment of what families needed most in the region after the oil spill. We see how his concerns are rooted in the practical occupational needs and alarming economic condition of the Gulf Coast:

V: And you were saying that you were working with BPSOS?

KD: Yes, I work with them with my claim.

V: So, would you say that they were helpful? Like, did it help? Sorry, my Vietnamese is very bad and it takes me a long time to talk…

KD: [Oh, my nieces and nephews are like that too.] Its ok, you need to learn to speak Vietnamese (laughs)! You can go to school for it now….yes, yes, they help a lot.

V: How did that help? Did they translate for you?

KD: Translate? Yes.

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V: Ok. And this is, um, important?

KD: Very important. They, uh, I do not know if we get any money but the shrimp may be no good now.

V: What do you mean, ‘no good?’

KD: After the oil, you lose a lot of shrimp; You lose a lot of shrimp. Before the oil you make the money. But after oil, like you lose a lot of shrimp, oil is going to be there, no matter what they say its clean or not. It’s going to be there.

V: Well, they say it is clean, or it seems clean, but that’s not your experience?

KD: What?

V: Do you think the water is clean? For the shrimp or the oysters?

KD: They say it clean. You know, well, you know, you gonna lose shrimp. Anytime you got oil its gonna effect the ground. No matter how much you clean it.

V: So after 2010, what did you think of the quality, on average, what did you think the shrimp was like? Was it less, was it quality?

KD: Not good, we have less shrimp now.

V: How much less?

KD: I think its 40% less. Maybe 40%.

V: And, if we can go back to your partnership with BPSOS? What are they doing with them about the oil spill?

KD: They fill out my papers, but I hear nothing.

V: You think you will get any money?

KD: I get some money, but not anymore.

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V: Oh, okay. So, can they, do you think they can do more?

KD: I don’t know But, but very important to help more with the shrimp, the big boats they build no more. They’re too expensive and no money for fuel and ice.

Here, we see that Mr. Kiet Do is naturally preoccupied with the alarming drop in catch size and the apparently frustrating process of the BP claims process by which

BPSOS had helped most with their rendering of translation services. This is a straightforward assessment from a community client (a Vietnamese shrimper impacted by the oil spill) of his greatest needs, yet the delivery of such a service does not fully capture the experience according to the a BPSOS program worker. Below, we see how Courtney

Dang, a housing placement counselor at BPSOS describes the dynamics that undergird the delivery of services and the myriad meanings that often accompany the implementation of various programs:

V: What is it like to work for BPSOS?

CD: I really like it. It’s so challenging because you never know if, what you are doing right away, is that if going to work.

V: Sorry, you mean, well, what do you mean? Like it works sometimes or not?

CD: No, no. I mean that we have these projects and you work on them, and then you do the activities of the grant, and it can be really simple, like help them fill out an application, or help them get their food stamps, or on Medicaid for their grandmother and its simple but it makes a difference.

V: Oh yeah, and also I guess I can imagine that for something like grant work, where you go about your business administrating for the grant, and you might not see the result of it every day, like I see your work with the kids seem like that, where you go out with them every day.

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CD: Exactly. You don’t know what they are thinking though, or if they are having a hard day at school or at work, or maybe it’s hard for the family at home, you know? And you may be helping them, by talking to them. They don’t tell you all that’s going on. But later on, when they are in school, or dealing with stuff at home, you were there for them and it really helped.

V: Maybe you can tell me a little bit about that, or if you can, I have some information here.

CD: Well, okay, you have to see it this way, that the programs, just are like support overall for the community and bringing healing and recovery to the community by focusing through the kids and the families. We see that there is a gap between families and generations and you have the families affected badly by the oil spill, and really lost. So our work on the community means bridging the gaps. Not just on gaps between people in the community and all the public officials, but within families too, and between neighbors.

V: You mean like for Vietnamese communities here? I was just thinking that…

CD: Well, not just Vietnamese because we have Thai people here, we have Lao; we have Cambodian and all these different nationalities, lots of different Asian people. You have to work with everyone, and it can get all diplomatic.

V: Right, that’s what I meant, but in terms of, like you are saying here that they all just need to come together?

CD: Yeah, like we saw that, BPSOS saw it was important to fill in the gaps between people. Grace says it’s a really small world here, but we have a lot going on, and the community is very close, but we are also kind of alone too.

V: Isolation.

CD: Exactly. Like you see how people live in Mobile county and drive in? I do that too, people live here and in Coden, but they also drive in all over the place. And sometimes there is miscommunication, or they don’t work together very well. So, we need a place where they all know where to go and where to be. Especially for the

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people who don’t speak English at all and are not doing well. So, it’s like you can live off the land, but it can be lonely. And the problems, you keep to yourself, right?

When BPSOS steps in, we want to bridge the gap, we want to be the bridge so that multiple groups can get together, and the youth, they really need our help. So we have them, like on youth night, after we took them to tour city hall and ask questions. They were so good, and they asked really good questions. They came back here and we went around and ask them to brainstorm how they can better serve the community, and they said, ‘we can make the green space outside cleaner, fix it up.’

V: That really sounds like it brings everyone together.

CD: Oh absolutely, but you can’t just say that is what it does. The parents have a lot of stress, and the kids feel it. So, you have to do it like a little um, not sneaky, but like you don’t announce its about bringing people together.

In comparison to Mr. Kiet Do, whose enumeration of needs from BPSOS is blunt

and brief (he needs translation and assistance with his oil spill claims) Courtney Dang’s

extended observations encompass a myriad of items that need BPSOS’s stewardship:

1. The psychological and emotional state of Vietnamese families post- disaster in this region: “You don’t know what they are thinking though, or if they are having a hard day at school or at work, or maybe it’s hard for the family at home, you know? And you may be helping them, by talking to them.”

2. The need for panethnic and cross-cultural competencies in working with a diverse array of Southeast Asian communities such as Thai and Cambodian in addition to Vietnamese. “..And sometimes there is miscommunication, or they don’t work together very well. So, we need a place where they all know where to go and where to be.”

3. Family stressors arising within the community’s fisher-families.

While Courtney describes the importance of work such as getting clients on

Medicaid or food stamps. Her reflection goes far beyond these services and emphasizes

117 the work of bridging the gaps, that is reaching out to provide services for needs not explicitly articulated by shrimpers such as Mr. Kiet Do. Thus organizational leadership may be reinterpreted here as an expanded definition that is inclusive of “soft skills” of outreach that are the primary skills deployed when bridging gaps. The next section will I will crystalize this notion by spotlighting the experience of one particular BPSOS interviewee whose professional training included the learning and deployment of “soft skills” in the uncharted rural territory of community work in Southern Alabama.

Soft Skills for Tough Audiences

In the years after I first moved to Mississippi, I would occasionally encounter Dr.

Thanh at volunteer events, community trainings, and a variety of casual social functions.

Often, he was accompanied by a cadre of eagerly listening staff. It is at this juncture that I began to see a deliberate crafting of professional development and in time, begin to see it prioritized in BPSOS’s organizational mission, During the summer of 2012, I regularly visited the Bayou La Batre branch of BPSOS and was allowed to not only interview whoever would agree to be interviewed, but to also observe the daily operations of the office. While I felt like something of an interloper, and was eager to volunteer my help if needed, mostly they graciously accommodated my presence by inviting me to join them on field trips, program outings, or allowing me to watch their activities.

To visit this far-flung satellite office requires a long drive into very rural coastal

Alabama territory despite the clear markers from the highway showing the way to this small city (as noted in chapter 2, Bayou La Batre is a major shrimping revenue site). The

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office building itself is located caddy-corner to the La Batre Rural Health Clinic28 and

shares a parking lot with a warehouse style church and an older gas station. The city’s

small clutch of municipal buildings are collectively located within walking distance of

BPSOS and the clinic. Overall, the office, which I suspect was either a one-time

automotive repair shop or an all-purpose storage facility for the nearby boat building companies is a far cry from the more traditional offices of most formal organizations.

Inside, the office appears to be a converted galvanized structure with metal siding and well-worn carpeting. It consisted of one very large open space where 6 desks were placed in pairs and piled askew with papers. Jutting off from this bullpen was the only office alcove reserved for the regional manager; this tiny space was little more than a closet with a glass door. The main room also sported a battle-scarred conference table jammed close to front windows, effectively making private meetings public. A small waiting space with a worn sofa, coffee table, and side chairs delineated a make-shift waiting area; a long rectangular space was partitioned from the main room and acted as a multipurpose/computer/general activity area. During my time there, all manner of professional training, staff meetings, as well as art-crafting, socializing, and general

“hanging out” occurred in this room.

It was in this office that I met the 24 year old program manager named Heather

McKay (who is not Vietnamese) who was tasked with coordinating BPSOS’s youth programs in Bayou La Batre. Her primary duties focused on the implementation of a short-term initiative called Bayou HOPE (Harmony, Opportunity, Perseverance, and

28 Regina Benjamin served as the 18th Surgeon General of the United States from November 3rd 2009 until July 16th 2013 under the administration of President Barak Obama. Subsisting since 1987 on donations and grants, the clinic has been rebuilt and rehabilitated in the wake of hurricanes. It is an important medical resource in the area.

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Empowerment) that corralled youth from the local middle schools into various

enrichment activities. Heather presented as a very energetic young woman who sported a

youthful, playful air that meshed well with the middle-school participants she was in charge of. I remember noting that despite her appropriate attire of skirts, hosiery and modest heels, it never seemed that neither Heather, nor the BPSOS office presented a convincing reproduction of a standard professional office but reflected the more rural context of their community. Yet, despite the physical surroundings, BPSOS’s institutional agenda was very much in evidence.

One day, as I shadowed her while she went about her work I asked her what was the primary benefit of working for BPSOS. Without hesitation she answered, “I learned how to be a communicator.” I was surprised by what seemed to be a very polished, if somewhat abstract response. When pressed for what she meant by “communicator,”

Heather introduced a notion that was especially intriguing given the seemingly informal nature of their office noted that her work in the community had help her develop her “soft skills.” meaning skills that were not technical in nature such as what one may learn in a classroom, textbook, professional training, or other traditional educational setting. These skills were mainly interpersonal: listening, persuading, and creating compelling personal connections. As a fairly recent graduate from the University of South Alabama with a degree in social work, Heather hoped to parlay the professional skills she learned while working for BPSOS into a graduate career for business or nursing.

“Do you mean that you can work with people?” I asked, and Heather quickly listed several examples of soft skills: “listen to people, present yourself well, and connect with others.” This sampling of activities aligns with what communication experts have

120 catalogued as soft skills: “interpersonal skills, communication skills, and emotional intelligence” and include the activities of “communicating, managing time, negotiating, writing, listening, reading, presenting, problem solving, and decisions making” as examples of soft skills (Rao 2012:50). Traditionally, in the fields of science, engineering and technology, soft skills are implemented mainly as supportive or adjunctive proficiencies meant to improve management needs, or facilitate work relationships or improve the communication of ideas rather than as primarily valuable in of themselves

(Nyman 2006; Joseph, Soon, Chang and Slaughter 2010; Lear 2011; Zhang and Spiteri

2012). In a related vein, management literature has noted that effective leadership activities may be enhanced by the deployment of emotionally intelligent strategies, particularly during uncertain economic or organizational times (Mangan 2007; Bunker and Wakefield 2004).

Therefore, the hybridization of the terms “soft” and “skills” describe a set of competencies that is both intimate in nature yet practical in application. For the scientific, technological, and management fields, soft skills support and promote an individual’s main job duties. For example, a skilled engineer may find that her extraordinary work is not recognized due to her failure to move the audience (a supervisor, her peers, a client etc.), or to properly communicate her innovation in a clear and concise manner; soft skills, in this case, would serve to expedite or facilitate her work in these fields. However, the possession of soft skills could play a more central role for nonprofit and community organizations that may very well live and die by the adroit application of soft skills. I asked Heather to what purpose does she deploy soft skills in order to “connect with others.”

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By way of an example, Heather describes an instance of how soft skills and the

building of trust played a vital role in her work. During the year-long Bayou La Batre

program called Bayou HOPE, middle school students were recruited to become involved

in many small-scale community projects (such as city beautification), civic engagement

(touring the Bayou La Batre City Hall and learning about its history), or learning new

community building skills (such as organizing a fundraiser). While Heather’s position

was primarily funded by this program, she also had the regular help of the two other

program coordinators, Louis Tran and Mike Dang , both who appear to be in their mid to

late 20’s and are both local to the area. During my regular visits that took place during the

summer months of this program, I worked alongside Heather and her co-facilitators as

they led a small crew of middle-school students in various activities that ranged from arts and crafts projects, to do-it-yourself park beautification. Some of the larger projects

involved building up barren-looking open spaces with wooden benches and flower boxes,

while more casual outings concerned simply playing basketball or taking nature walks

with the kids.

During all of these activities, however, the facilitators followed some sort of

leadership rubric which did not appear to be highly structured, but seemed geared toward

the general principles of “developing healthy skills and self-esteem.” For example, in the

middle of playing the classic basketball game of HORSE in the empty middle-school

gymnasium, Mike posed a question to the group of kids, “So, what are we trying to do

here?” And the kids chimed in with various answers about how they needed to make a

basket on each of their turns, otherwise they would earn one letter at a time of the word

HORSE, at which point they would be eliminated from the game. Heather then asked,

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“So, are we all competing against each other?” To which the kids agreed. The program administrators then bantered back and forth with the kids about the difference between completion and teamwork—and the features that made the differences between the two.

In the process, they talked to the kids about how individual competition hones personal excellence and skills, but teamwork can foster group accomplishments and build team morale. Both Mike and Heather emphasized the importance of both, and the appropriateness of applying each in any given situation.

Thus, in the hour-long session playing in the gym, the kids seem to naturally take on this lesson; a seamless integration of community outreach and youth development in a familiar and natural setting. A large body of research has noted that one of the challenges of serving immigrant children, especially in the US educational system, is burdened by the expectations of immigrant parents:

Even minority children whose families wanted them to assimilate into ‘mainstream’ America often found their encounters with public school painful…Some problems were caused by prejudice on the part of teacher or stereotyping on the part of the school…other problems were caused by cultural conflicts [such as] coeducation, physical education and other common school practices unacceptable…Less tangible but equally troubling were conflicts over values, public schools stressed competition and individual achievement, while some ethnic communities stressed cooperation and valued the welfare of the family or the group more than individual achievement (Seller and Weise 1997: 4).

Additionally, Pang and Cheng (1998) note the particular needs of first and second generation Asian Pacific children in poor, rural, or otherwise underserved communities.

The myriad issues of adjustment for these students, particularly from Southeast Asian countries, draw upon histories of settlement, adjustment, identity, language and cultural factors so that traditional routes of addressing the needs of students may be off-putting.

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While some researchers describe the trust that Vietnamese parents have for U.S.

teachers and other educator-personnel, stemming from their respect for educator- professionals in Vietnam, as a reason for a more hands-off approach to their children’s schooling (Bui 1997; Zhou and Bankston 1999); this trust in the school system does not necessarily extend to their children. Thus, this form of more casual, non-instructional form of interaction, seems to be the modus operandi for BPSOS and in the ensuing weeks

I’ve observed the Bayou HOPE program in the field, there seems to be very few formal or structured meetings to implement even administrative matters of the program. These interactions, which in most formal organizational settings require knowledge-based skill sets, I found that the community workers in Bayou La Batre learning to become proficient in a human-based form of outreach.

On one blazingly hot day in July, as the group of us (me included) pulled weeds from around the silent grounds of the school, Heather joked that the physical labor was a welcome respite from the “hard work” of administrating the grant. She recalled to me that among the many hurdles of implementing the program it was not so much the day-to-day challenge of occupying the children, or formulating inventive leadership-building activities, but rather the labor of working with school managers. While the HOPE program was designed to provide direct service to Bayou La Batre’s underserved kids,

BPSOS as an organization needed to collaborate with the school’s administration in order to identify children who would be eligible for the program. In the earliest days of the grant, BPSOS and Heather ran into roadblocks with implementation. Some school administrators were not entirely committed to the program for a variety of reasons, “We had to really convince the principal.”

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When asked why she felt the middle school’s principal was hesitant, Heather admitted to not fully understanding the reasons, but instinctively knew she had to connect with the older woman to engage her trust. “We emphasized that the students wouldn’t just be playing basketball all day, but they would be part of the community by doing things for the community.” Heather had surmised that the principle was concerned about the validity of the program and whether it was the best use of her students’ time. She gleaned, from previous interactions with middle school teachers that the most current school concerns revolved around bullying and the burgeoning issue of cyber-bullying.

She made sure to emphasize the program’s campaign on these platforms. In short, she also sensed that the most pressing concern for the principal was that there be some sort of relevant bridge between the school and the community. “I knew it was important to tell her about the activities where we link the kids with community members.”

Further evidence that Heather grasped the important of allaying the principal’s unspoken wariness, was that she emphasized that what was a major selling point of the program: creating an intergenerational link between the kids and the community. So, a major piece of the HOPE program entailed that local community members should identify pressing issues effecting their families such as lack of safe public parks, or low community morale, and then have BPSOS’s participating kids forge friendships and partnerships with adults to brainstorm solutions for those issues. A fruitful idea came in the form of community beautification. Drawing on the advice and guidance from the regional manager, Heather emphasized the mutual benefits of the program to the principal and worked hard to develop and implement activities suggested by the principal, “I spoke to her a lot, I wanted to make sure she understood our intentions were

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good…if we didn’t, then we would have a youth program with no youth, and that hurts

everyone.” In this case, soft skills were of paramount importance; the interpersonal

activities of listening, communicating well, building relationships, being authentic etc.

proved vital to procuring the most important type of intangible, yet essential currency of

nonprofit community organizations—trust.

Heather and others at the BPSOS office in Bayou La Batre worked to intentionally craft organizational capacity through the deployment of communication and other soft skills. This regional outcome is a direct result of directives designed by the national office. This cultivation of soft skills speaks to the improvisation that accompanied BPSOS’s initial forays into the community. These interactions, taken together with the implementation of the 500 leaders in 5 years project, reveal an intriguing tension between creating formal organization in a prescribed manner, and enacting spontaneous strategies to carry out their work. This demonstrates that there is a process wherein BPSOS worked to create a formal institutional structure but also recognized the need for flexible engagement when working with the Vietnamese community.

As previously noted, contemporary organizational theory does little to incorporate race and ethnicity, but current research on ethnic and Asian American community organizations may shed light on the meaning of the practices, behaviors and outreach strategies of BPSOS as they engaged with the Vietnamese communities of Mississippi and Alabama. In the next section, I argue that, on balance, these strategies reveal how

Asian American nonprofits call upon improvisation and innovation in the face of a sometimes unreceptive community.

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Resistance and Raffle Tickets: BPSOS’s Outreach into the Community

During my time volunteering for various community work projects in Biloxi, there were many opportunities to engage with workers, some of whom became personal friends. From my observations and recorded in field notes, I noted that there was always a great deal of camaraderie at both the BPSOS and NAVASA offices (which were located next door to each other in downtown Biloxi). While these interview excerpts are from the transcripts of face-to-face interviews, these statements, and beliefs are reinforced or repeated on several occasions by the interviewees. Two participants had described their co-workers as “family.” One community coordinator, Tai Ly, spoke with great enthusiasm as to how he was inspired to work for BPSOS in Biloxi after encountering the spirited and highly cooperative atmosphere among the transplanted New

Orleans and Biloxi Vietnamese when he too was evacuated to Houston in August.

TL: Man, we got to go to Houston. We would go there and I had my eyes open. The food, the people, there are so many people. It really opened my eyes. Especially, right after the storm, I got there and was impressed by how people would help each other out. Like at the Hong Kong market, there were churches and temples and they were helping people out and when I looked over at us here, and there was nothing like that for us here. So, when I got back here I was thinking that I want to be part of something like BPSOS.

V: So you went to work for them when you came back?

TL: No, no I was working at the casino before, but not after Katrina (laughs), but then a job opened up and I knew I wanted to work here, they do important work, for the community and the people.

Similar statements regarding the positive feelings toward their organizations have been echoed by other interviewees. Within the human resources literature, this form of loyalty and positive regard endorsed by an employee for their organizations is called

127 organizational commitment (OC). OC broadly describes an employee’s strong, positive emotions toward an organization that ultimately enlarges the employee’s feelings of their job tasks and duties. In contrast to prioritizing strictly calculable factors like salary, work activities, and perceived occupational status as the primary ties between worker and company, OC refers to the intangible reasons why workers feel loyal, or emotionally connected to a company.

Researchers have long examined different industry applications for OC and converge on the relationship between high OC and high levels of loyalty (Meyer, Stanley,

Herscovitch and Topolnytsky 2002; Meyer and Allen 1997). Others have identified different levels of OC between employees in the public sector versus those in private industry (Perry and Porter 1982; Wittmer 1991). Among those differences are the willingness of individuals who possess high levels of OC to forgo a few of the traditional incentives of working in for-profit organizations (such as higher salaries or the greater variety of employee fringe benefits) in order to cultivate psychosocial and emotional returns in the form of performing meaningful or humanistically valuable work.

For workers like Tai, however, and despite his enthusiastic endorsement of working for BPSOS, he eventually encounters roadblocks in mobilizing Vietnamese neighborhoods in a sustained and effective manner. After an organization establishes their offices and provide services, scholars have noted the limitations of outreach into immigrant communities for health or public health activities (Pirie and Gute 2013) and particularly for political or social justice mobilization (Xu 2002; Kim 2007) and as noted earlier, this appears to be the case for Biloxi.

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During the earliest days after Hurricane Katrina, BPSOS witnessed a great deal of

initial interest among community residents in the form of wanting to “do something,” in

the wake of devastation. Yet, by 2010, after a three-year maturation period where BPSOS established their offices and initiated many of their current programs, interviewees in this study had to admit that they faced a harsh reality. They soon realized that many residents simply ignored the full array of services made available, even those services that are especially needed or beneficial. An example of this conundrum is when the organization attempted to implement a community citizenship and permanent legal resident program that offered the preparation of naturalization paperwork, English language education, and interviewing basics, all to leverage toward the attainment of citizenship. Although the program was open to all Vietnamese residents, the service emphasis was geared toward the elderly.

The regional director, George Pham, reasoned that this type of bilingual immigration class would be a valued service for Vietnamese senior citizens, many of whom were permanent residents but not citizens. Further, it is this demographic of

Vietnamese over the age of 60 who are generally in the most need for very basic services such as food and meal outreach, as well as training in more complex needs such as

English language tutoring, plus any number of enrichment classes such as computer skills training. Below, George discusses BPSOS’s program outcomes for these Vietnamese seniors and expresses his frustration on the underutilization of these programs by

Vietnamese residents.

GP: I think the community as a whole, they can kind of pick and choose when they want to be independent. If they want to do something. In terms of getting certain help, in terms of getting services that is when they need an organization to help them. You know, when they are doing things for

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themselves, such as having their own business, go out and start it, be a shrimper, or fishermen that is when they don’t want nobody to tell them what to do! But in terms of when they want a service! They just pick and choose.

When it comes to social services, health services, Medicaid, Medicare, financials and stuff they want an organization, they want someone else to hand hold them. Especially with immigration services too. Like, we know a lot of people here have not been naturalized ever. So, we try to hammer home the point that you have to be an American citizen to get certain services and they have been here for like years and years and years.

V: There isn’t an automatic process, right?

GP: Right, there is no automatic process, you can be here 20, 30 years you don't apply, you don’t pass the test, and you aren’t real. A lot of people here they are permanent resident, alien status, they have the right to be here but they are not full-fledged American citizens so therefore they eliminate themselves from like voting, and from services.

V: So, if they just moved here in the late 70's and just passively lived and worked for all this time, what is their status?

GP: They are still permanent resident aliens. So, you have to apply, there are certain tests. If you are here a certain number of years and you have a certain age, then you can elect to have the service test in your native language. If you are 50 years old and you have been living here for 20 years, you can petition to have the test in Vietnamese.

V: That’s the easiest way?

GP: Oh yeah, but a lot of people here say that they don’t want to apply for citizenship because they say they try and it’s so hard, ‘I don’t understand the test, and I don’t know this and know that.’ And we held citizenship classes here that teach to the test. You know the questions are right here, we have the CDs, and we have instructors to work on each and every question to explain exactly what it means to arm them with the knowledge to pass the test. And they say it’s still too hard.

Some of them say it’s the fee, they can’t afford it. I know that INS has raised the fee. I think it was initially $65 but now it’s $675 to apply for a naturalization examination. So, I know it’s very costly for many people, but at the same time they are so resistant in terms of studying. They just don’t think their legal status here is in jeopardy.

V: Really?

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DL: If they are permanent resident or alien, they feel there’s no difference because they aren’t gonna be kicked out of the country based on their status. But it cuts them off from social services right? But that's important especially when you are old, when you are a senior citizen.

