UVSA Northern California Blog
http://blog.myspace.com/norcaluvsa

"Our community can't simply just focus on fighting communism and not think
about health care, education, gang intervention, and other issues. If we
could galvanize the community over the naming of the business district in
San Jose, why couldn't we do the same on other issues?" My friend asks.

"But you have to realize that to the Vietnamese community who left Vietnam,
which at the time was full of problems where getting shot was not uncommon
and people got jailed for no reason, coming to America is a blessing. All
the things you ask for, like health care, education, and what not, they
don't ask for more because they are content with what they have right now.
It's just on issues concerning fighting communism, that's all they are
asking for." My other friend counters.

And so that was the seen of two gladiators intellectually duking it out. And
at the end of dinner, one offers the other an extra bowl of soup. They may
not have started off on the same footing, but they understood the concerns
of each other, and at the end of the day, it was okay to disagree; they were
just focusing on different issues.

Earlier that evening we attended the Spratly & Paracel Islands Forum hosted
by Cal VSA covered the complex problem. The panelists agreed that the first
step to approaching this problem is to bring awareness on the innocent
civilians that were being shot by Chinese military in the region, despite
the memorandum of understanding that any action in this region should be
done in a peaceful manner. The first step was to first address the
humanitarian issue of protecting the lives of the poor, unarmed fishermen.
That was the initial calling. I realized then that the few people in our
community qualified to organize these kinds of campaigns were probably
already in that room.

Earlier that day I went to a meeting with ACWP Youth Mentorship Program
coordinator Tracy Duong along with my protégée, Lily Tran, to check up on
their program to see how they fared. It seemed they were short on young
project managers. This isn't a problem unique to this organization. Everyone
is looking for a good manager and leader.

If there is a pervasive leadership shortage problem in the community, where
does it come from? Are we not producing sufficient numbers of youth leaders?
Or are they venturing out into unknown areas without our knowledge? Perhaps
both?

And so I decided to begin penning down my thoughts once and for all on an
idea I had. I hold a rather Spartan view of leadership development (my
middle school mascot was the Spartans, and my college mascot is also the
Spartans), i.e. begin training leaders from birth. The three of us discussed
what were the necessary components of a young Vietnamese leader. Here's a
list of skills to have, although it is still being refined:

   1. Having a Sense of Heritage & Identity - Knowledge of one's history
   and culture, and being comfortable in navigating one's multiple identities
   2. Fluency in the Vietnamese Language - Would be very nice to speak
   the language and be able to connect with monolingual speakers
   3. Consciousness of Community Issues - To be able to know the
   important problems in our community
   4. Management & Leadership Skills - To complete projects and be able
   to organize new projects and campaigns as necessary, and to guide different
   people to see the same end goal
   5. Community Resource Sustainability - Know how to leverage existing
   resources and programs, and to properly manage and grow these resources
   6. Peer Networking - To know and involve peers, to be comfortable in
   meeting new people, and to keep everyone aware of each other's efforts
   7. Open-minded Coalition-building - To be able to work with
   non-Vietnamese communities, and to form useful alliances where working by
   ourselves is insufficient to get things done
   8. Career-minded - To have a career in order to be a member of the
   community once you pass on the leadership torch onto someone else
   9. Being a Mentor - To actually train the next leader to replace you.

Now, we knew that there was no organization that addressed all 9 points, and
ones that do exist address several of these points to varying degrees. What
do I mean by varying degrees? Well let's pick the skill of
coalition-building. Some Vietnamese youths know how to build coalitions with
other Vietnamese organizations. Some know how to build coalitions with Asian
Pacific American organizations, or People of Color, or with mainstream
organizations. How many Vietnamese youths do you know have built coalitions
in all of these areas? I know a few who work with APA organizations and do
not touch Vietnamese organizations with a ten-foot pole. I know those who
work well in mainstream communities but have no experience in working with
ethnic minorities. My philosophy is, even though it's not very feasible to
master all areas, still, the more the merrier. Like the black belt who gains
a higher rank over time, those who devote themselves to the mastery of
leadership will become better in these things.

So what do we do if there's no organization to address all 9 points? Do we
make another organization? Nah, that will take too long. We build a
consortium, which is an association of organizations. I had to explain this
concept to Tracy and Lily who were unfamiliar with this style of organizing.
UVSA is can be thought of as a coalition of VSAs. Consortiums are
coalitions, except that it's a type of coalition that exists for a very
specific reason. It does not exist for the sake of unity, but for a very
clear mission or need. In our case, the need is for Vietnamese Youth
Leadership Development. I know several organizations that address some parts
of Vietnamese youth leadership development, but these organizations are not
running in sync with one another; everyone is doing their own thing hoping
to grow and encompass all 9 areas someday. No, that's impossible; no
organization will be able to grow and master all 9 areas. But a consortium
can take the best of all worlds, and we can encourage youths to go through
affiliated programs to learn a little bit of everything.

I'm entertaining the idea of organizing our next UVSA Summit around this
theme and inviting community-based organizations to discuss this problem. It
could coincide with our constituent mandate to organize a Parent Empowerment
Workshop. I love feeding two birds with one bread (as opposed to killing two
birds with one stone). Yes, I know my peers are making fun of me, pointing
out that each bird gets less food. :-P