V: Yeah, that becomes important...

DL: Yeah, when you are over 65, and you don’t have a work history then you won’t get SSI if you aren’t a citizen. So that’s a lot of what we handle here. a lot of people here in this community are first generation Vietnamese, but not American and over 65. So all these people are not eligible for SSI.

V: That seems like a tragedy.

DL: It is a tragedy. We knew there was need, we did an assessment and knew there was a need so we try to address it by having different ESL and immigration classes here. We want to prepare them.

Here George Pham illustrates several paradoxical forces at play. One set of tensions exists between the BPSOS organization and the community, where the former is puzzled and stymied by the distance and apathy of the latter. Pham speculates that the

Vietnamese do not like an organization “telling them what to do” when it comes to matters that they consider within their purview of understanding such as opening a business, or the work of shrimping and fishing. And while Pham makes the statement that the Vietnamese do however, demand that an organization “hand-hold them” for matters they do not much understand, such as immigration, he observes that it is a frustrating battle to maintain continual and enthusiastic participation.

Another struggle festers among the BPSOS staff themselves, where the case workers and community organizers feel compelled to continue their work even as they meet barriers. Here, as George continues discussing the citizenship program, he expresses

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that they must meet the community where they are comfortable, and therefore must try

something inventive.

V: How have you been successful? I mean, from what you tell me, I can imagine that if there was like a hub of people, who like are, ‘well, I got my citizenship here, and you can get yours too.’

GP: Oh, but we have. We have a group of people, who passed the citizenship test, and we took a picture and we publicized and we let the people know how it’s such a successful program. Look at these people who pass. The thing is, you can’t give up on them and say, ‘oh, they won’t change’ because it’s up to us to help them. Not just us, but yeah sons and daughters, but BPSOS needs to help them because they feel comfortable here.

V: Well, it’s also kind of the only place when you think about it. If you don’t speak English well…

GP: Exactly, so we have a duty to help. Vietnamese people have to help other Vietnamese people. And that is why we do things like bring the youth and the seniors together because they learn from each other. We have the kids like last week we brainstormed a program where we have the seniors teach VSL, or something where you have Vietnamese as a Second Language. That way the Vietnamese isn’t lost.

Thus, in response to resistance, George notes that organizational innovation then becomes the rejoinder to indifference---we see how in this case, BPSOS engages in alternative forms of community mobilization. After the regional director acknowledges

that despite the myriad of challenges, George emphasizes the bigger picture of not

“losing” the Vietnamese, not only as a language, but must safeguard the global notions of

Vietnamese culture and heritage. BPSOS does not have the luxury to “give up on them”

because the organization’s overarching objective is greater than the mere implementation

of programs; in short, the organization’s objective requires those who engage in

community work to not be discouraged by setbacks.

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Later into the conversation, as the regional director works toward an understanding of the apparent apathy of residents, he begins to explain the issues more globally, and tentatively identifies factors in addition to mere passivity. Here he suggests that the Vietnamese community participates in quid pro quo behavior:

GP: The problem is that we recognize the need, but they don't do anything to address those needs. So they aren’t taking advantage of what is offered. We found that the people here in the Biloxi area, especially in the Gulf Coast area, they just want instant gratification they don’t want to take 6 months of classes and then apply for a naturalization test and then wait for another year to take it. I found out that the only way to get them interested in any community activity is to promote instant gratification. ‘What do you have for me?’

V: ‘What do you have for me?’

GP: Yeah, like if I attend this class, what do you have for me? If I work at this class, what do I get out of it right away? They don't want to invest in the long term.

V: Is this a Vietnamese thing?

GP: I don’t think it’s a Vietnamese thing, I notice that in different branches that we have like in Houston, like Falls Church Virginia, people actually invest in the time. I think it’s more of an economic reason that the people act this way here.

V: You mean on the Coast?

GP: Especially here, because of the economy.

V: But wouldn’t those populations have their poor people too?

GP: Exactly, but in Biloxi, it kind of, its more prevalent. The people here, the medium household income is like $26,000 or $27,000 a year and the people don’t have the luxury to take a few days off work to attend ESL classes because they have to work every day to make ends meet. You have to understand the economic situation they are in. They risk losing their jobs. But, before Katrina there was no BPSOS here, there was no NAVASA, no GC Reach, But after Katrina, there were all these organizations that came here, they establish here and are addressing the community needs. The foundation is now here but it will just take a little bit of time to get our agenda out and address the needs of the community.

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V: It's funny you should talk about organizations, because I was thinking that organizations seem really, you think they are powerful, but really they depend on the acceptance from the community.

GP: You are right, we are here, but if people don’t respond to us, we are basically obsolete. We can’t come in here and be like, ‘This is what you have to do.’ we have to ask the community, ‘What are your needs? What are your pressing needs?’ You can’t just come in as an outsider and say, ‘This is what you need to do today. This is how you improve your life.’ They will be like, ‘Who are you to tell us how to live and to save us?’

In essence, George implies that simply creating the organizational infrastructure is

not enough. There must be an additional understanding of cultural practice this

undergirds the structure. Further, and this is a most intriguing point, is that he at first

speculates that the lack of engagement may be a matter of simple economics. He states

that on average, due to their lower median incomes, shrimper families are not able to

spare time away from work to take advantage of self-betterment resources such as ESL

classes. Yet, this explanation does not register logically for two reasons.

First, George, during this interview, and again in field notes of casual

conversations, points out something that I notice as well in my own personal

observations of the work-cycles of shrimpers, is that they along with others in the

industry, may have extended periods of leave during the natural cycles of fishing and

shrimping seasons, as well as during the spells of inclement weather. The BPSOS

programs and classes have been organized and promoted heavily during the off-season, and shrimpers and fishermen could conceivably participate in they so wished.

Economically speaking, shrimpers do not lose out financially for participation.

Secondly, participants have noted that ironically, one of the concerns for fisher- families is the issue of shrimpers, deckhands, and other Vietnamese men in this line of

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work as having too much time and money on their hands during the off-season and

indulging in excessive gambling and other vices. Those Vietnamese residents who work extensive hours in grocery stores, gas stations, nail salons, and restaurants are more limited in their discretionary time, but may be less in need of ESL classes and tutoring.

This group, in my observation, tend to possess proficient English speaking skills honed by working with an American clientele. Additionally, many in this group may net considerably more than the $27,000 a year cited by George.

Therefore, economic vulnerability is an unlikely explanation for low participation.

Pham himself goes on to point out the problematic nature of organizations in the Gulf

Coast by describing the languid pace by which residents eventually acknowledge the

available programs. A more aggressive or pointed strategy would not seem to work in

that they simply “couldn’t tell the community” what to do. Most significantly, Pham

recognizes the vital significance of being accepted by the community. In short, to be

accepted is all-important and ensures the survival of your organization, to be rejected is

to have your organization become “obsolete.”

BPSOS personnel found themselves in the challenging position of reaching out

and finding a distinct lack of integration. In other words, Asian American community

organizations cannot assume a “build it and they will come” attitude. Thus, Pham and

others find that they must modify their forms of engagement since they now know that

the community may easily rebuff what they see as presumptive and patronizing behavior

on the part of these organizations: “You can’t just come in as an outsider and say ‘this is

what you need to do today.’ This is how you improve your life. They will be like, ‘who

are you to tell us how to live and to save us?’ This type of resistance that George Pham,

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as well as others in this study, has identified appears to be a mixture of cultural

stubbornness and skepticism.

Intriguingly, it does not appear that this particular type of organizational rejection

is examined in any direct manner in the literature. There are studies, such as by Edin and

Lein (1997), and by Kissane (2003), that look at the underutilization of social services

offered by nonprofit agencies. Their research emphasizes that the problem of service

underutilization is largely due to a lack of awareness on the part of recipients.

Participants in these studies not only do not know that such services exist for them, but

they also speculate that non-instrumental factors, such as feelings of humiliation, or fear

of stigma could also have large roles. Factors such as deprivation and hardship may just

be one side of the coin of behavior, and it is Kissane, who asks, rhetorically, “what’s need

got to do with it?”

Kissane, addresses a myriad of logistical factors (distance, location,

transportation, scheduling) and behavioral issues (embarrassment, intimidation,

disavowal of one’s own vulnerability) that prevent women from not only underutilizing

valuable services but also failing to promote those services of nonprofits to others in their

network who were also in need. She sums up her findings accordingly:

The respondents were generally not using many NPSs, often because they lacked information on them or they disliked their location. In addition, the women offered more specific reasons to avoid basic needs NPS, notably high stigma costs, administrative nightmares, and perceiving others were more in need (145).

Yet, Kissane and others who look at service under-utilization and the role of stigma (see Rogers-Dillon 1995), do not look at immigrant organizations specifically.

Other research catalogues the particular challenges that organizations, agencies, and

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community-based nonprofits may face when working with immigrant and underserved

Asian American populations (Dang 2011). There is also a body of research that focuses

on how to improve outreach to Asian groups in the fields of health and public health

(Allen, Matthew, and Boland 2004; Islam 2004; Choy, Yamashita, Foote, Heer and

Vichinsky 2006). These works emphasize the importance of providing culturally

competent care. One study, a comprehensive assessment of barriers to health care access

in 13 different Asian American communities, Lee et. al (2010), noted that in addition to

the already recognized language limitations, economic barriers, and low health literacy of

AA populations, they cite the need to examine under-studied “cultural factors” such as

the community’s dismissal of routine check-ups, or the belief that physicians are a

curative last-resort rather than a preventive medical resource (Lee, Martinez, Ma, Hsu,

Robinson, Bawa, and Juon 2010).

To be sure, the authors do not over-assert the role of cultural factors. They

concede that their findings reinforce previous research that asserts how the majority of

underserved AA groups simply lack funds for insurance and high out-of-pocket expenses, and possess low English proficiency. Yet, they emphasize that it was still “…unclear how cultural attitudes influence health care use in AAs, how they perceive and are able to cope with barriers, and how this matters in how they respond to their health care needs”

(22). Thus, we do not currently understand the means nor the manner in which cultural attitudes may influence Asian communities’ use of health agencies, much less formal organizations, or to the world of nonprofits in general. This thin state of the literature frames AA populations as somehow being deficient in some capacity (economically, linguistically etc.), thus rendering them as passive agents who become overlooked by

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institutional services. In this vein, articles reinforce this framing by pointing out this

marginalization and conclude by offering tips or “lessons learned” on how to outreach to

these “vulnerable groups” (Public Policy Institute of California 2006; Dang 2011).

However, these publications will allude to, or even speculate, about the undetermined influence of community cultural factors. After asserting that, “Many do not feel linguistically or socially equipped to seek out information on mainstream groups, and most are not connected to social networks,” a policy report on Asians and organizations note, “In addition, many immigrants express a sense of social distance from mainstream civic groups, sometimes because of anxieties over legal status; sometimes because of not feeling welcome to participate” (Public Policy Institute of California

2006:1). This “sense of social distance” goes largely unidentified in the literature in a systematic manner, even though clearly, unraveling the riddle of how to better negotiate an organization’s entry into a skeptical population is an important and potentially useful area of inquiry.

Despite the presence of an enthusiastic staff that possess high levels of language and cultural competency, community members can remain aloof and partially suspicious of formal organizations, no matter the extent of their vulnerability. Therefore, a demonstration of obsequiousness is required from organizers in order to engage with residents, sometimes at level which occasionally elicits mild bewilderment even from

“insiders” observing this exchange. In the following exchange, we see that even when a

Vietnamese organization, in this case Mary Queen of Vietnam-CDC, report that their programs are successful (in that they attract a robust number of participants so that further support of the program is continued), there is a sense that the organization may

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well be abandoned if more informal means were available. Cam Vuong, a program

manager at MQVN-CDC speculates on why Vietnamese do not seem to embrace

organizations unilaterally, for all their needs:

CV: I would say that the community is more focused before on getting things done just by people they know. You can call on someone who did their taxes, or filled out paperwork before, so maybe they don’t always see why an organization can help….But it’s more like saying, ‘Hey, why can’t somebody just show me how to get my insurance done, or to fill out this enrollment for my kids.’ It’s better if you have family or somebody you know who can walk you through it like they do in Vietnam. But here, it’s like who are all these people?

V: You mean, like its intimidation?

CV: Yeah. Or, I don’t know. I really don’t. It could be that they just don’t trust all the paper trail because in Vietnam the older generation is used to seeing paper as corrupt.

It is interesting to note two things here that Cam observes the importance of one- on-one help, and the distrust of a “paper trail” due to older Vietnamese experiences of corruption associated with their government. Scholars have long noted the centrality of family and extended kinship relationships for the Vietnamese (Rutledge 1992; Kibria

1993; Zhou and Bankston 1999; Saito 2002) as well as the unfamiliarity with formal organizations performing in a social service capacity until their first brushes with mutual assistance agencies, or refugee sponsoring groups. But it is not in the purview of these works to speculate as to what emergent aspects of these cultural features would interact with new Vietnamese community based organizations in the 21st century. Another

interviewee, Danny Li, a Vietnamese American lawyer in his middle 20s who came to

work in the Gulf South as part of a non-Vietnamese advocacy group offered his experiences of working with the Vietnamese community:

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DL: I would say that my impression of the Vietnamese community here is, is definitely that they are a like a people frozen in time. It’s really frustrating to work with them sometimes because it’s not so much they don’t trust, well ok (laughs), they don’t trust. But they just don’t see the point of being put through the wringer of a bureaucracy…Here, you have to, I wouldn’t say bribe, it’s not like that. But it takes some finesse, something to draw them out. They tell you they want to do things “dang hoang” [Vietnamese for ‘officially’ or ‘properly’] meaning they can kind of admire the American way of how you can go to the DMV or city hall and get a license or whatever. That is not like in Vietnam where it can be hit or miss. But at the same time, they aren’t going to do it if they don’t want to, and they don’t always want to…I mean, the younger generation is different, of course, but the older ones, it’s no guarantee that they’ll fall in line.

Here, Li points out that the “American way” for many older Vietnamese is admired for the orderly, impersonal and predictable outcomes of bureaucracies. The use of “dang hoang” is especially telling since it translates loosely to “proper” and

“officially” thus implying a sense disciplined efficiency that does not depend on the quirks or the potentially capricious social exchanges of informal networks. While dealing with some bureaucracies is non-negotiable, their participation in community organizations is considered entirely optional and therefore the responsibility of drawing them out falls to the organization.

When Li is asked what are examples of things that would entice the community, he offers a laundry list of amenities: gift cards, musical events, free medical screenings at health fairs. Another community organizer describes the special place that cultural events seem to have for reaching out to older Vietnamese citizens: “I think Autumn Moon is a perfect time to get things done. The older people come out and see others, they see people they know, they bring their families. It’s nice, they just sit and listen to the music, but

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they’ll be more willing to sign up for something, and if you have a good singer, or have a

chance to win a raffle, they will stop by your booth…” (Elizabeth Tran, New Orleans).

The aggregate impression we are now seeing from George Pham, Cam Vuong,

Danny Li, and Elizabeth Tran then, is that the Vietnamese community, in essence, must be wooed by the organization. These overtures are necessary even if, seemingly, the relationship is entirely beneficial for the resident receiving the service. For three reasons,

I do not offer this as a flippant or patronizing characterization of the relationship between

Vietnamese organizations and their host community . First, the under-utilization of services by Vietnamese locals and the possible failure of organizations to meet their goals of service are both serious matters. We can appreciate this fact when we look at the corporate or private sectors when a conglomerate fails to meet consumer needs, the end result is the company folding and the customer not getting what they want.

Secondly, we cannot presume that the underutilization of services is due to superficial or capricious reasons. It goes to reason then, that complex and currently unidentified cultural factors, which can serve to be equally consequential as any clearly defined rules of bureaucracy, are at play. These cultural factors have not been systematically operationalized and pursued in the literature, and certainly not in context of organizational theory. Hence, it is difficult to gauge the impact of these unnamed characteristics

As community organizers air their frustrations, there is much to speculate upon as to the cultural story underneath this seeming indifference. Some offer strategies to garner trust and increase activity (raffles, singers, events etc.), yet, their loss for any systematic strategy to increase community engagement requires further investigation Participants

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seem to indicate that some measure of trust, or at least a tacit reciprocity, is at play. As

mentioned earlier, while some brief editorials exist on strategies to improve Asian

American outreach, there is very little systematic research on Asian American

organizations that does not reside within the fields of health or public health, education,

or political mobilization. In the realm of public health, research emphasizes the

importance of community partnerships between health agencies and community-based organizations serving Asian immigrant groups (Chaudhary, Vyas, and Parrish 2010).

Future Research: Community Trust

In the meantime, the most valuable insights are from the community organizers who work extensively in the field, and can speak knowledgably of what works for them.

Here, in an extended continuation of George Pham’s interview, he reiterates how he and his colleagues could not act in any manner that would suggest an authoritative or overly directive manner. While he does not seem to offer concrete strategies toward the end, he articulates the need to get people, particularly Vietnamese elders “out of their homes.”

V: And you were saying how difficult it was you could do that, but you are always one down in a sense because you are talking about your challenges with them, their resistance, their circular reasoning, but you can't just be like, "Hey look!"

GP: You are right; you are constantly thinking about their needs and coming up with different ideas and responses. You can't come in with a mindset like, ‘this is what you do.’ You have to listen to their problems and partner with them as to a solution. Come up with a solution. Because ultimately this is their program, their agency, not ours, not anybody else's. We were built to serve and if the community rejects us, there is no point.

We have to back up and reflect on what the community needs. We have to constantly evolve and adapt to the community needs.

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V: And you have to manage a lot? It’s like you have to make an effort and you may get blamed so you have to be diplomatic.

GP: Exactly. You know what? Diplomatic is the biggest, biggest things you have to have to work in the social service field. You don’t want to be bold, you don’t want to blame because it’s your own fault! You can’t say "it’s your fault" because you didn’t put the time in. It’s your fault you didn’t pass the citizenship exam is your fault because you didn’t put the time in." You can't say that. You have to say, "Well, you didn’t pass the exam but we can try it again, we'll go slower, we'll spend more time."

But these things don’t come easily for some people, maybe because we have the background, the training and it’s easier for us.

V: It seems like there is a lot of cultural and social management.

GP: (Laughs). It's true, you have to be very sensitive to their needs and how you talk to them. It definitely affects your relationship with them.

V: Well, then can you tell me about what works then?

GP: You have to know your place. You have to listen to them because respect is very, actually it’s the most important thing. That is what the kids don’t know about these days when working with the elders. They have to give them a place to interact, you have to create a space like what I was saying before about a community center. Yes, it may be for the older generation where they can hang out and have tea, drink coffee. But we need to have more events and get them out of their houses. A real community has all that, stores, groceries, restaurants and cafes and place you can hang out.

George Pham outlines 2 points of diplomacy: 1) emphasizing that the organization’s mission is in service to the community, and 2) never blaming the community member. He then articulates 2 organizational priorities: 1) Do not be rejected by the community, and 2) Listening to the community members’ needs. Each of these points all work in tandem and present an intriguing platform to further examine how a national nonprofit community organization wrestles with the unique (and from an outside vantage point), the inexplicable sensitivities of these Vietnamese groups in the Gulf

South. It remains to be seen if these cultural factors may be generalizable, or, if they can

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be operationalized in a systematic manner. There does not seem to exist any in-depth

qualitative studies that capture the initial integration of a Vietnamese organization into a

new Vietnamese site.

If a future comprehensive study is to be done, then it would do well to examine

what I have presented earlier as one of the most significant themes revealed thus far- of

the centrality of the establishment and negotiation of trust. We witness how BPSOS, the

largest national organization for Vietnamese Americans in the US, fared as they attempt

to set roots in the Gulf Coast post-Katrina. As the pursue a platform predicated on

professional, organized, and structured service, they have met with challenges that

highlight the role of trust.

It appears that trust may be the key factor for an organization’s successful entry

into a community and perhaps may be more important than experience, resources,

management, polish, or structure (arguably, the strongest characteristics of established

formal organizations). In Bayou La Batre we see how trust is built through the

professional development of soft skills—vital competencies that inexperienced

community organizers and seasoned directors call upon to promote BPSOS’s mission. In

Biloxi, trust issues are highlighted indirectly by the varying degrees of community

participation for needed services.

The theme of trust continues with a case study of MQVN-CDC for Part II,

Performing Organizations: Challenges and Troubles below. In contrast to the

experiences of BPSOS in in Alabama and Mississippi, MQVN-CDC is different in several important ways. First, MQVN-CDC, unlike BPSOS, emerged with a localized organizational legacy in that they are the community development arm of the long

144 established Mar Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church, which, as stated earlier, is a central hub of Vietnamese community in New Orleans. Secondly, the CDC is different from

BPSOS in that it was established via the church on the crest of a successful mobilizing event---the successful protest for closure of the Bayou Savage Landfill in 2007. In contrast, BPSOS arrived fully powered by the dictums of Dr. Thanh, the Executive

Director, and even as they employed locals to staff their offices, BPSOS, as argued in this section, were an outsider group that sought to inaugurate their formalized practices in the

Gulf South.

In summary, two metaphors are useful for highlighting the difference between the two organizations. BPSOS, as an organization, are something like missionaries attempting to establish an outpost in an unknown territory and hope to foster the goodwill and cooperation of the “natives.” They arrive outfitted with existing procedures and knowledge, a long organizational history, and formal institutional practices for civic and social services. In New Orleans, MQVN-CDC are the willful offspring of a local icon who is still an active and venerated presence. While the CDC is younger, more innovative, and more politically minded, the new generation bears responsibility to their parent organization, and in fact, was at first, philosophically steeped in its forebears’ model. The principle issues here are not that the CDC was an unknown entity, but rather that it was new one that carried established community obligations.

In some ways, the CDC’s association with the church was both a boost and a burden. While they were launched with great fanfare in the aftermath of the protest, they also found themselves beholden to a largely conservative community and answered to a

Catholic congregation that was not entirely welcoming to politicized community

145 initiatives. In the next section, I will explore the relationship between the charismatic, and at times, controversial figure of Father Vien and the Versailles community in order to examine the emergent issues of trust.

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CHAPTER 4: THE PERFORMING PHASE Challenges and Troubles for New Vietnamese Organizations

After experiencing the initial anxiety of opening their doors, organizations begin

to settle into the “daily grind” of performance. In the previous section, The Pioneering

Phase: Moving Toward Institutionalization, we have seen how BPSOS, a major national

organization, and arguably, the only national Vietnamese organization that would possess

the capacity to do so, brought their model of organizing into the post-disaster landscape of Mississippi and Alabama. We then examined how BPSOS worked to train their employees in the contemporary tropes of formal organizing such as leadership and soft skills. I then explored the challenging interactions between the actors of a new organization and the residents they serve, in particular, highlighting the theme of trust vs. distrust. Finally, I conclude that the relationship between ethnic organizations and their host community is not as straightforward as it may seem.

In this section we look at how one organizations enacts the day-to-day work of serving their constituents. Drawing on the case of MQVN and its community development arm, the CDC, I detail how quickly the church met with challenges brought upon by their idiosyncratic weaknesses. Despite the differences among the organizations, the major themes of trust vs. distrust from the previous section continues here: Namely, there exists a tension between community organizations and community members as one group seeks to gain a foothold into institutionalized forms of mobilization, and the latter group resists, or is suspicious of attempts at institutionalized leadership.

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Specifically, I frame this tension by describing the objectives, goals, and desires of participants. What is the worldview of Father Vien vs. the beliefs and motivations of colleagues or others in his congregation? What were the goals of MQVN? And the CDC?

What worked and what did not for these groups and their constituents? I introduce

MQVN-CDC and its pastor at the time of Katrina, Father Nguyen The Vien.

One Church, One Man, Many Perspectives: Father Vien and MQVN-CDC

By mid-September of 2005, the first stories began appearing in the local news and national media that the Vietnamese in New Orleans East were beginning to return to their neighborhoods. As described in the introduction, many of these publications seem to present an image of a long suffering but defiant ethnic community, hailing New Orleans east as a model of resilience. Yet, subsequent research has already revealed that this assertion is in retrospect overly naïve and ultimately insufficient. Residents in this study describe their ongoing struggles with intractable issues related to incomplete rebuilding, inadequate assistance from the city, and other challenges in their quest to rebuild or build institutional capacity. One Versailles resident, Minh Nguyen Bo describes the neighborhood’s uneven advancement by pointing out the excessive trash left in abandoned corners and empty lots tucked in the nooks of the city blocks. He calls recovery a “mixed bag” and observes the following:

MB: New Orleans East is known as the dumping grounds of New Orleans. Just down the street, just down the way, if you just go to the New Orleans business district, which is not even, like, two or three miles away, there are twenty-three illegal dump sites and thirteen illegal junkyards there. They pollute over seven thousand acres of wetlands. You smell it.

V: Who is responsible for cleaning or maintaining that?

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MB: The city should be, but then they're failing us right now, because the policies that regulate dumping and proper disposal of waste are not strong enough. If there's a fire, the fire department, you know, they come out. They put out the fire. If there's a car crash, police department comes out, they take care of the car crash. If there's a crime, police do something about it. When it's illegal dumping, nobody does anything about it. And this is like now, today.

There's a house on Chef Menteur and Bullard, right? One of our friends, his godfather lives there, in the house. So, there's an empty lot from the corner of Chef Menteur and Bullard up to his house, right? A really big empty lot. Illegal dumping has been there, and it's happening there right now. V: How long has that been going on? MB: For a good four or five months, I think, six months. I mean, it's been there for a really long while now. You see mounds of dirt and trash and stuff like that, on that lot. It's just so huge. You know it just happened recently, because you see the tire tracks of the trucks who come in to dump are just so fresh, right? It's piled so much, but at least they're nice enough to leave a five mile -- not five mile, five feet stretch of nice land between the dump sites and the person's fence -- like, backyard fence. It's that bad. Dumping here happens all the time. V: Who dumps? MB: Businesses dump. People dump. People who don't want to spend the money to properly dispose of their waste, they dump. Trash is big business. If you can cut corners, you do it in any way you can.

Mr. Minh Bo goes on to note the irony of living in a community that is known for its activism in decisively closing the Chef Menteur landfill, yet the community is still struggling with the same issue of dumping (albeit, illegal this time, instead of mandated by the city) all over the community. Despite his frustration, however, he still expresses admiration for MQVN-CDC, and not just for their successful protest campaign, but also for their continued efforts in improving the community. “I mean, who else is doing this at that level? They are the ones looking to open an urban farm, to bring in pediatricians and the doctors. They have the biggest plans.”

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The CDC, as locals sometimes call it, came about in the latter part of 2005.

Organized initially to collect survey data and perform various community needs

assessments, the group quickly built a name for itself outside of the community due in

part to Father The Vien Nguyen, who became something of the unofficial representative

of Versailles recovery. In a plethora of articles and video segments Fr. Vien provided

updates, aired concerns, and gave brief histories of the community, often emphasizing the resiliency of Versailles’s residents (Cohen 2005; Hauser 2005; Eggers and Vollen 2006;

Kromm 2006; Rowell 2006; Williams 2006). Through the spring and summer of 2006,

Vien becomes a prominent voice in the citizen brigade that protested for the closure of the Chef Menteur landfill. In subsequent years, his presence could be counted upon to lend commentary on NOLA East recovery for magazines, news programs, and television specials such as Dateline NBC (2007), NPR (Corely 2006), and most significantly, Leo

Chiang’s 2009 A Village Called Versailles (Kunzelman 2007; Tang 2007; Sanchez 2009;

Lee 2010; Robertson 2010; Flaherty 2011; Li 2011).

In the Fall of 2010, I experienced a situation that sounds like something of an old joke---what do you get when a Buddhist has a meeting with a Catholic priest? Punch line:

An eternity of waiting. It had taken a number of months of tentative, informal negotiations for me to book an appointment to see Father The Nguyen Vien, the pastor of

Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church for a private conversation. In nearly all the casual conversations I’ve had with people about Versailles, most will mention both

MQVN and Father Vien by name, and reference both the organization and the priest as ultimate authorities on understanding the community, and in getting insight into its current state of recovery. Bolstered in the media and respected in the community, Father

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Vien, in post-Katrina Versailles was arguably the most well-known face of Vietnamese recovery in New Orleans (Vollen and Ying 2006). Yet the conflation of MQVN and

Father Vien, who had only been pastor for a little over 2 years prior to Katrina, had not always been so complete.

In his first years after arriving at MQVN, many within the congregation admired the good natured, pleasantly middle-aged man for his ability to put people at ease. Known

for telling stories about his family, Vien arrived in Midwest from a refugee camp as a

child. His family settled first in Missouri, only to move to Louisiana when he was a

teenager. Father Vien’s reputation for delivering engaging, dynamic, and sometimes

humorous homilies made him a popular rather than populist figure, and he had been

steadily maintaining the Vietnamese and English weekly masses, as well as promoting

community enrichment projects and cultural events through the church. One of the first

individuals to embrace him was Sophia Xuan Diep, a community member with a

reputation as a respected educator and community elder. Her impression was highly

favorable, and she quickly found common ground with Father Vien. “He wasn’t

aggressive at all. I liked him very much, I talked to him about the youth and how we

really need to get them together around the church. He was very nice and I said to him,

‘it’s the young people’ and he agreed that was very important.”

This willingness to associate with and value the ideas of the younger set of

congregants will play an important role in the rapid formation of the CDC. Another long-

time congregant whose entire family of 14 people regularly attends mass every week

noted that his command of colloquial English and jovial, open manner made him an

engaging figure to college students and young adults. “He really listens to you and he

151 likes hearing your ideas, he wasn’t like some old priest who was only concerned about the church or the older people, that’s important, of course, but he liked your ideas too.”

The conviviality with youth will eventually be reflected in the inaugural leadership of the organization who appear to be easily under the age of 35. Mary Tran, the first executive director played an important part in recruitment. A former outreach coordinator put it,

“He really valued her input and they talked a lot about staffing and how they both wanted to see it be really about locals and not about officials.”

Prior to my first research meeting with Father Vien, I had spent some time interviewing and becoming acquainted with another community member who, in his age and social status (two important features that define Vietnamese social and family relationships), would be considered a contemporary of Father Vien. Ronald Hoang-

Nguyen had begun a working relationship with Father Vien united by their common purpose of promoting the political career of Ahn Joseph Cao, the Vietnamese lawyer who at that time, was vying for the U.S. Representative seat vacated by disgraced

Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District. In a scandalous turn of events, Jefferson resigned his post after an indictment for felony charges on corruption. Both Mr. Hoang-Nguyen and Father Vien were working on the community consortium to first elect and later, in 2010, to re-elect Cao, a move that in time, would bring considerable community criticism for both men.

Mr. Hoang-Nguyen was supportive of my talking to Father Vien, and in our very first conversation had said, “Well, if you do this kind of research, you have to talk to

Father Vien.” I had eagerly agreed but felt reticent against baldly asking for such an introduction right away. My first few months of initial field work in Biloxi had been at

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times, a painful reminder of my “outsider” status within the community---an even more

subordinate position than experiencing Linda Trinh Vo’s (2000) notion of “insider-

outsider” status. In New Orleans, I had been attending the Chua Van Hahn temple every

other week, and sometimes in the same Sunday would stop by both MQVN and the

Buddhist temple. On occasion, I even mentioned my research interests to those I

encountered during those early visits.

Much of time, this elicited very little reaction except when I began to approach

community organizers, or higher profile community members. These individuals showed

an interest ranging from agreeable helpfulness to genuine enthusiasm. Community

leaders often possessed insight that Versailles was a social crucible of post-storm

recovery and were occasionally eager to share their observations. In short, community

organizers immediately grasped and encouraged this study.

Still, it took me several more encounters while visiting New Orleans east and attending services before I made the attempt to pursue a formal introduction to Father

Vien. My initial correspondence resulted in an invitation to meet, but not to interview him, at the rectory office adjacent to the church. I arrived early to the nondescript brown brick building and was greeted by a smiling older woman who spoke in rapid

Vietnamese. She quickly ascertained I was a student and nodded knowingly. I had a feeling that I was one of many graduate students who had approached Fr. Vien for help with their research on the Vietnamese. The tiny waiting area was cheerfully cluttered with papers and boxes. Piles of folders mingled with sundry church accoutrements such as alter candles, incense, and what looked to be props for a stage play. I wondered if the modest and informal scale of the church and its grounds belied the power of its influence.

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Father Vien eventually exited with a small clutch of older Vietnamese men and

women, shaking hands and speaking quietly about meeting again. He nodded toward me

to follow him, and as I entered the office he quickly consulted a battered desk calendar as

to who I was. “So, you are from Tulane? But where are you really from?” It could have

been a whimsical question but he really wanted to know. In this way, I found that Fr.

Vien asked his questions in this brisk, but very friendly manner, and seemed to me to be

surprising in their directness. I spoke about my family’s background, my upbringing,

spending time first in Oklahoma, and then in Houston, and my sojourn back to Texas

during Katrina. I recounted my graduate studies and early research interests, and then

finally, how I had progressed to that point of field work for the dissertation. He listened

quietly and nodded, and after a thoughtful beat, he simply asked, “And what have you

learned?”

I was struck by this second, off-the-cuff question because I had not expected to talk about findings, or even meaningful insights of any kind, Indeed, the nature of naturalistic inquiry discourages declarative statements so early. But I offered what I had found intriguing at that time---the differences between Mississippi and Louisiana recovery. I noted that the Biloxi Vietnamese community seemed to be located, geographically speaking, all over the Mississippi coast, while the New Orleans

Vietnamese were more heavily concentrated in Versailles. I pointed out that some residents do not need to be physically located next to one another to “feel” a part of community, but during times of crisis, physical proximity seems salient, in that recovery was more easily enacted when residents share proximity. I spoke of this, among other things, and Fr. Vien listened while proffering his interpretations.

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During this first extended conversation, I had the opportunity to observe his

manner in speaking about the community. He seemed both deliberate in his word choice

and impassioned by his experience. Prior to this meeting, I had reviewed an extended

interview that Fr. Vien completed with Rowell (2006) regarding his experience and role

during the evacuation and return from Katrina. It struck me then, as it did in this meeting,

that Fr. Vien was fully aware of the influential command of MQVN, and took its

stewardship seriously. This seemed to be exemplified by the Vien quote:

We should view this moment as a tremendous opportunity for New Orleans, for Louisiana, to begin anew to turn a new page in our history. In the past we grew naturally. Now it’s a time for us to be able to grow our community systematically, methodically (Rowell 2006: 1081).

During the conclusion of our rather brief meeting, Vien indicated that when we

met next, he would discuss with me more of this philosophy to incorporate community

with activism. In the research literature, there is growing evidence for the potential that is

harbored in churches that fosters and promote community development within ethnic

communities (Reese and Shields 2000; Vidal 2001). In the next section I present the

sensitizing framework prioritized by Fr. Vien and his view of the role of MQVN-CDC within the community. By extension, how do residents view Fr. Vien’s role? What are these perceptions? And are those views aligned or challenging to his priorities?

Keeping the Faith vs. Living the Faith

Below, are two excerpts from my extended interview with Fr. Vien. It illustrate two important traits of his worldview. First, he presents his distinction of the difference between American and Vietnamese Catholic sensibilities, and then, as the conversation progresses, Fr. Vien makes sense of divergent points of view concerning community

155 business, activism, and the role of the Catholic church in the lives of his local congregants.

V: Overall, is it right that, I mean that, you've seen sort of an evolution of the church through time? FV: There is one more point of comparison between Vietnamese and American Catholics that I would like to highlight. I mentioned that in the church being -- the form of worship being the center, more of a center of the Vietnamese Catholic than the American Catholic. On the other hand, the American Catholics are a little bit different in terms of living faith. Living in the sense that they do measure their action against the teaching of Christ, the Bible. V: I don't understand. FV: Meaning that there are a number of young people and old people, they wear a wristband that says -- V: ‘What would Jesus do?’ FV: Exactly. Exactly. Many of them actually do that in a way to aspire, to strive for, and another way to remind. V: Okay, yeah. FV: So, they actually measure what they do. They say, what would Jesus do in that situation. V: Okay. FV: Vietnamese are not that way. We really don't read the Bible that much, and we really don't pray the Bible. We pray the rote prayers. V: Um, the rosary? FV: Not the rosary, but the memorized prayers. V: Oh. FV: We just go into a chant, and a trance-like state, almost. V: It's meditative? FV: From there, it can be meditative, somewhat. So, in that sense, the Vietnamese are very good at keeping the faith. Americans are very good at living the faith. Those are two different issues. V: Okay. Then, I guess that would play out in different consequences?

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FV: Mass attendance will be much higher among the Vietnamese, but Vietnamese contribution to charity is very low, other than Vietnam. V: Because? FV: I think a lot of it is because we don't see the connection between charitable work, a donation and the bigger view, the bigger good it would do. V: Just like an American would be, like, Jesus would donate to a charity. FV: They would see the charitable action as the action of the church. One of the arguments I kept on having with some of the leadership in the community was, in the things that I considered to be charitable work, their argument was, that's not church work. V: What is it, then? FV: They see that as the work the Vietnamese divide between the world and the church. V: So, giving to, say, orphans in Rwanda is secular work? FV: They would consider that secular work.

Here, Fr. Vien makes it clear that he sees a demarcation of practice and worldview between Vietnamese and American Catholics. For the Vietnamese, there is an imperative to “keep the faith” where devotion to God and attendant acts of spiritual commitment involve prayer and the cultivation of a worshipful relationship with the church, rather than the outside “world.” In contrast, Americans, whom Vien describes as

“living the faith” view charitable work as an expression of fealty that is not antithetical to

Catholic practice. For Vien, his worldview is informed by this culturally demarcated worldview; Vietnamese “keep the faith” inside the confines of their church, while

Americans “live the faith” in the world outside. In this initial statement, Vien makes no explicit value-judgment but as the interview progresses, we can see how his worldview colors his experience with the community as their pastor. Below, in the next extended excerpt, Fr. Vien describes a heated exchange that centers around the establishment of a

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multi-cultural, neighborhood charter school, the Intercultural charter school (ICC)

serving kindergarten to 7th graders after Hurricane Katrina.29

V: So, I understand that this, it’s interesting, living the faith vs. keeping the faith, do you mean this is how some Vietnamese people are not naturally politically, um, inclined? FV: Let me give you an example I thought was so amazing. When we returned, there was no school. So, I asked someone to charter a school. Then, afterward, when we were ready to open the school, we were given a location that was eight to ten miles from where the community is. V: At least half of the people there have not returned. So, it's dilapidated. It's dangerous. It's drug-infested. It's all of that. So, I said, I'm not going to send our children there. When I say children, I'm not just talking about Vietnamese. I'm talking about children who attend the school. So, I said, let me offer our religion school building for use, free of charge. Pay utilities and whatever, but use it.

V: The International School.

FV: Intercultural. Well, it's a public school, so all of the religious images and symbols had to be removed. So, the agreement was, during the week, they would be removed. On the weekend, when we use it for our religion process, we would hang them up again. My people were up in arms. Because they considered that to be -- one person, one top leader there actually said, that's bringing atheism into the church. I said, stupid ass, that's the church doing charitable work. That's how you evangelize.

V: So it sounds like there was a lot of negotiation between logistical, practical matters, as well as theological arguments.

FV: Right.

V: So, how do you go about resolving, or at least coming to some sort of -- I mean, obviously the school went on.

FV: Well, ultimately, as the pastor there, I was the leader. I remember one guy -- I thought he should have known better -- a younger man, also one of the leaders, he was asking about -- I explained to him. I pulled out the code of Canon law. It says, we also sanctify the world by way of charitable work. I showed him the Canon at the meeting. He said, what financial benefit do we gain from this?

29 The ICC lost its charter in early 2013. Einstein Charter Group Inc., located in the same neighborhood acquired the school’s location and renamed the ICC as Einstein Extension as of 2014.

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V: Practical?

FV: I looked at him. I said, why would you ask the question of financial benefit when we are talking about charitable work? To do charity is to give without receiving anything back. If you receive anything back, it is actually a business transaction. Do you see where I'm coming from, now?

V: Right.

FV: But, with Americans, I don't have to explain that.

V: You don't?

FV: No.

In his view, Fr. Vien makes explicit the bridge between Canon law and

community building, and expresses exasperation at two points. First, the offering of one

of MQVN’s own buildings to house the charter school made sense to the pastor, that is, in

order to ensure the safety and comfort of the community’s children. The removal of

sacred church symbols within the classrooms also brokers a compromise for the

community’s secular population, and, over time, will work to evangelize nonbelievers and

thus, embodies the Catholic mission. He does not see this as a pathway to atheism and

offers a candid appraisal of the elder “top leader” who voiced his concern as decidedly

shortsighted. Secondly, in response to the younger community leader who inquired after

the financial benefit of housing the charter school, Fr. Vien again emphasizes the nature of charitable work which precludes the question of financial gain, to do otherwise would convert ecclesiastical work into a “business transaction.”

Also interesting to note here, is that opposition appears to be from both older and younger community members implying that the anti-activism may not be the bias of an older, more conservative faction of the Catholic congregation. The young leader that Fr.

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Vien refers to, represents to the pastor, the Vietnamese worldview that encompasses faith-keeping (this is represented by maintaining the spiritual artifacts within the school) but certainly not precluding financial gain for the church. Fr. Vien’s exasperation comes across clearly in his reasoning, “why would you ask the question of financial benefit when we are talking about charitable work? To do charity is to give without receiving anything back. If you receive anything back, it is actually a business transaction.”

In of itself, this demonstration of Fr. Vien’s intellectual and theological point of contention may seem like a small skirmish among church stakeholders, but may point to larger divergences demonstrated in the literature of the ethnic church where increasingly, religious institutions have become the central knot in a small, but growing community tug-of-war about the role and identity of ethnic religious institutions. To be clear, research on the Vietnamese ethnic church has been limited since the collaborations of

Min Zhou and Carl Bankston (1998) in which they examine the supportive role of the

Vietnamese Catholic church in facilitating identity cultivation, youth development, and other outcomes of community uplift for Vietnamese immigrants.

Further, most recent research continues to maintain the notion that congregations are not only places where immigrants find comfort and assistance to incorporate into host societies (Alba, Raboteau, and DeWind 2009; Hirschman 2004; Foley and Hoge 2007), but conversely engage in cultural reproduction for future generations—thus preserving heritage and language in a safe space (Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000a). In this way, ethnic churches can simultaneously and dynamically facilitate incorporation right away, and also help their community invest in the collective cultural future.

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However, in the same time frame, new research has built upon this work by

finding that have complicated the role of the ethnic church for communities. In

particular, Asian churches seem to be buffeted by the changing priorities of 2nd

generation congregations and their attendant views. In regards to Fr. Vien’s observation

that the community leader who provoked his ire was of the younger generation,

presumably because Fr. Vien expected a more progressive Western mindset. Research

culled from David Woo’s (2003) comparative case study of two Asian American

Evangelical churches in New York provides useful insights into Father Vien’s

expectation.

Woo suggests a myriad of complexities among younger 2nd generation

congregations. Chief among these is the paradoxical finding that younger church

members may use the church to reject some aspects of their cultural norms, that is, there

is simultaneous interplay with Confucian principles that align well with evangelical

beliefs. Thus, contradictions are not uncommon and are subject to the twin forces of

parental and 1st generation expectations and customs while conforming to increasingly westernized peer groups in an dialectical interplay of cultural negotiation. This strategic

amalgamation of values, principles, and cultural knowledge explains how a 1.5 or 2nd generation Vietnamese Catholic congregant may not only challenge a church elder but also suggest a distinctly commercial use for some church spaces such as what this young man seemed to have done with Fr. Vien.

However it is difficult to speculate since the literature on ethnic churches is both extraordinarily wide ranging but nonspecific, while the existent literature on the role of

Vietnamese American churches has not progressed much beyond Zhou and Bankston’s

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1998 work, and research on Asian American churches orbit most naturally around the

spheres of panethnic congregations (Min and Kim 2002; Jeung 2005). Indeed the

plurality of non-white churches, and their impact for communities of color is not easily

captured by academic or lay descriptors such as “ethnic church.” And the term itself

cedes a great deal of descriptive space to the profoundly deep literature on the Black

church experience in America. However, between Asian American congregations, the

Korean church offers a direction in understanding how Vietnamese church dynamics

regarding the “new blood” of younger generations of church-goers.

Henry Kim (2004) notes that 2nd generation Koreans are far less likely to attend

services than their parents. This first generation of Koreans have one of the

comprehensive church memberships per any immigrant group in the US and yet, many of

the younger generation will opt out of church attendance altogether. One explanation for

this lies in the intergenerational differences in motivation for attending church in the first

place. 1st generation Koreans participate for largely nonreligious, such as preserving

ethnic identity and eliciting comfort and support from co-ethnics, as well as for

devotional reasons. The 2nd generation no longer feel restricted to the church sphere to

acquire, maintain, or promote ethnic identity since they meet co-ethnic peers at school and other social circles. For the 2nd generation then, church becomes one more option among many for cultural sustenance.

There is no current empirical or ethnographic evidence to indicate overall

numbers in Vietnamese church attendance nor motivations for either generations, but

participants in this study, both older and younger subjects, indicate that the church is a

valuable site for both faith and friendship, as well as a cultural wellspring. Rather than a

162 question of whether MQVN Catholic church is a relevant institution, there are tensions over its uses as a site for political participation and community mobilization. In the next section, I present representative examples of congregants who hold critical views of Fr.

Vien’s leadership and who would likely fall into Fr. Vien’s characterization of those, who in his view, “keep the faith” rather than “live the faith.”

“A priest should stay inside God’s house.”

Diana Pham, New Orleans

It was not long before community members expressed their chagrin with Father

Vien’s highly visible role in the community’s recovery plans. In the midst of community mobilization in Versailles for closing the landfill, community members began building momentum toward establishing a grass-roots organization (Lichtveld and Dao 2013). In the closing months of 2005 community leaders recognized that there was an urgent need for a community-based organization to prolong the trajectory of short-term recovery toward long-term community rebuilding needs. While the church itself offered relief goods of food and water, the most valuable service the church provided was its linguistic and cultural competence in working with their community. For many residents, simply having a place to “be Vietnamese” was comforting during a crisis and plans were drawn up to create a community development arm of the church that could capitalize on the resources and services of the church itself, with little of the ecclesiastical obligations but all of the outreach potential.

The logic of MQVN-CDC follows from the observation that New Orleans east, and specifically, Vietnamese residents could very well be excluded from participating in

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city-sponsored rebuilding plans. Given this likelihood, it would be proactive to create a

grass roots advocacy group that could formally lobby city government and address

entrenched institutions. The community view was that they sorely lacked both capacity

and resource to advocate for their community interests, much less plan and implement

long-term community development projects. Thus, in December 2005, MQVN-CDC, along with members and leaders from Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, launched the first neighborhood planning process in the City of New Orleans involving survey collection, targeted focus groups, one-on-ones, community wide meetings to develop visions and concepts for community redevelopment. These findings and priorities identified by community members gave MQVN-CDC insights that helped formulate its mission, key strategies and program priorities. Fr. Vien emphasized that the CDC was meant to be “an incubator for all the potential projects and things this community could be.”

However, this enlarged community vision did not resonate with every member of the congregation. Even before MQVN-CDC became formally established, criticism mounted among some church members and long-time residents over Father Vien’s increasingly visible role outside the church walls. One participant, Diana Pham, in her early 30s recounted her extensive relationship with the church from its earliest years and the meaning of being Catholic to her family.

DP: I felt part of the church, we did stuff for the church, and most of my friends were there. When you are a kid, you just go because your parents make you go, but once, you get to be older, you begin to know the sacrifice of Jesus and, not just Jesus, but of Mary the Mother. This is where you learn about sacrifice and that is part of what being a family is, too. You have to give up your ego for the better good of your family. Like, look at my parents, they work so hard, for all of us kids. And you don’t appreciate that as a little one, but now I have my own and I know what it is like.

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V: It sounds like the church was a big part of your life.

DP: Oh yeah, it is like the center. Your family is one circle, but the church is where you take your circle, your family, to be part of the bigger group of the Catholic community. And you have very, very dedicated nuns and priests who made sure we were really plugged into the community, it wasn’t like that we were running around.

V: And how was Father Vien fitting in when he first came?

DP: Oh, he was fine, he was great. He was younger and he was funny and there was a lot of energy. My uncles are from the Midwest so he had a lot in common with them and they could talk about things from that culture. But yeah, for the community I, I don’t think that he was going to lead us that way. It was important he be strong for the hurricane, but he shouldn’t be out there all the time, talking for all of us. A priest should stay in God’s house. He has to minister to the people and the flock.

V: You don’t think he was doing that?

DP: He was doing both. I mean, that can be fine if you are a doctor or a lawyer where you can multi-task, you do your job, right? You then can go do other stuff, like have something outside, too. But when you are a pastor, you are a parish priest, you have one job. You should only have one job, you take care of the flock.

Here, Diana Pham is unequivocal in her judgment as to the proper place of a priest. Speaking from her intimate experience as a church member, Diana evokes what some church scholars have observed as transformations within the ethnic church.

Research on the meaning of faith for immigrant communities reveal that for many different immigrant groups, religious practice and spiritual expression remain important and hardy items even after transnational migration (Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000).

This makes sense that holding fast onto their faith provides immigrants with spiritual succor and comfort. Further, scholars have also isolated structural, social, or institutional factors associated with either the migration experience itself, or the circumstances of the host community that change the nature of practice for immigrants

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(Alanezi and Sherkat 2008; Alba, Raboteau, and DeWind 2009). However, these studies

do not go far enough into examining how immigrants treat church leaders, or in exploring

the changing expectations between congregants and leaders.

Yet, it should be observed that where congregants and Father Vien part ways was

not only over theological matters. In the next section, a larger question of how one person

can wield so much influence within a community is explored as Fr. Vien’s role is

assessed by fellow community members who take less issue with his role as a priest, and

express greater concern over his influence in the overall recovery process. Below, I

highlight the criticism of another community figure who is Father Vien’s contemporary

in age, status, and who proved to be integral in Vietnamese post-Katrina activism. His perspective focuses on the power of Vien’s charisma to be both a advantage for New

Orleans east, but also potentially a distracting factor for other suffering communities that were equally deserving of attention.

A Burdened Symbol: Negotiating the Community Leader’s Role

In the Spring of 2010, I had met Ronald Hoang-Nguyen at a community function and interviewed him at his office in Gretna where he worked as a realtor with his wife.

He had briefly introduced me to Father Vien at a community function and was the first to have suggested that such an interview with the pastor would be central to forming my understanding the unique nature of New Orleans East recovery. Nearing his early 50s, friendly, and with an easy, jovial manner, Mr. Hoang-Nguyen was active in the community. Arriving in the US as a young man in the early 1980s he worked at various jobs before completing a community college education and running several small

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business ventures. In 2005 Mr. Hoang-Nguyen had become deeply involved with the landfill protest and saw it as a defining event in Southern Louisiana history, writing about the event in his Vietnamese language newsletters he self-published and distributed

throughout the city. And, in fact, he had recently earned a small grant to expand the

publication to include more stories of journalistic merit and would have the unique

feature of being bilingual. When asked about why he believed a bilingual publication was

needed, he replied simply, “So kids like you can keep on being Vietnamese.”

I arrived at what I had thought was a nondescript but tidy home on the outside,

but upon entering, it was clearly a real estate office judging from the excess of leaflets,

yard signs, and overflowing stacks of fliers featuring the specifications of homes for sale.

As Mr. Hoang-Nguyen looks around the small house in the process of conversion to a

place of business, he apologizes for the mess. “We are in the middle of organizing

everything; it’s time to spring clean.” Leaning in corners and against nearly every wall

were yard signs bearing his name, image, and phone number as an agent. I couldn’t help

but wonder if he would consider running for office one day as the picture could double

for one on a campaign poster. I asked how long he had been there, working with his wife

who was also a licensed realtor, and he noted that they had lived in different parts of the

West Bank for many years. “You get a lot out here, shopping, and parks, and

neighborhoods.” Yet, despite his affinity for suburban living, in the West Bank, Mr.

Hoang-Nguyen spends a considerable portion of his time driving to New Orleans East in

order to touch base with the community.

Mr. Hoang-Nguyen described the mobilization momentum concerning the landfill

as a time of “amazing, almost spiritual energy.” But quickly began to witness the tensions

167 that were building between the ranks of Father Vien’s supporters and others. He noted that in his estimation, the main source of tension did not spring from the corps of church congregants, out-of-town volunteers, students, and large groups of enthusiastic community volunteers. Rather, it was between long-time congregants from certain families, some small business owners, and a myriad of individuals, who for one reason or another took issue with the way Fr. Vien became something of the public face of New

Orleans East recovery. In the excerpt below, he describes the dissatisfaction that, even in the early days, had been brewing toward the pastor.

RHN: It was not like he was saying, ‘Look at me, look at me.’ No, not at all, he and I, we went to all these meetings, and it was important. And he was like a symbol to the others.

V: Do you mean role model?

RHN: Yes, like a role model, but he is one anyway being a priest. You know, the Catholics, they really respect their priests. It is like, if you have a son and, for many of the very devout families, they want their son to enter the priesthood. Maybe not so much now, but if you have many sons, or many kids, it make sense for one of them, maybe the youngest to be called up to God.

V: So, he was going to be respected anyway. But, you were saying how he was humble? Or like maybe he was spreading himself kind of thin?

RHN: I would lead some meetings, but he would go from meeting to meeting. Sitting in here, talking about what needs to be done, keeping up. Then he would run somewhere else, a meeting with the city council or other thing. He did a lot of interviews. You hear the one for Radio Saigon? After a while, he made sure that people knew about our cause, and that is good.

V: But you were saying he ran around a lot? And so, he wasn’t always in all the meetings?

RHN: Maybe, it was that not many people, and it wasn’t like he spoke for all of them. He would go in and then out, at least that is what I saw. He was around. I’m just saying that people felt like he was going here and there, and over here. That was like maybe too much, and he spoke for them a lot.

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He talked about how we needed to show our voice to the city, but he was also negotiating a lot with the officials, talking to them a lot. Not that this is a, it’s not a bad thing, he needed to soothe the things over. And this is important to do that, so that we are in the public eye and visible. It’s like, ‘Hey, you are going to care about us now, you are going to see us.’

Here we can see that Mr. Hoang-Nguyen attempt to articulate the dual

responsibilities that Fr. Vien had to attend to as both a pastor and respected community

leader, but also activist and promoter. This situation speaks to a plethora of negotiated

roles for Fr. Vien. To JHN, there are levels of trade-off for these multiple roles. While he seems to hint that there is a fragmented quality to Fr. Vien’s presence since ‘he would go from meeting to meeting,’ he stops just short of validating this as a criticism of Fr. Vien’s splintered attention since Vien’s objective was to “make sure people knew about our cause” and that this was a valuable goal.

In essence, Mr. Hoang-Nguyen seems to highlight the notion that there are multiple negotiated responsibilities for the pastor, with each role requiring sacrifice and compromise. On the one hand, while as a priest, Fr. Vien is tasked with offering a compassionate presence and religious ministrations to those in need. He must comfort parishioners, care for congregants, and be emotionally and spiritually available to the church and the flock. However, being an activist calls upon an entirely different skill set.

In that case, he is required to rally and inspire volunteers, followers, and stakeholders, while also dividing their attention among many different and dynamic activities requiring their attention at any given time. As purely a logistical matter, the duties of pastor and activists can be diametrically opposed

Yet, Mr. Hoang-Nguyen seems amendable to pardoning any conflict or potential limitations that such divided attention may garner. For him, the greater concern was that

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Fr. Vien was in fact, too effective in drawing attention to Versailles to the detriment of other areas. He speaks at length and returns often to the plight of other New Orleans

Vietnamese neighborhoods that had suffered excessive damage:

RHN: So, a lot of things we have focused on is east New Orleans, but compared to the damages in other parts of the city New Orleans east really received the least amount of damages. But they received the MOST attentions (laughs). And my only concern is, later on, five years, ten years, when they revisit the issue, they will say, ‘you guys overstated!’

V: Overstated?

RHN: Yes, overstated your achievements. Look at this, New Orleans had two feet of water compared to ten feet of water. so the damage is completely different. And the water in New Orleans east stayed ten days or a week? Other areas stayed for three weeks. So the damage is much worse there, in those areas. And so for us to brag about our achievement? It’s not fair, it’s not fair.

V: But how, or like when did you know about this, um, discrepancy?

RHN: Right away, right away! I can show you. [Leaves room, comes back with a photograph of what looks to be a church]…..

So, you hear, we heard a lot about New Orleans east, but you have not heard about the reporting and research about all of the fishermen, even the white fishermen. You see the Vietnamese fishermen area in east New Orleans, they have about two feet of water. In other areas they had 12 feet of water, and the buildings in Plaquemines parish they had 30 feet of water.

V: Yeah, I see it.

RHN: That is ten feet here [points to the map], compared to New Orleans east here. This is on the street, and the water crept into their house, one feet or two feet at most.

V: It's a big difference.

RHN: Oh yeah, the recovery, look at the house, very little water in the east New Orleans house.

V: But I understand the damage was pretty bad in New Orleans east,

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RHN: Not in Versailles. Not in Versailles. You can still see damages there. But it was not as bad as this [points and indicates the other Catholic church]. Only two feet at the most in some of the homes in Versailles.

V: So, what does this mean?

RHN: It means the damage is less. Look here, if the water is only up to here [indicates two feet off the floor on wall]. The water it can flow out, maybe not take too long, maybe two three days. Damage is not so bad because you can replace sheet rock, but if the water is up to the ceiling and stay there for two three weeks, 23 days to be exact, you walk into the building and everything has to be replaced. Completely, the structure, the roof, the floor, the sheetrock, electrical system.

V: Let me make sure I understand. You are saying that all the fame, all the attention that New Orleans east got for its quick recovery was overemphasized because the damage was not as great? And...

RHN: We, I think we did a lot, but when you compare, you try to compare like apple to apple, it is not there. when you compare two feet of water at the most to twelve feet? And when the water stay three days versus 23 days, you can’t compare. You can’t save the house, it’s completely mud.

V: What does it mean for the Vietnamese community, is it controversy?

RHN: No, no its not controversial. It's not controversial on our end. But let’s say you, you are an official, like from the government, like from the university ten years from now, you look at the damages and you have to say, "oh, okay they overstated their achievements." The next person who does a study that is Vietnamese, it is likely, they will be less because you guys overstated your achievement in the past.

You see what I am saying? That is my concern because right now, there is a program going on. They evaluate how to give funding for programs going on that give money to houses that have damages from flood but do not have flood insurance or had flood insurance that was not enough to recover and rebuild their house. That evaluator, I met him and he had the same point of view that I did.

Here Mr. Hoang-Nguyen highlights a very specific charge that Versailles did not retain as much damage as parts just further out, in the area of Elysian Fields, close to the

University of New Orleans which indeed had retained up to 8 feet of standing water

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(2013 FEMA Mitigation Report). He expresses his discomfort in the idea that public

officials could be swayed by other factors other than substantive need in these areas. He makes the direct connection between Father Vien’s charismatic influence and the redirection of recovery resources to Versailles. However, in the excerpt below, he clearly does not want to cause debate or controversy within the community.

V: What do people say when you mention this?

RHN: I do not say it.

V: Why not?

RHN: Because it will not be accepted by the Vietnamese community. I try to keep it low, to whoever I may confide information but do not make it to the public. Because if we make it to the public, the worst can happen where father Vien could have a lot, a lot of negative remarks right away. He has achieved a lot of achievement awards and many positive responses.

V: Well, yes. It seems that many people, like me, we have heard a lot about how the Vietnamese community recovered and did so well. There were news stories and lots of coverage, there is research and...

RHN: No, no, it is really excellent what the Vietnamese have achieved, its excellent. But we have to be careful when you compare one location to the next...you have to see the difference. Like here (points to picture of Father Huyen in a brochure of Lavang church). Plaquemines parish was really bad, worse than here. But nobody knows.

V: Wait, sorry, who is this man?

RHN: Father Huyen.

V: And where is this church?

RHN: Right off Elysian Fields and Robert E. Lee You know where the University of New Orleans. You should interview him, I will give this to you so you can see the damages. Compare the damages across from neighborhood. You know, this priest said mass a week before Father Vien did, but he has been forgotten because he wasn’t able to speak English and people did not pay attention.

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While Mr. Hoang-Nguyen claim that “nobody knows” about the storm damage in

Plaquemines parish is an overstatement, he offers a compelling point in comparison with

New Orleans East. There is validity to his point in that the church building was extensively damaged as well as the streets surrounding Vermillion Blvd. were heavily flooded by Katrina (www.lavangshrine.net). Despite his perspective, Mr. Hoang-Nguyen clearly indicates his reluctance to impart any additional controversy by pointing this out, particularly since he was aware of the already ambivalent reception of Father Vien’s activist work. When asked how he views the relationship between his pastor friend and the growing MQVN-CDC, he gives a largely speculative response but ends with an indicator that seems to separate out Fr. Vien from the CDC in the future:

RHN: That group is very young, and very energetic. I mean, he and I are not young (laughs) but you see how it can grow. We will depend on the second generation, and the third, and you, you can ask him this too, he will tell you the same thing, that whatever the young people do is how it will be.

I see it growing really well, I mean it has a lot of potential, you should see how the office looks now, very busy. They always have people in there and working hard, I know. They are out, and they do good translations. In the future, they will be very big, very big. I think they will focus on the environment, and um, the environmental justice, the social stuff.

V: Well, but Father Vien, he is the heart of it really, right?

RHN: Well he can’t be there for everything. I don’t think he, he says we, and I agree, that we are not the future…

V: OK, but what I mean is, that, he looks like he took an opportunity that came along where the community really needed all these things like a clinic and a community garden.

RHN: Oh yes, yes, but he can’t be there for everything. I don’t know if it will look right any way.

V: What do mean?

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RHN: Well, it depends on the board for things like this, and what the archdiocese says. But they will have to be on their own.

While I did not have the opportunity to explore further Father Vien’s prospective on his continuing relationship with MQVN-CDC, he left his post in 2009 at the church to become an outreach advisor at the 5 parishes with the largest Vietnamese populations but still maintains his status as a board member of the CDC at this time. In this capacity, his role as a mentor to several of the young CDC workers remains intact. However, the community ambivalence regarding his position would remain a sticking point with no way to formally resolve, or even explore the notion---since there have been transgression nor formal complaints lodged---simply reported perceptions of gossip and attitudinal community expression. In the next section, I juxtapose the more critical stances of Diana

Pham and John Hang-Nguyen in context of sociological thought regarding ethnic church leadership.

Charisma and the Changing Nature of Church Leadership

Earlier, we have seen how Diana Pham offered a critical assessment as to the proper place of a Catholic priest. Speaking from her experience as a church and community member, Diana makes it clear that she holds parish priests to very circumscribed duties. and that ultimately, they is only “one job” to be performed— tending to the flock. Later on in her interview, Diana discusses how her Catholic faith played a large role in her and her family’s adjustment into the United States, thus explaining how her expectations have developed over time. As a new immigrant in the early 1980’s, the Catholic church was not only a place for spiritual development, but served an additional need---as the primary platform for her incorporation and adaptation.

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Of course, this dual institutional adaptation that is well-documented in the literature. For the 19th and early 20th century groups of Irish, Italian, and Polish immigrants (Handlin 1973 [1963]; Thomas and Znaniecki 1996), and certainly, Diana’s case is exemplified in Zhou and Bankston’s study of how young Vietnamese people benefit from the church’s facilitation in this very same neighborhood (1995). Recent research continues to confirm how the Catholic faith provides a protective buffer against the negative effects of assimilation for immigrant Mexican youth (Kelly 2007) while Orsi and Alba (2009) observe how in general, the second generation renews the religious values of their immigrant parents via the means of a Catholic education. Both studies show that because the church can provide training in the maintenance of heritage languages and cultural values, adolescents and young people acquire resilient and positive beliefs about their immigrant histories.

Thus, Diana Pham’s response may be interpreted in a dualistic manner. She saw her family’s relationship with the church as an intimate and involved one, so that prior to the extraordinary event of the hurricane, the Mary Queen of Vietnam church fulfilled the needs of the family and the pastor is at the church’s heart. She interprets his attention to matters outside the church in community recovery activities as increasingly antithetical to his mission. It should be noted that Diana’s judgment is not entirely unequivocal. In the wake of Father Vien’s departure from MQVN-CDC in 2010, Diana admits that his presence was missed by many congregants and that she knew very little of the projects associated with the CDC. However, this style of community outreach is interpreted in fundamentally different ways---Father Vien sees it as an extension of his pastoral duties

175 while Diana Pham feels uncomfortable with her church’s anchor going outside of the church to serve.

Overall, research on the meaning of faith for immigrant communities reveal that immigrant groups, religious practice and spiritual expression remain important and hardy items even after transnational migration (Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000; Akresh 2010).

Further, scholars have also isolated structural, social, or institutional factors associated with either the migration experience itself, or the circumstances of the host community that change the nature of religious practice for immigrants (Alanezi and Sherkat 2008;

Alba, Raboteau, and DeWind 2009). In short, holding fast onto their faith provides immigrants with spiritual succor and comfort. But these works can only hint at the what is harbored in the hearts of the congregants themselves regarding their expectation of their church leaders.

In trying to understand Diana’s vexation against Fr. Vien, we only have her verbal expression of dissatisfaction, which can be at times mixed. While noting that she felt “a lot of pride” in watching her neighborhood rebuild, she spoke about being irritated by the occasional homilies from the pulpit that she felt strayed from purely scriptural lessons toward what seemed like overtures for community involvement. “He was talking about how we all have a duty to the community, but he should be more focused on his duty to the church.” When asked why she thinks he had been so successful in making connections to parishioners and in being part of the campaign, she shrugs and says, “I don’t know, I guess there is just something about him.” And this statement reflects the crux of Father Vien’s stewardship of the New Orleans East Versailles community---an

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indefinable aura of magnetism that was arguably a vital component to propelling recovery using the power of an established religious institution, the Catholic Church.

Most formal scholarship on the nature of charismatic leadership begins with Max

Weber’s ideal conceptualization of authority (1922). As part of a tripartite framework,

that includes charismatic authority along with the traditional and legal-rational types of

authority. In explicating Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church and Father Vien, as an

individual, and in his role as a parish priest, we see evidence for all three types of

Weberian authority. In his role of the parish priest, Fr. Vien is imbued with “the common

belief in the sanctity of existing traditions” (Weber 1922/1994: 31) thus, commanding the

obedience of the congregation automatically. The church itself, as an organization with

elaborate rubrics and rituals based on order and regulations, facilitates legal-rational authority where an “impersonal order” is “legally prescribed” (32). Finally, Father Vien, as his own person, completes Weber’s framework by embodying an “impressive character of an individual” that in turn elicits an “uncommon devotion” (31).

Sociological research that applies the Weberian notion of charismatic authority to the topic of immigrant churches is plentiful, particularly within the Black church and in evangelical churches. But the work on charismatic authority within nonprofit immigrant organizations is currently limited. Outside this circumscribed arena of immigrant nonprofits, there are limited studies which reveal how charismatic leadership can impact the interpersonal dynamics of an organization in general. Hernandez and Leslie (2001) performed an in-depth study of a long-established residential treatment center for chemical dependency that was founded and led by a charismatic executive director who was also a clergyman. The focus of the study was how the culture of this particular

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organization (its mission, focus, and even practices) was to change as the director was

retiring. But this case and others like it, such as in multi-ethnic congregations

(Hendrickson 2010), are few in number and not explicative of Weberian charisma.

But as we can see, both Mr. Hoang-Nguyen and Father Vien himself, articulate the complexities of community mobilization that take place even with an established leader and even after the forging of a good reputation and overall goodwill. In the previous section, Fr. Vien highlights how he was stymied by the closed-mindedness of congregants, and expresses exasperation with the morass of ethno-cultural, religious and office politics. On the other hand, Mr. Hoang Nguyen expresses his observation that his friend’s substantial charisma can be limited even when it is deployed the sake of the community good. Additional research, particularly in the realms of charismatic authority, community leadership, and religious ethnic organizations is needed to fully explicate this complex dynamic. This guarded dynamic represents the thorny central knot in a small, but growing community tug-of-war about the role of religious leaders.

In the next section we will continue looking organizational performance and daily life. How have other organizations fared in the community as go about the day-to-day business of community work? VAYLA (Vietnamese Young Americans of Louisiana) and VIETNAMESE(Vietnamese Initiatives and Economic Training) are two other powerful groups that became established in their current form at nearly the same time as the CDC. VAYLA is a community based youth organization that had gained momentum primarily from the successful corralling of Village Lest residents toward the landfill closure---with particularly successful results in bringing together Vietnamese teenagers from the community with their parents and elders. VIET, as mentioned earlier in this

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work, would be considered the sole nonprofit Vietnamese organization not only in New

Orleans East, but for all three Gulf sites prior to 2005 since neither Biloxi nor Bayou La

Batre had those organizations. But Hurricane Katrina had fundamentally transformed the

nondescript and low-key VIET into a powerhouse community center after a major makeover by the current executive director.

Below, I describe the central finding gleaned from my field observations of VIET and VAYLA, as well as from interviews with stakeholders and participants. Primarily, I argue that VIET and suffered from overly rapid growth and the proliferation of too many services while in contrast, VAYLA’s more steady and conservative growth, as well as its narrow focus on Vietnamese and multi-racial youth helped to steady the organization as it

became larger and more established. This crucial variable of moderate development (vs.

fast proliferation) serves as the virtuous root for other stabilizing outcomes for VAYLA

such as their creation of a consistent and simple mission, and the successful integration of

volunteers and human resources. Below, I introduce VIET first, and in particular, its

founder and director, Cyndi Nguyen.

VIET: “I Want Us To Be The Heart of the Community”

I first met Cyndi Nguyen while driving on Interstate Hwy 10 East. She loomed

over me at 15 feet tall, smiling broadly, and she had her arms crossed in a confident, can-

do manner. As a billboard, it was a typical one for a political campaign with bold

lettering and a pithy slogan, “Vote Cyndi Nguyen---Working Together for a Better New

Orleans!” stamped over the icon of a voter’s checkbox. But it also held a unique touch in

that the image of the ubiquitous New Orleans symbol, the Fleur-di-Lis, was a bright and

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lovely pink, Cyndi’s signature color. In the closing months of 2009, she was

campaigning for the District E seat on the New Orleans City Council within a

competitive and heavily Democratic field as Democrat. The leader of this pack was the

well-financed Austin Badon who would eventually win this seat. During the previous weeks, I had read some local news on her rather improbable campaign and these reports became my first indicator that the 39 year old mother of six children (the youngest of which were triplets born in 2009) would be something of a larger-than-life character---

highway billboard notwithstanding.

Through one of my earliest interview contacts, I had made a request to be

introduced to Cyndi and was able to exchange several cheerful emails after her failed bid

for the council seat in early 2010. Often, she prefaced her messages with apologies for

her haphazard contact since she was quite busy with multiple projects and would give a

laundry list of new things that she had been working on. So, I got the impression quite

early on of her enormous energy and enthusiasm. With some arrangements made back

and forth, I sense that I had to catch her wherever she was at any given moment. When I

asked how I might help or volunteer for her organization, she directed me to, “Just show

up at VIET, we’ll find you something to do!” She also noted that I was going to witness

“a lot of changes” since they were moving from their small storefront office located in

one of the strip mall squares on Michoud to a sprawling open lot space within the

neighborhood. I would find this comment to be something of an understatement because

within a few months of this conversation, VIET began to look radically different.

VIET was first founded in 2001 by Cyndi and her good friend Tina Nguyen.

Originally, their intent was to create something of a drop-in business center where the

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Vietnamese owners of the various small businesses in the community could meet, but

with a bigger vision of being an overall resource center for the community. In my first

meeting with her, she described that the organization was all about “evolving” to meet

the needs of the community. But, in the earliest days, she found that facilitating the

networking of the various small Vietnamese-run businesses in the east was effective.

Beyond this networking, Cyndi noted that they were rather nebulous about overall goals but envisioned holding community classes for those interested in entrepreneurship and building starting capital. “We Vietnamese always do businesses, but we do it our way.

But we wanted to empower people to know things like getting that bank loan or getting that grant.” In 2008, I had briefly visited their office as part of a tour in the area with a group of students. I remember that their small office space resembled something like a travel agency with posters and calendar on the wall and a couple of desktop computers.

This was their “business center” that was the space for teaching basic word processing, spreadsheet management and worked as a space for community residents to use.

According to Cyndi, in the years leading up to Katrina, there had been several lively networking meetings between business owners and community residents, but overall, no major projects had been launched and Cyndi implied that she had been stymied by the “lack of imagination” of some of the more conservative attitudes of the more established business owners. However, she was upbeat when emphasizing that during those early days, she had learned a great deal on leadership and organizational management, and had put together a team of people that he would later rely upon during her short-lived political campaign. In her fundraising speeches, Cyndi had noted that her educational background demonstrated her commitment to both community and to

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professional organizing since she completed both a bachelor’s degree in social work from

Loras College, a small Catholic university in Iowa, and a Master’s degree in

organizational management from the University of Phoenix. Her connections and energy

had been, according to her, the main reason why Einstein Charter Elementary school was

established in the east, and her campaign’s promotional materials heavily advertised this

fact as an indicator of her ability to bring to fruition major endeavors.

But in the year between 2007 and 2011, VIET underwent such a radical transformation that at present, it seems virtually unrecognizable. From the small, cramped office situated in a strip mall that looked like a dilapidated motel building, VIET had

moved to an open neighborhood block where St. Bernadette’s Catholic Church had been.

Granted, this was not a glamorous relocation in that the entire area sported not much

more than the old church building, which as a modest but spacious one story structure

that was depressingly rundown and un-insulated. Around the church was a concrete apron of gray parking spots and a small brick house that had served as the rectory. But what

Cyndi noted that what she needed most to grow VIET post-Katrina was not new

buildings or attractive location, but a space that simply possessed potential.

In the summer of 2011, VIET began to run programs based on their newly

revamped organizational mission where the organization “serves as bridge to help fill

gaps for working families” (www.vietno.org). It should be noted that this choice to focus

on families instead of entrepreneurs or on financial literacy was not a strategic one for

grant development, but one that originated from an emotional space stemming from a

sense of social uplift. “I have six kids. I am always a mom first.” She went on to speak

about how she prioritizes the community first and foremost, and in her mind, pictured

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that VIET would be the hub within the neighborhood where families and individuals felt

safe and connected to one another. “I want us to be the heart of the community.”

However, from an organizational development point of view, the move was an entirely

savvy one.

While no doubt she envisioned VIET becoming a vibrant and happy place for the

congregation of neighborhood residents, this ability to quickly pivot her service clients

from business owners to multi-ethnic families and her organizational focus from

economic development to community uplift is indicative of Cyndi’s flexibility. The 2001

mission of financial literacy, which can be read as too narrowly focused, expanded into a

general emphasis on family support and community empowerment. This adjustment in

their mission effectively frees VIET to expand beyond being a niche nonprofit and this shrewd move may or may not be a conscious one on her part. Nevertheless, the emphasis on cultivating community uplift would become a signature move for Cyndi.

In the next section, I describe how VIET’s development was sparked by a large infusion of funding, which in turn would spark a veritable explosion in the number of programs that VIET would initiate in the next two years. The haphazard management of these programs would result in a barely controlled chaos over the next two years with staff turnover, parental complaints, and an overall mixed bag of organizational effectiveness.

Building a Bridge in New Orleans East

In the fall of 2012, I had been teaching the course Introduction to Asian American

Communities and proposed a class field trip to meet Cyndi and tour the new VIET

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campus. We arrived in early December and took in our surroundings, which had gone

from bland buildings and gray/green dirt fields to sporting a neon orange wood building

and what looked to be greener, more vibrant looking grounds. There was a new

playground, fencing, and some box-like wooden storage structures as well as new plants.

Most impressively, and rather bizarrely, a long, low walking bridge wetly lacquered in

bright red paint spanned a good portion of the grounds, Viewing the entire cluster of

buildings including the church, the entire open block with this more structured possessed

something of school campus feeling.

Inside, the refurbished church with its long angles of heavy wooden pews

removed, was now mostly one large open space under a wide, peaked roof. A raised

carpeted area with three shallow steps delineated the stage, and acted like a natural bench

where kids and staff would sit and survey the space. The building was something of a

curious structure because it had elements of a complete, if worn-down, and a bit rough-

around-the-edges church---stained glass, solid wooden pews, pulpit, holy figures. But the middle open space was little more than a school cafeteria complete with speckled linoleum floor, and long, roll-away lunch benches, that at the moment, were mechanically

cracked in the center so that they could be neatly rolled away and lined-up along the

walls.

Overhead, the roof was mostly a corrugated overhang and the entire back section

doubled as an open office, meeting area, bullpen, snack preparation center, and sundry

storage area. Some cubicle-type partitions marked a back corner where they made a

meeting space for ESL and basic computer literacy classes. In fact, all adult programs and

meetings were held here in this catchment space along with a white board, several

184 portable tables and desktop computers. In time, I would had attend nearly a dozen ESL classes on a drop-in basis over the course of 2012 and would even help prepare basic lessons for the students. A volunteer tutor noted that this group consisted of newly arrived individuals and without exception were an extremely motivated group. A trio I saw through my time visiting consisted of a brother and sister who were both high-school aged and a young woman in her mid-20s who was a cousin to one of the local shop owners. They were a friendly but shy group, and told me during one class meeting that the ESL program was “very important” to them and that they went every day it is offered.

By the time my small clutch of students arrived for our field trip, VIET had enacted several of these much needed and apparently, impactful programs. And in fact, they were seemingly enacting many of the main points put forth by its new mission statement. One of the more colorful results was the building of an impressive new playground funded by a SPARK grant right next to the rectory. Cyndi gleefully pointed to the bright yellow curly tube slide and said that the entire playground, complete with zero carbon-footprint wood chips had been put in just the previous month had taken less than 3 days to install and was the newest playground in the east that had opened in years.

My class and I admired the playground and a student had good-humoredly pretended to be stuck in the tube slide, which inspired Cyndi to say “Hey, you guys need to volunteer for our after school program.”

She was describing the Afterschool Academy which had been technically initiated several years ago, but did not service the number of kids it did in 2011. Designed to provide after-school care to youngsters, the Academy is described in promotional materials as a program to “ensure that children from grades Pre-K – 8 has [sic] a safe and

185 structured environment when school doors closed at 3PM.” However, the trailing caveat states that: The Academy focuses on different aspect [sic]; however, due to limited of time per day, the Academy priorities include homework assistance & enrichment activities that include STEM, Cultural Learning, gardening and outdoor activities”

(www.vietno.org).

I told Cyndi that I would begin attending these in afterschool activities in a few weeks in the Spring. She very quickly wondered if my students would want to commit to tutoring kids on a more regular basis as either a paid staff member (very few of these positions), or the next semester’s student could somehow earn credit. And, clearly,

Cyndi’s charisma and directness served her well in transforming this non-descript open space in the neighborhoods’ center to an actual locale. And from a distance, the buildings, playground, bridge, campus are attractive, particularly decorated by flags or flowers (see Photo 2 below).

After meeting my class, she bid us good-bye and left us with Miss Thu, a small, energetic, and sprightly mother of two pre-teens who served as the community program coordinator. As Miss Thu walked us through the rest of the complex, and onto to flat black rectangle of asphalt. It was so new that I imagined to myself that I could almost see the outlines of the first footprints trampled into the fresh blacktop. A wooden raised herb hatch sits next to the main building but appears to be only half tended, “It’s for teaching the kids to grow the Vietnamese greens.” I asked why some of the herbs seemed to be dying and Thu grinned sheepishly, “Well, we we’re supposed to have some of the older folk come and teach the kids to grow it, but nobody comes anymore.” She then directed

186 our attention to another raised platform which I had not noticed before---it was the remnants of an elaborate koi pond that was recently abandoned.

The low-slung and brightly painted wooden walking bridge that stood out so dramatically from the street turned out to be not entirely functional as a bridge since it had very little height off the ground. As the students and I made our way tentatively across it, a boy of 11 or 12 was throwing small rocks off its side into muddy round pool of water. He paused his pitching as we passed by and one of the male students asked what he was doing. The boy eyed our huddled group with an air of quizzical impatience, “I’m throwing rocks.” When asked why, he tells us that this activity was “the most fun thing” to do when it had recently rained, but not right after it rained because, “The bottom of the bridge floods over.” We eye the dark, sludgy mud mixed with tall grass and roots and wonder at the practicality of a decorative bridge that would be covered entirely by stubborn non-receding waters for days at a time.

Collectively, as a group, my class and I wondered if these exuberant, and seemingly half-finished projects were signs of a standard operating procedure for VIET.

Could all these developments, mean that VIET tried to create as many ventures, projects, and upstart endeavors as possible? At that time, VIET offered not only the Afterschool

Academy, program that provided afterschool care for 3 different elementary and middle schools, but also a summer activities program, and a senior citizens program. These 3 primary initiatives, with the Afterschool Academy receiving the lion’s share of attention, staffing, and resources, focus on children, families, and Vietnamese elders. Over time,

VIET would also offer up a laundry list of services that include translation services,

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financial literacy and computer classes, general business resources to entrepreneurs, and

tax services.

As it would turn out, I would get a chance to follow-up on these observation made by my class and I with a volunteer who had spent considerable time on these various projects. He had worked closely with Cyndi and her small cadre of employees from 2009 until 2014. In a series of extended descriptions about his working relationship with

Cyndi, he sketched a profile of a woman that was both professionally experienced but naïve in the ways of organizational management. Someone whose inexhaustible energy, enthusiasm, and large network of loyal community members proved invaluable in creating something of a small community bastion in both size and scope in the east. This is a considerable achievement considering the prominence of MQVN—something of a viable “competitor” in the institutional sense.

Too Fast, Too Much, Too Soon

In the excerpt below, Gerald Haney, an older gentleman close to retirement age, speaks initially about how he views VIET distinction from MQVN, and goes on to had spent considerable time working with Cyndi. Mr. Haney stands out at VIET, and in the community in general for being on the few consistently involved white Americans in the east. A practicing Buddhist, he volunteered his time at the Chua Van Hahn temple and at

VIET. His quiet and unassuming demeanor elicits trust, and over the course of consistent volunteering to perform all manner of community support tasks from teaching Tai Chi, or tutoring students has built trust among his peers, and was largely the reason why Cyndi

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asked him to sit on VIET’s board of directors---the only non-Vietnamese person to be invited.

V: So, I understand there was a lot of momentum from the church, and that Cyndi was an integral part of that?

GH: Hmm. I---that is a difficult question for me to answer because I am not a member of the church. I could just see it and feel it, observe their influence in this community. And, it is quite extensive. The church does influence and condition, and uh, in a certain way of thinking. Their latest thing to have been about is, abortion and those kind of issues. Less about the poor, the disadvantaged, or housing. They have those concerns of the Catholic doctrine.

But the church does not, in my opinion, have the out-in-front general— some kind of leadership that it had after Katrina, right after Katrina. I think that is where Cyndi comes in, she is Catholic but she takes the burden of all that church requirement off the shoulders of people who, just, who prefer a community center.

V: Yeah, it seems really vibrant, and so happy--

GH: Well, yes, have you seen their new building?

V: Oh yeah. It’s kind of---bright. Did you do that? What happens in there anyway?

GH: No. I had nothing to do with that. I don’t really care for that color, but a bunch of the teens decided on it. They use it to hold their meetings for the dragon dance. I mean practices. They store things in there as well.

V: Well, can you tell me a little bit, and if you want to backtrack again that is perfectly fine, but could you go over how you got so much involved in VIET?

GH: I was brought into VIET mostly by accident. I was having lunch one afternoon, their CEO Cindi Nguyen saw me and came up and hugged me. And I really didn’t know her (laughs). She must have known about me--- she has a way of that. I was kind of impressed by that. So, I just showed up at VIET, and found a way to begin to volunteer. I listened and watched and observed the leadership. They had a lot of enthusiasm and passion. And that was something that impressed me, and that I liked. I thought it was worthwhile that I give them some of my time.

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V: Yes.

GH: Mm hmm.

V: We saw the result of that, you know, enthusiasm. You, uh, planted gardens.

GH: Yes, you can see that even though I had administrative skills, I was mostly a gardener. I did plants and beautification. Um, I did Zen rock gardens and bamboo gardens, and I lined the walkways with shrubs and plants and flowers, and the hidden motive was, or purpose, or I could see the staff was so busy that they didn’t have the time or motivation to make the place look professional, to look beautiful. So I thought I could do that for them.

V: And looking professional was important.

GH: Very important.

V: Why? You mean important to Cyndi, to you?

GH: No! I mean, important to anybody, to Cyndi, to me, the kids. To a visitor, your first impression of the front door when you knock, it creates an unconscious perception of the management and the whole philosophy. So, my vision and my dream was to make that place really look like a garden, a place in New Orleans east that was an oasis. A place in New Orleans east that people would actually want to go look at. Bamboo garden and groves and trees. Um, and it would have been, it would have become an attraction instead of flags left out in the rain, and laying on the ground, and dying plants, and trampled ground.

V: And that is what it looked like before?

GH: Yes, and many other observations that I can't recall immediately but it is that you would walked in the gate and it didn’t have a strong visual appeal or sense.

V: But you and Cyndi was copacetic with this. She knew it was equally important as you?

GH: No, I don’t think so. She didn’t. She appreciated it, very much, but she didn’t think it was important. My cell phone rang and she was like, I know who did this----I know who planted these flowers, it has your touch. I don’t even have to ask. So, she was very appreciative, but she just didn’t have the time to do it. And to this day, I still don’t think they even really think they have the appreciation for the visual presentation.

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V: Well, from what I recall. From my impression, it does seem, and this is something others have told me, that Cyndi did try to strive for a professionalism.

GH: I think, when you aspire to grow an organization. I think you start to take on the trappings of an institutions and I think it seemed like their knowledge didn’t extend to the aesthetic or the beliefs it was important. But she did have titles, and hierarchies and offices, and all the trappings.

V: You know, but she is a professional person. She has an education, a degree, and she ran for council, I mean you don’t need a degree to do that, but the way you conduct yourself as a professional leader in an organization---

GH: That's true, but they didn’t have job descriptions! They didn’t really do interviews to my knowledge, not with the Vietnamese, or with people they knew. There was never a background check on me. Little things, they might have done that for the student volunteers. But from the human resources point of view, benefits, and labor relations and wages and compensation.

In this excerpt, we see how Gerald observes several points about VIET in general, and Cyndi in particular. First, his experience of meeting her highlights her natural networking and easy manner of getting others involved—an experience I saw first-hand,

“You should come volunteer!” In contrast to the more conservative and mannerly way of my being introduced to Father Vien, Cyndi’s open way of recruiting and proved effective in enfolding people into VIET. This warm way of relating to others is apparent.

Gerald focused initially on addressing the aesthetics of the grounds. From my earlier description of VIET establishing themselves in the desolate block of Granville, this is not a superficial nor insignificant enterprise. His observation that, “you would walked in the gate and it didn’t have a strong visual appeal or sense” is something of an understatement since this space was essentially a flat, rough, muddy, and barren field with an old church, a dated, ranch-style, brick building, and a somewhat dilapidated storage facility. Gerald’s long career as a human resources executive for one of the

191 largest employers in New Orleans motivated his sense of wanting to create a polished professionalism through the environment, a project that went largely unappreciated by

Cyndi who did not see the connection between planting flowers and establishing the viability of her organization.

His exasperation that VIET “didn’t have job descriptions” highlights his perspective that perhaps VIET should have started slowly, attending to the more minute details (such as planting flowers) would have led to a more sustainable and relevant organizational behaviors (such as job descriptions and professional behavior). Eventually,

Gerald clarifies his observations that VIET’s trajectory of rapid growth would become detrimental to its overall functioning:

V: Who was in charge of that? All of that bureaucratic stuff and getting all that organized?

GH: They didn’t have that. If they did it was mostly a title given to somebody, a task they assigned someone who had no idea how to do it. But they had the appearance of everything you just mentioned. The thriving, the progressive moving along organization, that’s all true. They were just really green.

V: I think that's what some people have been saying. These organizations are just so green. And some of them stumble, and maybe head directly into maleficence. And others, maybe it’s just ignorance or incompetence and stumble into fraud. Especially with this amount of grant money.

GH: Yes!. The primary foundation is that, their main goal seems to be going to quantity over quality.

V: Lots of programs?

GH: Lots of programs. Lots of numbers they can spit and cite and put on graphs, and any number of projects and activities and services. But, they may not have the quality, and they often do not. And I think an organization of any kind that emphasizes quality, well that will bring the people back.

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V: But it seems like, and this is not just what Cyndi says, but I guess, it seems kind of intuitive that you need a lot of these programs, like the Afterschool program. I mean you know those kids need it with all the working parents.

GH: Oh, yes, yes. I do not disagree. It is a tremendous resource for the working parents. But if you have an after school program with 50 children and you have enough staff to adequately serve and feed and shelter safely those 50 children, it can be quality. When you make that program accommodate 300, with the same or maybe less staff, then quality evaporates. And the consequence of that is that the parents can see it and feel it…

The kids come home, their homework is not done--which is something the program emphasizes they will do, "we'll provide a safe place for your kids to do their homework and we will help." But all the kids talk about is playing. The long- term vision of the program is harmed because the more serious, the more dedicated parents will find someplace else for their parents.

Gerald’s main concern is that VIET’s offering of so many programs diminishes the overall quality of any one particular program. This scattershot approach may be a contributing factor in VIET’s struggles to maintain this program and others from 2012 through the summer of 2014.

As I would visit the campus over the course of a year, there had been several staff changes and Gerald himself eventually retreated from his voluntary and paid work with the organization (leaving on good terms, but otherwise in quiet objection to the organizations disorganized handling of the program). In particular, I attended several after-school tutoring sessions of the Afterschool Academy which is the flagship program offered by VIET. The mission as recalled from above is to “ensure that children from grades Pre-K – 8 has [sic] a safe and structured environment when school doors closed at

3PM.” My field notes record a typical day when the students begin arriving at 3:30pm:

[Field Note]…the tutors consist of Miss Thu, Miss Thang, Gerald, and 5 or 6 college aged young people in matching navy blue t-shirts and jeans. They joke and talk as they methodically roll out the long luncheon tables (they are the kind you find in every school lunch room with two sturdy

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rectangles of dark brown wood on metal caster-wheels that can be “cracked” in the middle and pushed into an inverted V shape to be rolled away). The whole space is very quiet and I offer to help Miss Thu bring out the small pallets of milk and food plates in the back area. She laughs and says she “has a system” and that I should “save my energy” for when the kids come. Gerald also tells me something like this as we sit side by side and talks about how it can become very noisy and chaotic. He pulls out a small pill bottle of Advil and takes two and tells me he has to do ahead of time and in anticipation for the kids streaming in [April 2, 2013].

… … … … … … … … …

When the kids begin arriving, with whole groups escorted in student tutors who walk them in from the nearby schools such as the Einstein Academy or the ICC. Very quickly the whole room transforms into a bustling, chaotic hive. I am amazed by the number of kids that seem to stream endlessly in, although the noise and activity level is high due to the number of kids that seem to fill every lunch table, it is also orderly in a way. I try to count the number of kids but there is a great deal of shifting and movement, even though I notice that the kids are roughly seated according to their grade levels along the long lunch tables. The tutors sit along the tables and the kids bring out their homework. Miss Thu seems to supervise because she glances over everyone and perches on the edge of the tables as different kids come up to her asking for different things, or to tell on another student, or simply, to hug on her [April 9 2015].

… … … …. … … … … …

My notes go on to note this buzzing activity goes on for another two hours as the kids are served their snacks and group activities run by the student tutors occur. They also have a structured outdoor time where the kids pretty much run around the flat rectangle of new asphalt for 20 minutes. The games and funny skits, performed spontaneously by the tutors seemed to be a popular hit with kids, and the staff was able to maintain control within the chaos. The tightly regimented schedule fills the 3 hours of the program until parents drifted in to collect their children around 4:30. While, I could not discern the fulfillment of what was described as “enrichment activities that include STEM, cultural

learning, gardening and outdoor activities.”

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In my conversations with Gerald, I made observation that the Afterschool

Academy was indeed a vital resource for parents of middle-school aged and younger children because it served exactly the needs of working parents in the neighborhood who needed the time stop-gap. It is, in the words of Gerald, “a tremendous resource for working parents.” It is my impression that if VIET had only provided this service, and nothing else, the program would have substantially meet the needs of the community.

Yet, over the next few weeks, and in fact, nearly every time I had interactions with a

VIET employee, I would learn about the newest project or outing. During one meeting prior to the 3pm Afterschool Academy, Cyndi had convened her staff to discuss the upcoming VIET trip to Disney World. On another occasion, there was the planning of a fish rodeo, a Senior Olympics, as well as various community family events, a proposed health fair, and possibly a neighborhood watch program.

In addition, Cyndi would task her staff with applying to various community grants, funding opportunities, and conducting research on how other community organizations crafter their cultural events. Some of these projects were clearly out of the bailiwick of Miss Thu, VIET’s program manager---she once asked me how to upload a video application for a grant that made extensive use of social media platforms. I would come to find out that VIET employed almost no staff with clear professional experience or backgrounds in community work, or even administrative experience such as what an accountant, grant manager, or even secretarial staff would possess. Cyndi noted that various family members have been called upon to volunteer, facilitate, or otherwise become enfolded in the planning of many VIET events.

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Following these observations, I began to realize that the casual comments made

by my students during our initial tour of the campus, that VIET seemed unfocused, is echoed by Gerald’s assessment that Cyndi Nguyen’s leadership, was “really green.”

Clearly, his comment that the afterschool program is only effective if it is efficiently run is reflected here: “…you have an after school program with 50 children and you have enough staff to adequately serve and feed and shelter safely those 50 children, it can be quality. When you make that program accommodate 300, with the same or maybe less staff, then quality evaporates.”

What would the effect be of so many projects and programs on the future sustainability of VIET? Will the net effect of all these programs serve to stagnant or overwhelm the limited resources of the organization. What are the key components of maintaining growth for a new community based organization? Given the frenzied level of activity currently being maintained by VIET, will they be standing 5 years from now? Or even, perhaps 2 years? And if they do, was it because the furious pace of activities turned out to be fruitful in practice after all?

Additionally, future research into VIET’s viability should focus on a feature that this study does not explore---nonprofit financial management. In my time at

VIETNAMESE(and with other organizations), I rarely asked about budgets, grant monies, or revenue streams. While I witnessed the infusion of cash into the creation of community events and in tangible items such as computers, office equipment, and into programs. There would be vague inferences to fundraisers and soft money, but I neither inquired into, nor did the organizations offer insights into the financial health of their

196 groups. Intuitively however, an organizations performance, survival, and sustainability would matter a great deal.

In a study of organizational survival, Hung and Ong (2012) culled data from

Guidestar and IRS master files to isolate factors of similarity among Asian-American nonprofit community organizations that may have contributed to their sustainability. The authors offer exploratory findings that for an organization, competent financial management protected vulnerable younger nonprofits from floundering, particularly if they were situated in sizable, densely populated communities.

While NOLA east does possess a sizable Vietnamese population, the population is not necessarily growing, and thus VIET must make do with the existing community.

Therefore, their sustainability may be contingent on how they handle budgeting and finances. While I did not baldly quiz community leaders on the financial health of the organizations, I did find some information on their revenues from recent tax forms made available on Guidestar.org, the clearinghouse database for nonprofit organization on the internet. In the 2013 fiscal year, VIET reported total revenues of $769, 950 with expenses of $800,581 while MQVN-CDC reported $2,404,660 in expenses and revenues of

$2,711,299.

In this final section, I highlight the youth-based community organization,

VAYLA (Vietnamese American Young Leaders of Louisiana) who is spearheaded by another high energy and charismatic organizer. There are several points of similarity with

VAYLA and the nonprofits in New Orleans east. Like MQVN-CDC, VAYLA was also birthed in context of the landfill movement, with Minh Nguyen filling the role of youth organizer. And VAYLA shares a similar mission as VIET, where the bulk of their

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activities work to alleviate the burden on NOLA east families by providing gap-time care where teens can access tutoring and supervised time while parents work. But unlike

VIET, which seems to be struggling with growing staff and maintaining programs,

VAYLA seems to have effectively balanced a plethora of small, inexpensive, and mobile programs with increasingly ambitious growth and steady expansion.

Currently, VAYLA serves over 200 community youth (with a consistent core of

40-50 who participate in most programs daily and weekly), conserve a stable staff of 7 and have most recently seen success in community outreach programs that effectively use social networking and media platforms. I argue that this last measure is part of an overall strategy that has contributed to their organizational growth. In this last section, I outline two significant reasons why VAYLA has succeeded in not only growing beyond the initial community high of the successful landfill movement, but are positioned well to sustain growth due to two major reasons:

1) Hiring knowledgeable outsiders.

2) Creating a multiplicity of inexpensive and fun programs that require low overhead to sustain and promote.

Ultimately, these two strategies are made even more effective by VAYLA’s consistent focus on their targeted service group, New Orleans east youth. Below, I describe my experience with VAYLA and develop the two main points above to explicate the nature of their currently successful sustainability in New Orleans east.

From Social Networks to Social Justice: VAYLA’s Work with Youth

There is a scene in the documentary film, A Village Called Versailles where we first meet Minh Nguyen. He is young at the time of filming, 22 years old, and speaking in

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a measured but self-assured manner he gestures around him into a room full of high

school aged students and children wielding paint brushes, all busily and happily tracing

bright wet letters and pictures onto poster boards. Without sound, the entire scene looks

to be a casual and festive, as if the students were making signs for a homecoming

fundraiser or pep rally with their little brothers and sisters in tow. However, Minh

narrates that they are making protest signs for the next day’ press conference noting that

in “post-Katrina the youth have a voice, and in our community, we play a big role now.”

In person, Minh maintains this low-key demeanor while casually telling me, “we want

nothing short of community revolution, revitalization.”

Since 2006, Minh has been the founder and executive director of VAYLA, which

initially, was little more than a large group of teens and some college students and recent

graduates barely much older. But they would prove to be a remarkably organized group

that was buoyed by the social justice messaging of the landfill movement and the sheer

sticky camaraderie of their friendship circles. Tucked next to the 99 supermarket at the

intersection of Michoud and Chef Menteur highway, two modest shopping centers flank

the entrance to the Village De L' Est neighborhood. Sharing a converted retail space with

Ba Mien restaurant and the quiet supermarket, sharing a dark rutted parking lot. The

actual VAYLA space is little more than a dingy, concrete-floored, multi-purpose office

space with high panels of drywall hung to create rectangular office spaces on either side

of a very long hallway.

Given that teenagers often have casual standards for interior décor, most of the

kids I saw walking around and laughing did not mind the colorfully dingy surroundings, and have even capitalized on the permissiveness of the staff by painting truly stunning

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murals on the tall office walls (see Photos 1 and 2 below). White boards seem to shout

colorful aphorisms on leadership and courage, along the walls, poster boards that

resemble protest signage are displayed as well as books on social and environmental

justice. While these surroundings are notably modest, the fact of the matter is that within

5 years of Hurricane Katrina, VAYLA had successfully parlayed its initial momentum

from the protest movement toward building an organization that services a Vietnamese

and multi-racial youth population.

Despite VIET reporting the smallest budget with revenues of $629,004 in

comparison to the $800,000 budget of VIET and the 2.6 million of MQVN-CDC, VIET

had experienced a substantial downgrading of their budget since 2010 when their income

was reported to be $2,042,258 (a loss of nearly 87%) while MQVN-CDC increased their income from $1,367,044 (a doubling of their budget stream). What is of most interest here is that VIET, since 2010, had also nearly doubled their budget---from $331,492 to

$629,004. Both MQVN-CDC and VIET show similar levels of expansion, but arguably

the feat is more impressive for the smaller youth advocacy group than the more powerful,

and greater-resourced CDC. This is a telling indicator of the growth and momentum of

VAYLA, which over the past 5 years has become an important hub of community based

advocacy and outreach.

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Photo1: VAYLA Mural with Gerald Haney.

Photo2: VAYLA Mural with Brandon Huynh

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But Minh, with his youthful, relatable air, states it more simply when I speak to

him, “I just want this to be a place for the kids to come, hang out, talk, and for things to

happen.” The space has a vibrant energy despite the uninspired setting and seems to draw

pride from a renegade good humor that only teenagers working through the nuanced

implications of justice movements can exert, (someone had chalked “Make love, not

war—but also make cupcakes, too!” on a display board). Many taped-up photos of

smiling participants at community events, and young people from the neighborhood attest

to the central identity of VAYLA as a youth-led, youth-oriented organization. In particular, their mission statement emphasizes that they are a “…progressive multi-racial community-based organization in New Orleans that empowers youth and families through supportive services and organizing for cultural enrichment and positive social change” (www.vayla-no.org).

To this end, Minh stated that there had always existed a need within the

community for a central place for teenagers and other young people to informally

socialize, organize and acquire resources for high school and college. “They don’t even

really know the basics about tutoring, scholarships, and financial aid information

(Nguyen conversation Feb. 12th 2009).” Beyond these rudimentary skills for educational

advances, Minh had always seen the potential for capitalizing on the racially diverse

community through the natural friendships and interactions of young people. “Here, it’s

not like you see a lot of black and Vietnamese people just hanging out, unless they are

young—the it’s just no big deal.” It was after his family lost their home in the hurricane,

and then the revitalizing momentum of the landfill momentum when Minh felt the first

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inkling of the notion that he could effectively parlay his knowledge of the community

into the formation of VAYLA’s youth center.

Over the course of some years, Minh and I would have occasion to meet and talk casually, and I would collect interviews with community and program managers as well as be invited to drop into VAYLA whenever I liked. Research on youth-led political,

civic and community engagement appears to be an expanding area of literature

(Andolina, Jenkins, Keeter, and Zukin 2002; Sanchez-Jankowski 2002; Bedolla 2006),

but does not provide very many case studies of exclusively focused youth organizations

overall. A couple of notable exceptions find that these organizations are beneficial in

supporting the academic lives of at-risk youth (Wong 2008) and Pintado-Vertner, Soung,

and Bowes (2004) have called out this deficiency noting that, “Youth organizers need to

build strong, sustainable local organizations and networks that have the capacity to

recruit and develop youth as effective change agents” (83). It appears that studies of

youth organizing is contextualized within college clubs and university organizations,

such as Vietnamese Student organizations (VSAs), or as groups within ethnic churches,

or as programs within Asian American community organizations such as outlined by

Dang (2011).

Even if a plethora of research did exist in describing Vietnamese American youth

organizations, it would be highly unlikely that another case study could exist that traces

the founding of its group within a protest movement in the wake of a historically

devastating natural disaster. VAYLA’s unique origin story is extended by the wise

utilization of outside leadership and thoughtful local direction from vested young

stakeholders within the community. This wasn’t always the case, in the earliest days,

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VAYLA appeared to be going the way of distractions as recalled by Sammy Vu, a program coordinator who worked with the group on environmental outreach for two years before returning to California.

SV: VAYLA was at a crossroads, I think. An important pivotal moment in their history. They were very vibrant and on fire at the beginning of the landfill. They were, identified at least at first, with the church, but that wasn’t entirely accurate. But a lot of their image dovetailed and coat-tailed along with the church so they got credit there and we did participate in all of that stuff there. VAYLA in my opinion sort of dipped a little, and we sort of slowed down for a while.

V: How so?

SV: We were really into social networking, date auctions and parties. The kind of thing that fraternities or sororities would do. It didn’t have a vision, or the kind of thing I’m interested in. But now, I see a resurgence of, more, more meaningful activities at VAYLA now.

Ok, now don’t get me wrong, we did some very important things, especially the things that concern the youth here, environmental justice, racism, and like, whatever is real in their world. Like, I told you about the cyberbullying awareness initiatives we had, right? I mean there was a case not too long about the junior high girl who hung herself and then another time goes by and someone else’s child is gone because of that kind of social media bullying. We did an important awareness discussion about this, and we had the youth do activities around that.

V: It sounds like it was very successful?

SV: Oh yeah, I mean they really are looking for stuff like that. And yes, the cultural dances, and game nights and stuff are important, but we do structured programs to talk about environmental racism, because that was what the landfill was, a clear example of, racism. And the more the kids have a name to put to it, the better. Otherwise, it was just like, ‘Look at what they are doing to our home! Look at them just doing this!’ but now it has a name. And that is important because that means you have something to talk against, to say, ‘This isn’t right.’

Here, Sammy describes a course correction after VAYLA, understandably, working with youth was subject to literally, youthful distractions such as date auctions and movie nights before they found a stronger, more sustainable message embedded in social justice.

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In the midst of the landfill protest, VAYLA masterfully worked among themselves to outreach with the older and middle generations of Vietnamese who in turn, created a mutually virtuous circle of community uplift. This is a remarkable mitigation of the challenges that usually accompany the relationship between older and younger immigrant generations. Scholars on the Vietnamese experience have noted the generational and acculturative divides (Kibria 1995; Zhou and Bankston 1999) that

Vietnamese families negotiate among themselves. However, the extraordinary circumstances of the landfill protest worked to interrupt the usual tensions and awkward negotiations between youth and their elders.

Therefore, VAYLA benefitted from this generational détente by focusing the exuberant energies of the youth, educating the elder generation in the intricacies of

American style protest (which created a sense of empowerment when they are able to teach grandmothers and grandfathers for example) and educating themselves on social and environmental justice. As a young organization from 2006-2008, the VAYLA group was able to bypass some of the classic challenges that novice startups face such as creating relevance by already working with MQVN Catholic church and community leaders on the landfill initiative. By already being plugged into the existing network (and in fact, Minh Nguyen became the central hub for the youth in the midst of this network),

VAYLA was able to broker partnerships with several community based organized early on and would continue to cultivate these relationships: “The whole point of the community is that you work with what is there, the people and organizations that make it happen. Besides, we didn’t know what we were doing anyway” (laughs).

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Minh’s admission underscores research in the area of community based

organizations that has noted the importance of capitalizing on organizational networks

among and between community organizations, advocacy groups, and service providers in

order to move collective action forward in shared organizational goals (Takahashi and

Smutny 2001; Guo and Acar 2005) In their 2005 study of almost 498 immigrant-serving

nonprofits, Guzman, Martin, and Quiroz-Becerra (2008). The authors call upon the principles of resource mobilization to apply them to multi-ethnic, multi-nationality

concerns such as immigration and describe how these relationships may not bear fruit

right away, but in time, and in the right context, a concerted and organized mobilization

can emerge.

Yet partnerships in of themselves do not guarantee sustainability. Internal

organizational knowledge must guide novice groups. From the looks of VAYLA’s early

and current operations, there was and is very little professional strategy, or attempt at

organizational polish in the same manner that VIET or BPSOS possessed. Minh himself

was able to recognize the strengths and weaknesses their youth organization possesses:

“We have a ton of energy, you can call a group of kids together and be like, ‘let’s get this

fundraiser done this weekend,’ and you with Danny or Ly heading it off, it’s like done.

But we aren’t ever going to be the Boys and Girls club, we aren’t trying to be.” Instead,

VAYLA opted for two much more successful, and appropriately tailored strategies for

organizational management and growth---recruiting young, passionate, college-educated

individuals with experience in political advocacy and social justice, and implementing

small, inexpensive programs that are portable, interest-specific, and generate high

enthusiasm.

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It’s About That Connection: Reaching the Youth

In the excerpt below, Minh describes advances the hiring of a new program director who seems to strike precisely the correct note to reach out to VAYLA youth:

V: Since we last spoke, how’s it been going for you?

MN: We have a new director, Mary K. Nguyen--we call her MK. She's from Minnesota, and she brings all the same qualities that some of the things I've been talking about. She was that outsider activist I was talking about, educated, passionate, leader of youth.

V: Wow, what’s her background?

MN: She’s Vietnamese but she represents it all. Environmental justice, social work, she writes and does research on stakeholder activism and institutional-community partnership. The kids really like her, she’s cool, but tough too. Her husband does skater culture, I think he is doing a film on skate parks. She definitely knows what she’s talking about and the youth are really into her, it’s about that connection; they really connect.

V: How long is she here for?

MN: Two years.

V: And you are saying she’s very much like, the cool, the smart authority on social justice?

MN: I wouldn’t say that. She does it in a very impressive way. She's not authoritative. She empowers the youth. So, a lot of things that kind of were, um, hard to figure out along the way, they are now moving because she has the youth make those decisions. She creates her own programs, but her information comes directly from the kids. We work together but she came with a lot of good ideas because she has that experience, you can ask her about it, she’s got those stories. And she really plugged into what we knew the youth would want, some of the stuff we had gotten off the ground, but, and this is just a small part --we now have a citizenship class, a graphic design class, dance, poetry slam and creative writing, that's meaningful and appropriate with the kids.

V: Has it been super busy, then? I mean, you’ve always seem to have something going on, but what’s it like here during the week?

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MN: For some of those things you can get the signups from Deanna but From Monday through Thursday there are 25 to 30 youth in here in doing homework. It’s a place to hang out, yeah, but for a certain percentage of them they get their homework done and get some assistance and be safe. But mostly, it’s just their involvement in an encouraging, and building an awareness in them that change is possible within themselves, there is a conversation always here about how you can grow and how you can challenge City Hall, or the police, in ways that are productive and can bring about change. They got a group here talking about the budget, making decisions and talking. Its bringing forward a lot of the young people in New Orleans East that didn’t have that outlet.

V: Mm, yeah. What do you attribute to the resurgence that you call it?

MN: Um, I think it could be MK herself. And some of the other staff. Last week there was a group here, 10 Jewish girls from New York, and they just had a meeting with us. It was so open and exhilarating, it brought everybody in. Sparks were flying and people were meeting each other and networking and learning about another culture.

They learned about us, we learned about them. it just was so spontaneous even for a workshop and it had a lot of meaning, and that happens here, and we hope to have more of that. Ad hoc, everybody, open mike, about safety, we talked about that too. Conversations about the root causes of violent crime and what do you do. Good strategies, good techniques, and just talking about our experiences. and it wasn’t just adults. Actually, it’s very seldom adults preaching here. Its youth expressing and talking.

V: I always thought that was what it was all about anyway, you know, getting everybody together to talk among adults can be a real slowdown. Before you know it, everybody is arguing, or debating it at a real intellectual level---not that your kids are uninformed---

MN: They’re very informed.

V: Right, but for adults together in a meeting room, they would just, like devolve into this extended diatribe, or diatribes about politics and who is right and wrong, or who is corrupt or city politics or whatever.

MN: Ok, right, but we come from it from a different angle, where empowerment starts now. If these kids can speak from where they know, like they can see the garbage, or they see how their families are affected by the crime, or they know who put up the graffiti and gang tags, we tell them that is real information that no one knows but them. They can’t be ignored because they have like a, a ground view of the community, and the thing is, they can feel they have no power.

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V: But you tell them they do have power.

MN: Exactly.

From this exchange, we see the seeds of several successful VAYLA strategies. First,

Minh brings in a leader from outside the community, who is nevertheless, very much like

himself in outlook and community passion, but she also possesses outreach experience

for working with young people, and most importantly, an level of relatability that does

not threaten or assert itself unilaterally.

To Minh, “MK” possesses a directed and high level of energy that is required

when one is hired to accomplish goals in the finite constraints of a grant funded position.

An older social services worker, or perhaps even a seasoned professional with a

community outreach background would likely not have the needed insight or finesse to

“let the youth make the decisions.” From the beginning, Minh established and maintained

this practice of staffing VAYLA’s ranks with progressive-minded individuals like himself and MK. Sammy Vu arrived first, as well as others from state schools and liberal arts colleges in California, Massachusetts, and Michigan. All of whom possess backgrounds in community outreach, public health, political mobilization and with substantial cultural competencies.

Secondly, Minh offers up a variety of programs, from graphic design class to open mikes, yet the multiplicity of VAYLA programs in this case cannot be compared to that of VIET programs. Earlier, I argue that the assortment of VIET projects worked to sidetrack the organization from capitalizing on their strongest program, the Afterschool

Academy. With so many projects, from field trips to complicated community events like the Senior Olympics, VIET ran the risk of offering fractured resources. But in the case of

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VIET, activity-based programs such as the graphic design course, poetry slams, or cultural dance troupes (a group of girls choreograph and practice Vietnamese dances while a group of boys meet to practice dragon dances in VAYLA’s studio space) are easily managed by the program director, outreach coordinators, or even entrusted to long- term VAYLA members themselves.

Research supports the viability of these mobile pop-up style programs, that are tailored for their lifestyle and needs, particularly for youth outreach. While there is little in the way of empirical research describing this relationship between successful CBOs and style of youth programs, a special issue of New Directions in Youth Development

(Winter 2002) explicate the meaning of youth participation. While they define youth participation broadly as a “constellation of activities that empower adolescents to take part in and influence decision making that affects their lives and to take action on issues they care about” (5) and not as merely the result of CBO programs, the collected works offer interesting insights. In particular, a study evaluating youth programs was conducted by youth revealed surprising things that impact the overall effectiveness of the program, for example, starting programs at 3:30pm or 4pm after school instead of 3pm (a shockingly simple solution to increase participation that seemed inexplicably overlooked by some nonprofits), or providing snacks, and updated computers with internet access as well as a social media presence.

The fact that these modest, and seemingly common-sense tweaks required a formal assessment (by youth themselves no less) in order that they may be considered important suggests that the most effective solution would have been to solicit youth input from the very beginning---something that VAYLA has done to great success. Their

210 strategy of hiring a professional community organizer with specific expertise in youth outreach solidified VAYLA’s philosophy to empower youth by letting them lead in designing programs that best suited their interest and needs. This may seem like a risky ceding of control from an organization’s leaders, who presumably must deliver program outcomes, to its beneficiaries who would have no idea about the intricacies of program deliverables. But in fact, VAYLA here is able to deliver on its general objectives of

“youth development, community empowerment, higher education and cultural awareness” by focusing on the specific interests of their youthful beneficiaries:

In conclusion, future research can draw upon these initial findings based on

VAYLA, and how their strategies differ from those of VIET, to craft a framework for understanding how new Vietnamese nonprofit organizations can best serve and survive in their communities. I have already presented evidence that VIET’s more slow and measured growth was due in fact to staying small and crafting programs that are first suggested by and then maintained by the youth. However, I recognize that the number and management of programs is not the sole variable for determining sustainability, and this finding may be most useful in context of research that pinpoints general principles of nonprofit sustainability. For instance, Gregory and Howard (2009) identify a major component for efficient organizational functioning: investment in overhead and other infrastructure requirements:

Organizations that build robust infrastructure---which includes sturdy information technology systems, financial systems, skill training, fundraising processes, and other essential overhead---are more likely to succeed that those that do not. Yet it is also news that mot nonprofits do not spend enough money on overhead…The researchers examined more than 220,000 IRS Form 990s and conducted 1,500 in-depth surveys of organizations with revenues of more than $100,000. Among their many dismaying findings: nonfunctioning computers, staff members who lacked

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the training needed or their positions, and, in one instance, furniture so old and beaten down that the movers refused to move it (49-50).

Already, we can see that VIET’s undertrained staff had been a detriment to their functioning, while VAYLA’s cultivation of knowledgeable, like-minded, professional, and progressive staff with backgrounds in community mobilization would serve them well. And while neither the offices of VIET nor VAYLA are glossy operations, we have seen how VIET underplayed their professional environment while VAYLA would try to make the most of their surroundings by turning their space into an outlet for youthful artistic expression. New studies on Vietnamese community based organizations in the

Gulf South should focus on this myriad of variables: infrastructure, professionalization, training, and program development.

This concludes the chapter on how, after disaster, Vietnamese nonprofits formed across the Gulf Coast at an unprecedented rate. I have argued that since 2006, the remarkable addition of 16 new organizations, particularly in regions that saw little or no service or community based organizing, occurred because these communities wished to capitalize upon the unprecedented opportunity for empowering Vietnamese communities.

In short, what began as the unfettered, and undirected general buzz of recovery activities coalesced into something greater: the emergence of organizations, and the eventual crafting of important Gulf Coast Vietnamese nonprofits.

The final empirical chapter that follows continues my central thesis on how individual recovery activities come together to have the effect of a larger community building project. In this case, I argue that post-disaster, a new, emergent and renewed sense of Gulf Coast Vietnamese identity is formed. I focus on the younger generation of

Vietnamese local and nonlocals who articulate this identity formation that accomplishes

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CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION (Re)Constructing the Gulf Coast Refugee

My primary discovery in this project is that Gulf Coast Vietnamese residents

established a number of nonprofit organizations in the wake of disaster. The remarkable

expansion of mobilization in neighborhoods unfamiliar with the tropes of community

based organizing has proven to be an uneven experience dotted with challenges and

triumphs. The previous chapters provide evidence for these occurrences, and yields the following findings:

1. Nationally known Vietnamese organizations such as BPSOS sought to make the unique imprint of their formal institutional practices in a region where these practices are largely unknown.

2. Vietnamese communities are not always amendable to overtures from new organizations. Therefore, new organizations found that they must implement culturally competent outreach behavior in order to win the attention and cooperation from residents.

3. Charismatic authority in the form of a well-known community leader offers both benefits and drawbacks.

4. Organizations attempting to meet their community needs by rapidly developing and implementing multiple programs do so to their detriment.

5. Organizations met with more success and increased their chances of sustainable growth when they kept their mission statements narrow, and their services and programs portable and targeted.

While these findings occur because of the emergence of 16 regional community

organizations post-Katrina and the oil spill, in aggregate, they offer insights that are

generalizable and quite consistent with the situation beyond the extraordinary occurrence

of natural disasters and the specific scope of only Gulf Coast Vietnamese communities.

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This chapter outlines lessons learned in the form of suggestions that may be applied to two different groups under the following circumstances:

1. New nonprofit organizations working with Vietnamese communities or panethnic Asian American communities.

2. Established nonprofit organizations working with Vietnamese or panethnic Asian American communities.

These two conditions can be met without the occurrence of a natural disaster and is the standard way that most nonprofits arise. This study has examined how nonprofit organizations that work with immigrant organizations in general perform as they struggle to first become established and then sustain their presence and therefore may have specific applications to understanding how immigrant organizations may best meet the

needs of their communities. I submit that these suggestions fall broadly into two

categories of action: building from trust and building from knowledge. Finally, I

conclude with a discussion on the limitations of this study and how these limitations can

form the basis to craft future research on the operation of Vietnamese organizations in

general and the topic of Gulf Coast Vietnamese Americans in particular.

Building Up Organizations by Building Trust

Drawing from my observation of community members, I refer to trust as the

positive feelings of positive regard a community member feels toward an organization (or

a representative of that organization) that would engender cooperation with that group. In

this study I have presented how a lack of trust in the motives of a particular individual,

such as Fr. Vien, or the lack of trust in an organization, such as with MQVN-CDC,

BPSOS, or VIET, limits the reach of these organizations as they seek to implement their

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programs. Trust, as an idea, weighs heavily on the minds of Vietnamese residents as well

for organizational representatives:

So, coming here to New Orleans East, where it's a lot more impoverished, it's like, I don't know where I belong, and I don't know how we can present ourselves in a way where we can gain that trust. So, I've had a lot of -- I guess I was very insecure about myself, and I didn't know how to make myself -- you know, am I cool enough? Can they trust me? Lily Phuong, MQVN-CDC

V: How do you think the Vietnamese community sees organizations like NAVASA?

JL: They don't trust them. And I don’t blame them, Vietnamese people down here they don't trust anyone. You have to prove that you are worthy of their trust. Jenny Lee, NAVASA

*******************

Do I think it's true? I mean, it seems like it's kind of a common trope within the Vietnamese community. There's always, like – ‘Oh, they’re swindler.’ For us, it's very much about reputation, and trust. I mean, what do you think? Do you think he cheated people in the community? Where did that guy come from?

Nguyet Quang, New Orleans

Yes, it’s hard. You can have good ideas but it’s who you know, and the Vietnamese are skeptical. We are just a very skeptical bunch and you have to earn the trust with the community. Derek Ngo, Biloxi

The organizational representatives above, Lily Phuong and Jenny Lee, have different relationships to the Gulf Coast ---Lily is an “outsider” organizer from

California, while Jenny is a life-long resident of the Gulf Coast, yet they are both

practically interchangeable as competent, personable, and authentic individuals with a

passion for community organizing. Another similarity they share is the recognition that

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trust is very important. For Lily, who asks herself if she belonged, or if she “was cool

enough” highlights the role of the individual agent in cultivating trust. Jenny, as a local,

flatly declares that the default condition is this: “Vietnamese people down here they don't

trust anyone.”

Her pronouncement is echoed by her fellow locals, Nguyet Quang from New

Orleans and Derek Ngo from Biloxi, in the same unequivocal manner. Outsiders and

others are “swindlers,” and that the Vietnamese are just “a very skeptical bunch.”

Therefore, trust is a different thing to different groups---on one hand, it is a valuable and

eagerly sought-after commodity for organizations, but community members treat it as a

carefully guarded prize, not easily granted to others.

In this study, the notion of trust is also reflected in major analytical points. I presented the overarching theme of bridging the gaps where I noted how new Gulf South

Vietnamese organizations struggled to bridge gaps and build relationships so that they may transition a community of inexperienced, naïve, or complacent Vietnamese locals from loose, informal networks into structured organizational forms. In order to move community members from feelings of ambivalence to a spirit of teamwork, trust- engendering occurs through the deployment of soft skills, and the promotion of community-wide cultural events. Both of these items can be summarized into the following directives for how organizations may cultivate trust:

A. State the intention to gain community trust. Acknowledge from the very beginning of entry into a community that the organization is an interloper--even if the organization had been previously established in similar communities, or have recognized leaders from the community. By admitting that trust is not a default status automatically conferred on the organization, the organization demonstrates awareness. By stating that they are willing to work to develop this trust crystalizes the

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organizational brand for the community of otherwise skeptical residents.

B. Develop cultural competency through soft skills. While nonprofits may possess frameworks, heuristics, and algorithms for maintaining organizational integrity, the essence of their work involves communication, connection, and cultural awareness. Possessing great facility in these matters eases the translation of programmatic objectives into the community. Language access, translation, culturally relevant services are served especially well by deploying soft skills.

C. Addressing community needs through tailored events. Creating a space for people to “be Vietnamese” within the physical environment is very important and is a form of trust building through ethnic-identity authenticity (Aguilar San-Juan 2009). Cultivating these cultural spaces by coordinating events, celebrations, health fairs, and festivals that involve specific segments within the community (such as youth, and the elderly) will employ the useful “middle-generation” of bilingual community residents as well as cultivate a sense of “being Vietnamese.”

Over time, these three directives, particularly if employed simultaneously, with patience and diligence, will reap considerable mutual benefits by building trust between organizational and community stakeholders.

Building Knowledge, Creating Growth

The second set of lessons involve building a basis of knowledge about the community. Where the cultivation of trust fosters the feelings of goodwill that are necessary to inspire the goals of an organization, the acquisition of knowledge informs, shapes, and directs those goals. Getting to know the community well, that is, knowing what constituents need in the immediate present, as well as what they would envision toward community development, requires the careful and valid collection of data. In this way, organizations are no longer the dispenser of “things” such as goods or services, but

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rather an organization, at its best, is also the curator and shepherd of the community’s

cumulative and collective knowledge. Knowledge that may prove valuable in

communities that may be isolated. In short, by learning from the community, they can also eventually teach others about the community---acting as an ambassador for immigrant communities.

The view of knowledge acquisition I propose here then, recasts organizations as potentially fluid entities rather than data-collecting machines. Instead of viewing knowledge in the classic sense of facts or information collection, I suggest that the most powerful forms of knowledge reside in the experiences and minds of constituents and therefore, organizations must pursue community members on a level of parity obtainable once trust is established. In chapter 4, we have seen how organizational growth is hindered by schisms within an organization, such as when a charismatic central figure is the object of tension among constituents (this is case for Fr. Vien, and to a certain extent

Cyndi Nguyen). The remedy for this overreliance on powerful figures within an organization, and wary residents outside an organization is to draw upon what I reason as

“middle-members” of a community.

While this study limits itself to organizational and community level constructions, relationships, and dynamics, I have also informally identified among participant interviews a myriad of notions regarding Vietnamese ethnic identity construction. A profound analysis of microsociological, interactionist, and ethnic identity is not within the purview of organizations for this study, but it is useful to offer that the features of a certain group of interviewees render them uniquely equipped to impart valuable knowledge about the Vietnamese community. By describing some of the study

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participants as “middle-members” I specify that these individuals are 1) largely bilingual

with facilities in either both speaking and writing, or at least conversationally fluent, 2)

recognized residents mostly identifiable as part of a family within a community, and 3)

between their mid-20s into early 40s.

The above are the most basic features and are diverse in many other ways. Some middle-members have children (usually young children) and others do not. Some have nearly all their compulsory schooling in the United States, and others have none. Some work in jobs with few Vietnamese colleagues while others own small businesses located within the heart of their Vietnamese neighborhoods. The overriding feature resides in the bilingual facility---their command of both English and Vietnamese allow them to move seamlessly from being Vietnamese to being American.

The other two features, one of residency and the other age, imparts two kinds of benefits. First, being members of community bestows this group a status as trusted community members (an extremely valuable commodity as we have established earlier).

And, their place on the interstitial age-range insulates them from the uncertainties of teen

and very young adult Vietnamese who may be either ignorant or resistant to Vietnamese

heritage. On the other hand, being younger than elderly Vietnamese also buffers them

from the dismissive cynicism or the cultural isolation that can sometimes mark this oldest

generation of refugees and immigrants. In short, they “know Vietnamese” while also

“knowing American.”

The notion of middle-members came about as I spoke to certain participants who describe themselves as a middle-generation. In this interview excerpt, Derek Ngo, whose

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home was torn off its foundation during Katrina, discusses differences between older and

younger generations, but then reflects on his role as a generational go-between:

V: Well, but in 25 years you will officially be part of the older generation. We all go there.

DN: Right, but when I become part of the older generation, I will definitely be more open to newer concepts, with new ideas and open with the youngsters. Like now, I may be in my late 30s, but I play on a football team with guys in their early 20s, or maybe even 19 sometimes. Just because I am the oldest person on the team that doesn’t mean that everybody has to listen to me, but they do anyway because they know I can be fair.

V: As a member of the in-between generation, that knows about the older and younger generations, are you willing to take on the responsibility to translate, do work, rebuild?

DN: I can, I will, but it depends on the way people are, if they are willing to listen and their attitudes are right. There is only a small percentage of Vietnamese in the in-between age, only little group of us. Danny, Chi Thao, Peter Nguyen, Kaitlin, we are the middle generation and in a few years we may step up.

V: I bet that would help.

DN: Well, I do this for my family anyway. If the older ones are saying the young ones are this and that, that they don’t listen, I can step in and see it from both sides.

While Derek does appear to show some hesitancy in acting as a mediator, particularly in the larger picture work of post-disaster community rebuilding, he does recognize his skills derived mainly as a middle-generation mediator. He can be “fair” to those who are younger, and see the side of the oldest elders. In his personal situation as a

Vietnamese resident impacted directly by the storm, Derek has performed translation, aided in the recovery of neighbors, and is an engaged and active church goer. T

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This ideally situates him to be a valuable source of information for organizations.

It stands to reason that this is a privileged space for action as Fr. Vien, Cyndi Nguyen,

Minh Nguyen, Danny Le, Mary Tran, and countless organizational members and

directors are of this in-between generation. However they are also firmly situated within

the organization itself and therefore have a stake in the organizations agenda. I suggest

that Derek Ngo should be recognized and empowered as knowledgeable agents that are

courted by the organization rather than beholden to it. The following suggestions address

how to best promote the utility of these middle-generation members:

A. Name, validate, and value the role of these community members. The features of this middle generation ideally situates them to be navigators within their community but this role has not been formally defined. By noting the myriad beneficial skills and positive characteristics of this generation of residents, all members of the Vietnamese community and of the organization can call upon them for assistance.

B. Minimize compensation but maximize empowerment. As we have seen, this middle generation populates all rung of the community organization ladder---and therefore align themselves as agents of the organization and mitigate their primary power---that of a trusted community member. Community organizers may explore alternative forms of limited affiliation where these knowledgeable residents may be allocated a budget or resources to either collect community ideas, or to facilitate discreet community events but are not employees per se.

C. Utilize the knowledge of this middle-generation to craft programs. Middle generation community members have the broadest view of community needs. They bear witness to the myriad of health, economic, occupational, and social contexts of their neighborhoods and can best articulate them to the organizations that require this information.

The suggestions above address the major findings of this study. As we have seen, as new organizations form in communities, tensions may arise, as exemplified by the case of MQVN-CDC. Even if those groups are led by previously popular and trusted leaders, any community unaccustomed to nonprofit community based organizing will not accept

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these groups on faith alone. Therefore, a mediating third party that can communicate

from within, while “being Vietnamese,” can bridge into the community organization (a

notion that is culturally speaking, “being American”).

Suggestions B and C address the findings (using the case study of VIET) that the

unchecked growth of organizational programs have proven problematic for some

nonprofits in this study. Despite the fact the executive director possesses a deep

knowledge of her community, she is necessarily obliged to respond to the pressing

requirements of her grant and the frenzied pressure to expand her organization. But by

enlisting her counterparts within the community, she can best tailor programs and

resources to not only serve the needs of the community, but as a byproduct, will likely

elevate the operations of her nonprofit.

Limitations of the Study and Future Research

“Well, whatever you do, you better come back.”

Tuyet Duong, Biloxi

Over the course of a few weeks after I had interviewed the very first participant

for the study, we became friends. In our many discussions over the years about my

research and the progress of the dissertation, she had playfully noted that I had better

“show my face around town” even after I collected all the data I needed. This is not an

off-the-mark comment since it is an uncomfortable truism that researchers have been known to swoop into an area to amass an empirical stockpile, only to leave and never be seen again. The unfortunate consequence of this is not only that it raises the ire of participants who are rendered into research subjects, but always the studies require further attendance in the form of more longitudinal data, better methods, the application

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of better questions or the testing of new hypothesis. By developing a well-articulated plan for further study into Gulf Coast Vietnamese communities based on the limitations of this current study, the danger that under-researched groups becoming a side-note in Katrina’s wake will be lessened.

The first limitation of this study is drawn from the nature of ethnographic study of an ethnic enclave in of itself. There are two areas of concern when researching ethnic communities. The first area concerns the ethical and investigatory considerations that must be considered when examining ethnic populations and communities. The second area addresses the researcher him or herself in relationship to the ethnic population, namely their own ethnic identity. Birman (2006) summarizes many of the ethical concerns that are typically associated with investigating immigrant and refugee communities. I propose that future research should include community members actively developing interview scripts and informing the coding schemas for qualitative inquiry in this area. As the pool of grounded theory swells with research focusing on iterations of hurricane research, natural disaster studies, and their interaction with race, ethnicity, and immigrant communities, the murky ethical concerns will be informed by fair exchanges among a larger group of scholars.

The second limitation speaks to the nature of qualitative data and its generalizability. Despite the diversity of the communities in terms of population size, occupational profiles, and the differential outcomes for hurricane Katrina, there is no manner of qualitative inquiry that could provide full catchment for any human experience, much less one as multi-faceted as that of natural disaster visited upon a community. Given this restriction, qualitative researchers recognize that generalizability

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cannot be attained (Denzin and Lincoln 2011). But the scholars argue that an exact

overlay of findings has never been the objective of social science research, but rather the

establishment of a degree of theoretical insight. Thus, the specificities of one community

may be transported to another case in the form of “general inquiry” rather than predictive

measure.

The final limitation to this study is that it looks at only this first decade in the

aftermath of a major natural crisis. While we see the intense, aggressive, and dynamic creation of new nonprofits, a near-mushrooming of structural capacity, this study truncates its findings to the time already circumscribed for data collection. A fuller picture of Gulf Coast Vietnamese organizations can only be assembled over time and with a fuller collection of data. This study suggests a longitudinal design where follow-up interviews and contacts with participants are assembled along with observational tracking of all organizations established from 2005 onward.

Will existing organizations continue to grow and become sustainable into the

future? Will new organizations become established into the second decade after disaster?

And if both these situations occur, what does that imply for the nature of Vietnamese mobilization and communtiy in the Gulf South? It is the wish of this author, with respect

to the original observation of the first participant who playfully warned that researchers

“better come back,” that future research should address these questions as well as inspire

new research studies for this vibrant and ultimately resilient region of the United States.

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APPENDIX A: METHODS

This study draws upon nearly 3 years of field work in the form of participant observation as well as 54 in-depth, face-to-face interviews. Additionally, the examination of community documents (such as local newspapers, special event fliers, and bilingual brochures), internet blogs, radio and all manner of print and televised media provided important context to field work and interviews. In aggregate, this project reflects three different but intersecting genres of qualitative inquiry: ethnography, case study, and grounded theory. Saldana (2011) and others (Creswell 2007; Wolcott 2009; Miles,

Huberman, and Saldana 2013) provide useful descriptions of each tradition but highlight the permeable, overlapping nature of each strategy. Ethnographic inquiry occurs in natural, rather than experimental, settings (“in the field”), and draws upon interview, observational, and sometimes participant observer data to reveal a cultural milieu.

Grounded theory is also a process that relies on interview and observational strategies, but can be most readily distinguished from ethnography during the process of analysis when data are sifted through several iterations of constant comparison that result in a derived theory (Charmaz 2006). That is, the theory is “grounded” in the data and is likely to be one-of-a kind, rather than generated from the ether. Thus, if ethnography is characterized by constant comparison of categories during data analysis, this does not preclude it from being ethnography. Further, neither the deployment of ethnographic or grounded theory in the same project disqualifies the study from being a case study. While graduate students are trained to appreciate the complexities and methodological issues related to defining and studying cases, (particularly if they were made to read Ragin and

Becker’s 1992 book, What is a Case?) a working definition may be, “a holistic

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investigation of some space- and time-rooted phenomenon, such as a neighborhood, small community, organization, or social movement (Lofland, Snow, Anderson, and

Lofland 2006).

Despite the shadings of differences that are either profound or fine among methods, the foundational experience of qualitative inquiry is relational and interactional; that is, it relies on the cultivation, negotiation and interpretation of relationships in the context of a naturalistic “field” of experience (Katz 2002). That is not to say that qualitative research specifically investigates a particular relationship, although that may occur in the process of investigation, but rather it is the explication of social life through

the activities of observing and being with others (Bent and Shapiro 1998). In this chapter

I explain the philosophical framework that underpins naturalistic inquiry and outline how

I gained access to the sites, recruited and interviewed participants, and cultivated

relationships in order to understand what I observed in the course of fieldwork. Further, I

will discuss the management of raw data and the use of computer-assisted qualitative

analysis software (CAQAS)—in this case, the 7th version of Atlas ti. I will conclude with

an explication of the codebook and the construction of theoretical constructs.

Collectively, the acts of transcribing, coding, creating memos, building categories, and

theoretical constructs ultimately led me to the findings that the Vietnamese engaged in

community building projects after Hurricane Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The Qualitative Perspective

The discourse on what exactly constitutes qualitative research has grown

increasingly complex. Narrative-based, naturalistic inquiry is no longer thought of as

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simply being the algorithmic opposite of quantitative research (Denzin and Lincoln 2011;

Newman and Benz 1998). However, the great variety of choices requires that researchers

are now confronted with a myriad of methodological challenges during different stages of

investigation. Some scholars have suggested that selecting a philosophical worldview or

paradigm prior to conceptualizing the project increases the chances for a successful

inquiry (Lincoln and Guba 2000). The articulation of a worldview often provides

investigators with a plan for organizing their data during the collection phase, and in

thinking about their data in the concurrent analysis phases. While Creswell uses the term worldview to describe a “general orientation about the world” (2007: 6), others specify historical, epistemological and/or ontological characteristics (Hill 2012; McLeod 2011;

Ponterotto 2005; Denzin and Lincoln 2005).

Social science scholars identify post-positivism and social constructionism as the predominant paradigms, and others include pragmatism and advocacy (Creswell 2007).

Post-positivism lends itself well to explicating causal relationships in which one may

develop reasonably true statements based on empirical evidence with the objective of

eventually verifying theory (Ponterotto 2005), but is not able to account for emergent,

spontaneous, or iterative features that arise when researchers study individuals or groups.

Thus, many researchers point out that the post-positivistic perspective lends itself well to quantitative studies, whereas the logic of qualitative inquiry is continually renewed by the social construction of reality (Warren and Karner 2005; Bentz and Shapiro 1998; Taylor and Bogdan 1998).

Human actions such as asking, listening, watching, understanding, and interpreting serve to illuminate yet simultaneously create the event during a process that

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“requires an immersion in some aspect of social life, in an attempt to capture the

wholeness of that experience, followed by an attempt to convey this understanding to

others” (McLeod 2011: ix), or, in Herbert Blumer’s classically, maddeningly circular

case for symbolic interactionism: “The meaning of a thing for a person grows out of the

ways in which other persons act toward the person with regard to the thing” (1969: 4).

Beyond these general epistemological frameworks, there is an overwhelmingly diverse

choice of research traditions, approaches and methods that can satisfy even the most

boutique forms methodological tastes (Creswell 2007; Denzin and Lincoln 2005;

Gubrium and Holstein 2001).

How does one proceed in choosing a strategy of inquiry and the resulting

methods? The contemporary researcher benefits from a multitude of books and articles

that summarize approaches. Some even compare the most popular procedures such as

ethnography, grounded theory, and phenomenological and narrative inquiry.30 This

research project offers unique dimensions in breadth and depth because the interviews

spanned three states and may be seen as three independent case studies of community.

To address the research questions, both ethnographic and grounded theory

methods have been employed to fulfill two purposes: 1) to describe the meanings of

shared beliefs and behavior of the Vietnamese living post-Katrina along the Gulf Coast, and 2) develop a theory or analytic schema to understand and further investigate the Gulf

Coast Vietnamese. In the first case, ethnography requires that a discernible group of individuals, what Harris (1968) dubs a “culture-sharing group,” is examined by a researcher engaging in participant observation for the purposes of illuminating what they understand as shared meaning. Strauss and Corbin (1990) in particular are credited with

30 See Wolcott, 2001 for a discussion of the multitude of options for narrative and qualitative inquiry.

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developing grounded theory into the first systematic procedure for developing theory

from the raw material of interviews and observation. Even as grounded theory

practitioners refine and debate the process, it still relies on constant comparisons of codes, triangulation and the development of theory from inductive rather than deductive analysis (Charmaz 2006).

In the qualitative tradition, there is a degree of “ambivalence to theory”

(Puddephatt, Shaffir and Kleinknecht 2009: 4). Some ethnographic scholars perceive theory to be restrictive and instead prioritize openness, naiveté, and flexibility, as enacted in grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967) and captured in the use of “thick descriptions” (Geertz 1973). In this vein of openness, Lofland, Snow, Anderson and

Lofland (1996) advocate the notion of “starting where you are” and entering the field with as few preconceptions as possible in order to facilitate making sense of the communities. Further, the act of openness bestows validity by assigning primacy to narrative. The role of narrative cannot be underestimated; Chase (2003) articulates the point that “conventional methods of sociological interviewing tends to suppress respondents’ stories” (273) and that Mishler suggests that people are naturally drawn to

relay their experiences in story-telling form because this is an irresistible human impulse

(1986).

Initial Entry into the Field: Churches and Temples

I personally knew very few Vietnamese people in New Orleans. And with those

few individuals who were my acquaintances, I was hesitant to call casually for an easy

introduction into the Versailles community. Some of my reluctance was due to being

unsure on how to best present myself and my research interests into an unfamiliar

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network---especially since I had not spent any significant time there before. In the

summer of 2009, I attended my first church service at Mary Queen of Vietnam in order to

acquire a physical familiarity with the neighborhoods and community space. In this way,

I began my fieldwork in an observational capacity by late 2009 by visiting the Mary

Queen of Vietnam Catholic church on several Sundays to observe services and to walk

around the adjacent blocks of houses afterwards. Field notes from that time reveal the

depth of my inexperience with all manner of liturgical practices. As a non-Christian/non-

Catholic, I had only attended church services a handful of times aside from a few

weddings and was apparently quite puzzled by many aspects of my experience:

[New Orleans, MQVN morning service] I sat in the last pew on the left hand side of the church away from the central rows of seats; at least this is my left side as I face the front of the church. It is a bright and airy space and I find it very peaceful until very suddenly people were filling up all the pews all at once. I notice that not far from me is a small room separated with glass panes from the larger area, and there are two monitors mounted to the ceiling. There are movable chairs in this room and not pews. This must be a family room because a couple with a very small baby and a little girl who looked to be about 2 years old piled into the room and were followed by a woman with her little kids in tow. They glance up at the monitors every once in a while….an elderly woman in a patterned silk blouse, brown pants and black sandals sits next to me and nods. I nod back but I don’t know what to say. There are two books in front of me, one is a bible that looks very new and the other is a smaller book that people sing from but it’s in Vietnamese and I can’t read it...the lady has her own bible but she mostly holds it along with these pretty lacquered prayer beads...A man sits next to me, he is shorter than I am and looks to be in his early-twenties. He is dressed in a baggy polo shirt and jeans. He politely nods and calls me “Chi” meaning sister, this acknowledges me as his same status but I am likely older than him…Now they are kneeling and I also kneel but it feels awkward, but I bow my head. Everyone makes the sign of the cross again and I don’t know if you go to your right shoulder first or your left, so I make note to look at the priest—I think it is his left shoulder first but I am not sure. From author field notes 10/18/09

On these occasions I also made sure to look at the church bulletins placed on a

small table by the entrances that announced community events and other items of interest.

By the time I acquired IRB approval to begin interviewing, I approached those who

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appeared to be church volunteers and made small talk hoping to learn more about the

church in general and to possibly forge some connections. Eventually, I did call upon

existing contacts to ask for their participation as well as making an appointment to speak

to Father Vien and Father Luke. I took to heart Robert Park’s famous exhortation to “get

the seats of your pants dirty” (1925) in the name of qualitative inquiry by frequenting the

restaurants, cafes and stores nestled in the two storefront strip malls on either side of

Alcee Fortier.

During successive visits I became increasingly familiar with the terrain and

boundaries of the community. The relative compactness of Versailles made visiting local

groceries, restaurants, dry goods stores, and attending the Buddhist temple Chua Van

Hahn a fairly simple matter in that they were located narrowly along a short stretch on

either side of Chef Menteur Highway. The Mary Queen of Vietnam Church and the

Intercultural Charter School are located within the residential area just adjacent to Chef

Menteur along Michoud Avenue. In short, I did not have to travel far to identify

Vietnamese spaces. In contrast, Vietnamese residents of Biloxi were widely dispersed

after Hurricane Katrina and settled in a scatter-shot manner around what was generally recognized by locals as “Little Saigon.” As noted earlier, Biloxi’s booming seafood processing and fishing economy attracted eastern European and Cajun workers who settled in small homes close to the processing plants at the turn of the 20th century.

This area, known as Biloxi’s Back Bay area, also moored fishing vessels and

eventually became a multi-ethnic neighborhood that acted as a receiving ground for

incoming seafood workers, including Vietnamese refugees in the late 1970s. Over time,

small groceries, restaurants, gas stations and Biloxi’s only Buddhist temple, Chua Van

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Duc, sprang up along the streets bisecting historical downtown Biloxi. These businesses

cater to the Vietnamese residents who frequented the small shopping area, attended

services at the Vietnamese Martyrs Catholic Church, the temple, and visited the emerging

casinos located along the waterfront. However, the degree of ethnic markings was not

intensive and the lack of sustainable services or a professional class of Vietnamese

(doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers etc.) would disqualify Biloxi’s Little Saigon as an

ethnic enclave demonstrating Breton’s notion of institutional completeness (1964).

Also, in the summer of 2010, I moved to Biloxi to join my then-fiancé where he was working and living. While this was a prime opportunity to begin my field work in

Biloxi east, I found that once again, I was faced with the same dilemma that I found in

New Orleans--I didn’t know any Vietnamese people. At times, this strange experience of being a Vietnamese person in search of other Vietnamese made me think of my own father’s story of his early days in the United States.

Arriving in the wintertime with my mother and me in Newport News, Virginia, he told me he didn’t see any other Vietnamese families for weeks. With no English skills and living in a strange “foreign” city and unemployed made for an isolating and lonely time. One day, while walking home on a bitterly snowy day, my dad spotted a

Vietnamese man driving a car that was stopped at an intersection. He told me of how he sprinted across the icy street, practically skipping across the icy patches that would have broken his leg, in order to pound deliriously on the poor man’s window. While I wasn’t above accosting strangers, I felt there must be a more systematic and contemporary way to gain field entry, and with no better place to start, I took to the internet. One of the first results returned from the search phrase, “Vietnamese Organizations” was the

233 organization Asian Americans for Change (AAC). I clicked onto a rudimentary website that had only a few additional webpages and called the contact number provided. It was a personal cell phone number to Bich An, an officer in AAC, who invited me to meet her and her family at a fundraiser for her church.

From this initial contact I gained confidence in my ability to start accessing

Biloxi’s Little Saigon and very quickly became involved in activities such as assisting in the coordination of Biloxi inaugural Black April commemoration (which occurred in

May that year) that honored the refugee experience after the 1975 fall of Saigon. The rapid inclusion of my presence into helping to plan for community events was due to their apparent need for participation and volunteers. As was the case in New Orleans, I gravitated toward visiting the Vietnamese Catholic Church where I began to meet locals.

I also wanted to initiate work with Biloxi’s Buddhist temple because I had heard the remarkable story of its untimely remodeling and grand re-opening the exact weekend prior to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall. In Biloxi, the church and temple are located next to each other but I would come to find out that there is almost no contact between the two structures. Making initial contact at the temple was much easier. Having grown up in a

Buddhist household, my family attended temples (although sporadically at times). And while their type of household practice was less of the philosophical or even deeply spiritual variety, my sole experience and knowledge of Catholicism amounted to attending a handful of weddings and Christenings. In contrast to my earlier field on from the church, those from my Biloxi temple excursions clearly reflect a greater sense of ease in navigating around this temple

[Biloxi, MS]

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The temple looks like most other small ones I’ve seen the pagoda style main building with the clay tiles. The parking lot seemed nearly empty when I pulled up. There was a burgundy Toyota Camry, a white Honda Accord, a small tan pick-up truck and one black SUV. None of these cars look new. The front of the building is a pale rose-pink color with arches and a red brick patio area under the arches. There are three sets of doors where the main ones are the grand double-door variety with pebbled glass and ornate handles. I notice they are closed, but the side door (still is a nice door, the kind you would see for a nice house, but it is not as tall) is slightly open with a black doormat and a small pile of shoes and sandals just outside. The other side door seems closed. Even with the shoes, it is like every temple where everything in sight very, very clean. It is quiet and I don’t lock my car door. I notice there is a wooden ramp that leads to what looks like a rectangular building on the left side of the temple which is more modest but blends in. I think this is where the main kitchen, monk rooms, bathrooms, office and storage are---it blends into the Buddha hall. I walk around the compact courtyard/parking lot which is walled in by a decorative iron gate. There is the usual white statue of Quan Am on a pedestal, surrounded by smooth white rocks. Various potted plants are lined up around the courtyard and there are some nice small citrus trees. I take some joss sticks from a heavy vase and light them with a prayer. I had brought some small bills and remind myself to find the donation box before I leave. From author field notes 1/23/10

One evening, at this Biloxi Buddhist temple I was pleased to find a small group of people who looked to be about my age arriving just as meditation service was about began. They were dressed professionally, as if they had arrived from work, and after taking their shoes off at the door they came in quietly with their heads bowed, thus signaling their respect for the sacred space. We exchanged nods and smiles, and I was eager to speak to them once service was over. The custom at Chua Van Duc was for the head monk to invite attendees to retreat to the temple kitchen after service and share a tea and small snack31 Then, on April 20th of 2010, the explosion of an offshore drilling

culminated in one of the largest oil spills in history. As noted earlier, the Deepwater

Horizon oil spill highlighted the plight of all rural fishermen and shrimpers living along

the length of the Gulf Coast, the small fishing community of Bayou La Batre was

especially troubled. I had previously been aware of this community despite the relative

31 This is also the practice I have found on most instances whenever I have visited temples in both Alabama and New Orleans---monks and nuns almost always invite visitation and company over hot tea during my impromptu visits as well as following services.

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lack of media attention, but had decided to not include in my study due to its small

population and relative distance.

The oil spill, however, presented a compelling reason for me to take a closer look at this community. I began calling on contacts that I had already interviewed in Biloxi and New Orleans for potential introductions. A Biloxi participant who had worked for a community-based organization was agreeable to introducing me to someone who lived and worked in Bayou La Batre and noted that, “Well, it’s about time you went down there, too” This individual in turn introduced me to a local fisherman with extensive knowledge of the Vietnamese community.

Both these initial contacts proved to be very informative interviewees. However, despite the success of these first two interviews, I consistently encountered challenges to recruiting due to the smaller population of Vietnamese. Bayou La Batre is also home to other minority groups such as Cambodian and Thai fisher families that work closely with the Vietnamese and American fisher folk. Fieldwork entailed regular traveling throughout the summer to the community to conduct interviews, take photographs, and visit local Vietnamese owned businesses which in the immediate Bayou La Batre/Coden/Grand Bay vicinity comprised mainly of one Vietnamese restaurant and three small stores. My field note from my first foray into Bayou La Batre to visit to the BPSOS office commented on the substantially rural environment: The houses I pass on 188 are separated by long, low fences and great big open spaces. I don’t think they are farms because it doesn’t look like they grow anything, and I do not see any horses. It is strange to drive the road once you exit I-10 because it feels like there are no landmarks to tell you that you are going the correct way. But I did see a billboard that had a picture of a faded laughing Jesus and I think I will make it my marker for gauging the distance I’ve driven from now on. There is also a rather newer looking McDonald’s that springs up by itself at the intersection of AL-188 before you get to Government. There is a Dollar General store with a bright yellow sign and a brick senior citizen center that looks very well kept, but very little else pops up in the landscape. There is a metal bayou bridge that I cross before I get to the little downtown and I see a historical marker as I turn on to Wintzell. There is nothing much more than two stoplights before I see the office. From author field notes 5/27/12 Bayou La Batre

The deeply rural landscape of Bayou La Batre struck me as isolated, but in a different

manner than Biloxi and New Orleans. While New Orleans’ Versailles community is

removed from what many consider the city of New Orleans proper, its separation is one

236 of suburban aloofness. That is, the barren swaths of neighborhoods that populate the shadows of the abandoned Six Flags amusement park in the east is a far cry from the colorful Creole images of New Orleans of the popular imagination. The Biloxi

Vietnamese community separation is not so complete in that the Biloxi East neighborhoods were well within driving distance of casinos, retail spaces, restaurants, homes, and the city of Gulfport with its 67,000 residents. The separation of the Biloxi

Vietnamese is not due to remoteness or seclusion but rather of invisibility. Bayou La

Batre then, was the most completely secluded in that it was small and pastoral.

Thus, the decision to include the Deepwater Horizon oil spill offered an opportunity to expand the study toward understanding the nature of geography and its intersection with community. What is interesting to note here is that I consistently chose an institutional approach into the field where I went to churches or nonprofits organizations first. This is a more formal transgression into the field than to call upon

Vietnamese American names that others knew of, or that I only knew marginally. This reluctance to draw heavily upon Vietnamese acquaintances (who I did not know personally and with a bare minimum of contact) at first stems from my self-conscious knowledge that I was a stranger to each of these communities.

This is not a new concern for researchers of color who are broadly researching racial or ethnic minority groups (Kibria 2003; Espiritu 2003; San-Aguilar 2009), while others such as Adler and Adler (1987) have noted how commonplace the practice of researching a group into which one had identity or experiential ties remains. Yet time and again, I felt the need to retreat into the formal safety of approaching institutional places with their structured practices (churches and temples) in order to legitimize my otherwise

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inexplicable presence in the community. In doing so, I may have prematurely excluded

the cultivation of an initial key informant. Many researchers have discussed the centrality

of key informants in their ethnographies, particularly when the field in which they hope

to enter is not readily accessible to outsiders.

One of the quintessential examples is William Whyte’s ethnography of an

immigrant slum, and more recently, the world of teen cocaine culture (Williams 1989),

street hustlers (McNamara 1994), and prostitutes who are drug users (Sterk 1999).

Naturally, my entry into Gulf Coast Vietnamese communities did not entail legal or

personal peril, but had the peculiar challenges not addressed in otherwise inclusive

methodological texts---such as the dilemma of being ethnically or racially seen as a full

member, when one is not. Despite my Vietnamese appearance, I did not feel I could

blithely enter into any of the Vietnamese community sites, and therefore chose instead to

make extensive use of formal institutions. Early field notes of my first interviews record

vague impressions of “awkwardness” as I discussed my study to potential interviewees

who were referred to me through church or temple stakeholders.32 In retrospect, if it had

not been for my reluctance to impose upon relative strangers, I could have benefitted from the more casual, informal and natural introductions of these initial contacts.

Participant Recruitment and Data Management

Eventually, as I became more known within the community, I utilized snowball sampling techniques to identify potential participants. Respondents are selected if they live, have lived, or work directly in service within the purported Vietnamese communities and identify ethnically as Vietnamese. The 52 semi-structured interviews lasted from

32 From author field notes: 8/23/09; 11/24/09; and 1/19/10.

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approximately 45 minutes to three hours with ages ranging from 18 years to 64 (see

Appendix 2 for complete Manifest of Interviewees). Interviews were conducted in their

homes, at coffee shops, in their work places, and any locale that was most convenient for

the participant. After consent was given, the interviews were digitally recorded and

transcribed using pseudonyms. Most interviewees were agreeable to being recorded, but

two (both in New Orleans) expressed reluctance at recording.

To ensure their comfort, I agreed to not record during these particular interviews

and relied on my notes, which were later transcribed. While no demographic information

pertaining to income, educational level or marital status was surveyed, these descriptors,

along with others, were noted in the final versions of transcripts as they became known.

Age and occupation were asked during the course of casual conversation or

spontaneously during the interview to provide some personal context. The finalized, de- identified transcripts were loaded into Atlas.ti, a qualitative analysis software program

(version 5, then 6.2, then 7 respectively). I chose Atlas ti over another, popular qualitative software program NVIVO despite my familiarity with both.

Prior to the use of software, researchers utilized multiple hard copies of transcripts, highlighters, colored pencils and index cards to manually cut, paste and sort codes---a process I have also deployed in multiple, early projects. Researchers now note that CAQAS packages

have become increasingly powerful, user-friendly, and ubiquitous, and for the

management of both small and large scale projects, nearly obligatory due to their

efficiency. However, the same researchers are quick to point out that CAQAS cannot

perform meaningful analysis for the researcher (Creswell 2007; Denzin and Lincoln

2011; Saldana 2009). In the same manner that statistical software such as SPSS or

STATA cannot create coherent, meaningful narrative out of t-values or regression

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reports, Atlas ti. is only a platform for organizing data rather than an instrument that

values. I initially focused the semi-structured interview guide on understanding the

impact of Hurricane Katrina.

Specific interview questions were divided into three parts. The first section

focused on the respondent’s relationship with their community; migration history to the

United States (if applicable) was collected, as well as family history, occupation, length

of residence, general impressions of the neighborhood. “Typical day” questions were

asked, and impressions of the neighborhood’s history and recollections of how day-today life functions within the community collected. Respondents were asked about community leaders, their patronization of local businesses, and their attendance at houses of worship and of their general impression of the community. Section two of the first set of interviews prior to the oil spill centered more fully on Hurricane Katrina itself. The respondents were asked to fully detail how they first learned about the impending storm, what they did, where and with whom they evacuated and the extent of damage to property and person.

Questions arose organically from these narratives, as mentioned above, in the favored method of emergent storytelling (Chase, 1995; Lincoln and Denzin 2000).

Respondents were asked open-ended questions about recovery and their impression of

Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese recovery activities. Section three presents the objective of understanding how reaction, response and then recovery to Katrina engaged with meanings of ethnic identity. Questions of comparison and description center on how the

Vietnamese community’s response to the storm contrasted with that of the greater non-

Vietnamese community. Respondents indicated significant or worthy themes and were

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asked pointedly about what it means to be Vietnamese, where they identify community,

and asked to give examples in a discursive and thorough manner. I found that taking

nothing for granted and presenting myself as naïve and open to the interviewee allowed

the subject to expound at length about being Vietnamese, the impacts of the storm, and

how they see their community. In this manner, I collected nearly half my interviews that

focused primarily on the Katrina experience prior to April 2010.

I re-interviewed and followed-up with several of these individuals informally in

the course of living in Biloxi and New Orleans and seeing them on social occasions, but

formally addressed questions via email that clarified some points of interest. The

remaining interviewees, whenever addressing Katrina questions, were also asked about

their beliefs concerning the impact of the oil spill on their community. However, the

questions specifically outlined in the interview guide became increasingly cumbersome.

Questions that specified what interviewees did specifically in response to the storm became supportive data in larger narratives. I eventually relied on a handful of “marker” questions that addressed the following: Participant’s migration story, how they and their family came to live and work in the Gulf Coast, why they lived here.

1. Perceptions of Vietnamese community, how they experience and know of the existence of a Vietnamese community. 2. The meaning of disaster events and what they believe occurred in the Vietnamese community and to themselves. 3. Their experience of being Vietnamese and living in the Gulf South. Therefore, a participant spoke freely of what they like. Further, I would ask questions that encouraged elaboration and exploration on items that seemed important to the interviewee. In short, semi-structured interviews became open-ended. Also, during this time, I collected documents from a variety of sources such as community event fliers, archived newspaper clippings about the

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Vietnamese settlement from the early 1980s to the present, and various community

newsletters, local magazines and any manner of promotional handouts. Hatch (2002)

notes that looking at such paper materials adds depth and context to qualitative interview-

based studies and is an unobtrusive method of data collection. I also collected and kept

materials produced by Vietnamese community organizations because they provided a

tangible, visual aid to better understand the nature of growing organizational capacity.

Interviewing Participants

When talking to a lay audience, many qualitative researchers are quick to draw a

discerning line between the casual give-and-take of ordinary conversations and the more deliberate strategies deployed during a face-to-face interview. Some, like Warren and

Karner, (2005) point out that qualitative interviews are merely a specific, or “special kind of conversation in which the interviewer questions the respondent on a topic of interest to the interviewer, and of some relevance to the interviewee” (115). Others emphasize the

partnership quality of an interviewing relationship that is built upon respecting a

respondent’s conversational boundaries (such as not merely asking questions out of “idle

curiosity” (Weiss 1994:65). Given both the unexacting yet restrictive characterizations of

a research interview, can an investigator hope to reveal meaningful intimacies of the

phenomenon in question?

An observation by the Czech-born, German poet Rilke offers a tantalizing insight:

“A person isn’t who they are in the last conversation you had with them—they’re who

they’ve been throughout your whole relationship” Perhaps this observation implies that a

person is not revealed within the details of a single conversation, but rather the entirety of

242 a person is discovered in any one conversation. The famously lyrical, if sometimes inscrutable Rilke, may also mean that a person could only divulge what they have been in the past, but the act of construction is dynamic in the present, so a person can never be who they are until time has passed. In either case, the act of intensive interviewing satisfies Rilke’s point that meaningful intimacies can be called forth even between relative strangers.

Thus, the interviewer must practice interviewing with the intention of ceding authority to the interviewee: “In the interview context, whether we hear stories or reports has to do with who takes responsibility for the import of the talk. If we want to hear stories rather than reports then our task as interviewers is to invite others to tell their stories, to encourage them to take responsibility for the meaning of their talk” (Chase,

274). The shift of dominance from interviewer to interviewee transforms what could be merely an inventory of experiences into a true conceptualization of community in the manner of classic sociological ethnographies.

Works such as Street Corner Society, William F. Whyte’s 1943 study of an Italian community in Boston, and Elijah Anderson’s Streetwise (1990) elucidate the nature of urban communities as a field where members meet and make sense of their relationships through meaningful negotiations. The shift to narrative neatly satisfies the condition of openness while providing analytical structure. One issue of note arose as I re-listened to and transcribed initial sets of interviews. More than once, I was deeply chagrined to realize that I heard my own voice briskly responding to, or even on occasion, “trumping” the interviewees. This occurred most especially with the earliest interviews, where I would unwittingly redirect the conversation toward my own perspective or experiences.

243

As a participant may begin to unfold a narrative about their Vietnamese American upbringing, or observations of heritage, the transcript indicates my insouciantly holding forth on these topics as well. One example with Tuyet Nguyen, a young community activist, was particularly discouraging to read in transcription:

V: This is so interesting to me because like, even as they lose something very central to ethnicity like language, they still share the same experience of losing that language. I mean, if you stripped me of my appearance, like what meets the eye. I’m not sure I'd be indistinguishable from a white girl...what does it mean to be what Jenny calls herself, a 'Twinkie' she says 'you're a Twinkie too!' I wonder, does this mean that the Vietnamese community will erode as more and more of us age out of speaking Vietnamese?

TD: I don't know. That's a good question. I hope not! But I don't know. You know, there are young folks who sincerely want to learn more about their language and their history and there are folks who don’t care per se necessarily. But I feel like with Vietnamese American youth, they still experience racism. They still experience certain comments that they have to deal with that their white counterparts wouldn’t necessarily understand.

V: I totally can relate to that. During these moments, I essentially forgot Robert Weiss’s blunt exhortation to keep in mind that, “the interview is about the respondent, not the interviewer” (1994:79). In the excerpt above, Tuyet had been discussing her perception of Vietnamese American teens experiencing heritage language loss—something she was intimately familiar with in her own life. My extended and preemptive commentary may have interrupted Tuyet’s potentially fruitful insights by forcing her to respond to my own observations.

This section has presented the justification and logistics for crafting and conducting a field study of multiple Gulf Coast communities. I will now discuss how I explored the central research questions in this study using the lens of grounded theory. I also present my development of the codebook, crafting themes and theory and address special issues that arise from employing naturalistic inquiry in general and grounded

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theory in particular. Finally, I will conclude with limitations of this study and lessons

learned.

Pictorial Representation of Coding Strategies

Since its introduction in 1967, Glaser and Strauss’ grounded theory has become

one of the most widely practiced research methods in qualitative inquiry due to its

deployment of fairly detailed procedures and explicit strategies for analysis. While the

widely circulated approach outlined by Strauss and Corbin (1990) emphasizes a series of

specific analytical steps, there is a wealth of exemplary subsequent studies that do not

make use of these specific steps (McCleod 2011; Charmaz 2006). As noted grounded

theory’s establishment in the 1960s by Anselm Strauss and Barney Glaser has undergone

considerable expansion and today exists in different iterations.

For the purposes of this study, I found Saldana’s (2011) explication most useful:

Grounded theory…is a methodology for meticulously analyzing qualitative data in order

to understand human processes and to construct theory---that is, theory grounded in the

data or constructed ‘from the ground u’…an analytic process of constantly comparing

small data units, primarily but not exclusively collected from interviews, through a series

of cumulative coding cycles to achieve abstraction and a range of dimensions to the

emergent categories’ properties (6-7). For this study, I found a multitude of explanations useful in understanding grounded theory as a strategy of inquiry. A detailed meta-

analysis of these explanations is beyond the scope of this study, but drawing specifically

from Warren and Karner (2005), Creswell (2007), and Saldana (2009). Below (Fig A.) I

present my pictorial representations of two models of qualitative and grounded theory

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inquiry, consistent with the tenets of grounded theory, I initially coded minutely from the

raw material of in-depth interviews. Codes are then identified (with iterations or

reiterations as additional insights and refinements are made on codes). In turn, codes fall

out into themes that ultimately converge into categories or concepts.

code code

Themes Theme s

Theme Theme s

Concepts & Categories

Figure A: In-depth interviews begins from the raw material of in-depth interviews where themes are identified and then fall out into categories or concepts.

246

In contrast, other qualitative methodologists have suggested initiating coding schemes from theoretical constructs which can then yield themes. From those themes, codes are derived to further reveal additional and related themes (see Model B below).

Theoretical Construct I Theoretical Construct II Theoretical Construct III

A. Theme A. Theme A. Theme

Code Code Code

Theme B. Theme B. Theme B.

Code Code Code

Code Code Code Code

Code Code

Figure B: Theoretical constructs are first identified and lead to separate “trees” for different themes and emergent codes branch from there.

According to Saldana’s coding handbook (2009), the question of what is a code is answered in this manner:

A code is a qualitative inquiry is most often a word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence-capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language-based or visual data. The data can consists of interview transcripts, participant observation field notes, journals, documents, literature, artifacts, photographs, video, websites, e- mail correspondence, and so on (Saldana 3).

As well, Saldana advocates multiple “rounds” of coding and suggests that certain types of coding strategies are ideal for some genres and purposes and not for others. In short,

247 codes and coding are not written in stone, nor should they be. Both Creswell (2009) and

Wolcott (1994) use organic metaphors and describe emergent codes as branchlike growths from a central trunk, or focus in the project. Despite the myriad of strategies there are two shared points beginning and ending the coding process: 1) transforming raw data, and 2) ending in theory. However, the great diversity of codes that pertain to immigrant communities, social capital, ethnic organizations and refugee experience eventually divided my codes into a wide variety of broad and overlapping categories.

These are very general categorizations, however, and codes were not mutually exclusive in groupings. After multiple rounds of coding, each reading of the transcripts seemed to reveal new or different interpretations. Here, in the winnowing down of codes into manageable groupings, the practical literature on coding offers choices. Some coding schemes are more streamlined. Researchers such as Auerbach and Silverstein (2003) propose that codes are simply units of “relevant text” and may be organized upward into only two steps. In the first step, the codes are gathered into categories of likeness known as themes. Then, in aggregate, clusters of themes are organized into theoretical constructs:

For this study, I organized final selections of codes into broad categories that have some affinity or relationship until patterns emerged (see Appendix C for complete code list). These categories remained permeable through several cycles, and subcategories were created to more broadly capture the possibilities of meaning. Eventually, categories were placed side by side in an exercise of conceptual mapping facilitated by features of the Atlas ti 7.0 software. Themes that spoke to the relationships between categories

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emerged. Interpreting the data was therefore an iterative, reflexive process that required

several readings of the transcripts.

Ethnocultural Limitations and Lessons Learned for Future Qualitative Research

Chief among the limitations in studying vulnerable Gulf Coast communities is the

issue of limited language proficiency, refugee unease toward authority figures,

vulnerability to coercion, worry that social services may be withdrawn as a punitive

measure if there is noncompliance to researcher’s requests, and fear of deportation.

Considering the three decade history of settlement in both Biloxi and New Orleans, these concerns may be ameliorated by residents’ cultural, legal and social assimilation.

However, Chin, Mio and Iwamasa (2006) still caution that even with established

refugee communities, researchers must grapple with new and existing issues such as the

role of the gatekeepers and the insular, suspicious attitudes of some community members.

In my experience, I found that many interviewees of an older age than I found my limited

Vietnamese a natural, if rather undesirable trait (some saw this language erosion in their

own children), but received well even my most feeble attempts to speak in Vietnamese to

them, even if I only managed basic courtesies. In retrospect, I should have attempted this

more often as it seemed to increase rapport. Perhaps my obvious struggle with my native

and childhood language provided interviewees with a glimpse into the vulnerabilities that

1st generation Vietnamese such as myself still possess.

In conclusion, William Kornblum, in his and Carolyn Smith’s excellent edited

volume of the personal reflections by the creators of classic ethnographies, observed

wryly that for many ethnographers, “our accounts of what we actually do in the field and

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the adventures we encounter there are usually buried in ‘methodological appendixes’ to

our published works” (1996:3). While this methods chapter is indeed located in the

appendix, it is my hope that it has conveyed the complex, rewarding, and sometimes

harrowing issues introduced by field work and face-to-face interviewing. The major

lessons I have learned in the course of this study may be summarized as follows:

1. Less exclusive reliance on institutional or organizational introductions into the community and more outreach toward individual members, even with minimal acquaintanceship.

2. In face-to-face interviews, less discussion of my own experiences and personal history as an Vietnamese American female with the belief that this would gain trust or increase rapport.

3. A greater willingness to build rapport by speaking in Vietnamese despite a limited mastery of the language.

These examples and others of a logistical or practical nature have served to give me an enlarged understanding of field work and the nature of ethnography. Future endeavors will benefit from these methodological lessons learned.

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APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW MANIFEST

BILOXI, MISSISSIPPI 01BX Tuyet Duong F 25 Community Empowerment Coordinator 02BX Bich Hong Nguyen F 37 Housing Coordinator 03BX Amy Vu F 18 Student 04BX Jenny Le F 27 NAVASA Housing specialist 05BX Derek Ngo M 37 Small business owner, temporary non-profit worker 06BX Cathy Vu F 35 Caseworker, Community Worker, realtor 07BX Don Hoang M 46 Fisherman 08BX George Pham M 42 Director of Nonprofit 09BX Hong Luong F 25 Marketing representative 10BX Thay Thieu Tri M 36 Buddhist monk 11BX Tai Ly M 33 Community worker 12BX Minh Nguyen F 26 Executive Director of nonprofit 13BX Caleb Do M 28 Construction and Contractor 14BX Madeline Mai Vo F 26 Dental Assistant 15BX Joshua Huynh M 20 Student 16BX Beatrice Lai F 28 Executive director AAC 17BX Thanh Chu M 31 Med Tech 18BX Theresa Vu F 30 Government Worker 19BX Margaret Truong F 31 Pharmacist 20BX Madeline Sou F 29 Realtor 21BX Jackson Tang M 28 Manicurist 22BX Anh Nguyen Bui F 57 Casino Worker 23BX Ahn Nguyen Leong F 33 Business Owner 24 BX Hoang Le M 46 Shrimper 25 BX Heather McKay F 24 Nonprofit worker

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA 01NO Cam Vuong F 26 Community Organizer 02NO Ronald Cho-Nguyen M 52 Realtor 03NO Harold Ngo M 48 Engineer 04NO Joseph Cao M 45 Lawyer, Politician, Educator

05NO Sammy Vu M 25 Youth Organizer for New Orleans based nonprofit that focuses on youth projects. 06NO Nguyet Quang F 25 Graduate Student 07NO Lily Phuong F 28 Former community organizer. Nail Salon

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employee, one-time small business entrepreneur. 08NO Jackie Dinh F 26 Graduate Student 09NO Albert Nguyen M 71 Retired, Convenience Store Owner, Laundromat operator and manager 10NO Father Vien M 51 Religious Leader, Pastor of MQVN

11NO Anna Lo F 28 Community Projects Coordinator for a National Vietnamese American Community Based organization 12NO Thay Rose Lien F 36 Nun at Chua Van Hahn Buddhist Temple and Center 13NO Quang Vuong M 54 Business owner

Minh Nguyen Bo 14NO Don Hoa F 48 Former fisherman and shrimper 15NO Minnie Huynh F 34 Homemaker 16NO Danny Li M 28 Lawyer for the Mississippi Center for Justice, worked with fisherman in LA, MS and AL. 17NO Sophia Xuan Diep F 62 Retired teacher and tutor 18NO Elizabeth Tran F 41 Director of CCC 19NO Jasmine Xuan Li F 20 College student

20NO Gerald Haney M 71 Retired human resources executive

BAYOU LA BATRE, ALABAMA 01AL Tony Nguyen M 30 Community Outreach Coordinator 02AL Thu Hoa Lee F 52 Former shrimper and Outreach Volunteer 03AL Thanh Do M 50 Shrimper 04AL Courtney Dang F 24 Housing Coordinator 05 AL Kevin Vang M 22 Student 06AL Mike Dang M 28 Community Coordinator 07AL Truong Nam M 57 Fisherman 08AL Lam Huu Quan M 63 Business Owner 09 AL Linh Chi Ma F 52 Small Business Owner 10 AL Van Duong F 72 Retired 11 AL Louis Tran M 26 Community Organizer 12 AL Duc Vo M 50 Deck Hand

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BIOGRAPHY

Vy Thuc Dao was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on December 18th 1976. She obtained her Masters in Sociology at the University of Houston in 2004 and completed her Doctorate in Sociology at Tulane University in New Orleans. She is a member of the last PhD cohort admitted to the department of sociology at Tulane prior the Hurricane Katrina and is the last recipient of the doctoral degree in this traditional format from the university.