Chinese-Vietnamese-Americans

[tsnguyen]

San Jose Mercury News
14 April 1996

Torn Between Worlds

Chinese-Vietnamese-Americans confuse census takers and their Santa
Clara County neighbors

By Ken McLaughlin

They come from two worlds and now live in a third.

China was their ancestral home, but Vietnam was the place they lived.
Their fellow Americans may see them as Vietnamese, but most see
themselves as Chinese.

They're Chinese-Vietnamese-Americans -- and they are an annoyance to
census bureaucrats who like to neatly categorize ethnic groups.

When they are included in Santa Clara County's Vietnamese emigre
community, its population swells to almost 120,000 -- more than twice
the size suggested by the 1990 census. Their presence is also one
explanation for why the community has never attained the political
clout its size might warrant.

Ethnic Chinese represented only 3 percent of Vietnam's population at
the end of the Indochina War in 1975. But they make up about a quarter
of the emigres in California, and they own a disproportionate share of
the county's ``Vietnamese'' businesses -- including virtually all of
the supermarkets and shopping centers. It's the reason so many
Vietnamese restaurants also feature Chinese food -- and Chinese
characters on the menu.

After the 1990 census counted only 55,610 Vietnamese in Santa Clara
County, Vietnamese-American leaders complained of an undercount. Many
emigres checked the ``Chinese'' box on the census form, they grumbled,
diluting their community's political strength.

``Even though they were born in Vietnam, many still consider
themselves Chinese and do not wish to stay with us,'' said Nguyen Duc
Lam of San Jose, a Vietnamese-American activist. ``We have no control
of it. This is a free country.''

The arrival of the Sino-Vietnamese has forged two distinct emigre
communities at opposite ends of San Francisco Bay.

Those who settle in San Francisco, where as many as half the
Vietnamese are ethnically Chinese, often change their Vietnamese names
back to Chinese names and rediscover their ties with other Chinese.

``Down there in San Jose they think of Vietnam as the motherland,''
said Johnnie La, 28, whose Sino-Vietnamese family owns a coffee shop
in San Francisco's Tenderloin. ``Up here we don't.''

Many Chinese-Vietnamese refugees in San Jose, where an estimated 20 to
25 percent of the community are ethnically Chinese, have discovered
how much they share with their compatriots.

``I just feel more Vietnamese,'' said Christine Huynh, 19, whose
Sino-Vietnamese parents own New Nguyen Shoes in San Jose.

Henry Hung Ly, the 49-year-old owner of Senter Foods in San Jose and
Sunnyvale, is typical. President of the Chinese-American Mutual
Assistance Association, Santa Clara's County's largest
Chinese-American group, Ly said he also gives money to Vietnamese
community organizations.

But when it comes to the noisy politics of the San Jose emigre
community, barely a peep is heard from the ethnic Chinese.

``We don't want to do politics; we just want to do business,'' said
Larry Lieu, whose family owns a popular Chinese herb store on Senter
Road.

The Chinese in Vietnam, most of whom emigrated from Canton
(Guangzhou), generally viewed themselves as foreigners and were not
encouraged to get involved in Vietnamese politics. ``They see politics
as dirty,'' said the Rev. Paul Lam, the Sino-Vietnamese associate
pastor of the San Jose Chinese Alliance Church.

Politics or business

Skip Lowman, director of international refugee affairs for the U.S.
Catholic Conference, recalls visiting a Malaysian camp for Vietnam's
boat people in 1978. The camp's political leaders were entirely
Vietnamese, he said, whereas all the people who'd set up businesses
selling Cokes or other items were Chinese.

Along with such factors as lagging voter registration, this social
division has retarded the political progress of San Jose's Vietnamese
community, political scientists say.

Although emigres from Vietnam make up roughly 10 percent of San Jose's
population, none has ever run for city council.

Terry Christensen, chairman of San Jose State University's
political-science department, said immigrants get involved in politics
for two main reasons: ethnic solidarity or protection of economic
interests.

But for the South Bay's Sino-Vietnamese, neither is a motivation. When
they have gotten involved in politics, they've often given money to
Chinese-American candidates in San Francisco. And many of the largest
``Vietnamese'' businesses are owned by people largely averse to
Vietnamese politics.

``It is one of the delicate issues in the Vietnamese and Chinese
communities,'' said Vu-Duc Vuong, director of the Center for Southeast
Asian Refugee Resettlement. ``Some Chinese activists say that anyone
who has any Chinese blood in their veins should be considered
Chinese.''

The Chinese and Vietnamese have been enemies for centuries. China
first occupied Vietnam one century before the birth of Christ. The
occupation continued on and off for a thousand years.

Before his assassination in 1963, South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh
Diem forced all Chinese nationals to become citizens and Vietnamize
their names -- or face expulsion. Virtually all complied.

Pressured to leave

But life didn't become really rough until after the 1975 communist
takeover. Chinese schools were shuttered. Wealthy Sino-Vietnamese were
banished to ``new economic zones'' where conditions were bleak. And
after China invaded Vietnam in 1979 to punish Hanoi for invading
Cambodia, Hanoi's policy went from allowing the Chinese to leave to
forcing them out of the country.

Many Sino-Vietnamese boat people actually fled China -- not Vietnam,
although most are reluctant to talk about it, fearing that immigration
authorities will send them back to China.

When Hanoi's crackdown began in the late '70s, tens of thousands of
Sino-Vietnamese like Van Hoang crossed the border into their ancestral
homeland before fleeing to the West. Most eventually escaped to Hong
Kong, although the boat operators told them to say they had come from
Vietnam, said Hoang, who owns a San Jose hair salon with her husband,
Khanh Le.

Many were also forced to become boat people twice in their lives. For
Diep Dong, the first time was in 1939, during the Japanese occupation
of China, when he fled to Cholon, Saigon's Chinatown. His second
flight occurred after the fall of Saigon, when his family was trucked
off to a desolate, wooded area and told: ``This is where your house
will be. Build it yourself.''

Before 1975, he was one of the richest men in Saigon. He owned
shopping centers, hotels, private schools and movie theaters. Today,
the 79-year-old refugee is a Chinese herbal-medicine practitioner who
owns a tiny shop in downtown San Jose.

Despite the tension between the two peoples, the Vietnamese have
absorbed much Chinese culture. Both countries are predominantly
Buddhist and Confucian. Both peoples practice ancestor worship,
celebrate the same lunar new year and perform similar weddings and
funerals.

Cultural differences

But there are key differences between the cultures -- some subtle,
some not.

Although Chinese society is more hierarchical, Chinese dialects
generally don't contain the rigid Vietnamese requirements for
addressing people according to their age or perceived status. In
Vietnamese, one always calls someone a ``brother,'' ``sister,''
``uncle'' or ``grandma.'' In Chinese, it's OK for even a child to drop
an honorific after using it once.

``So to Vietnamese, it sounds impolite, like you're saying `hey you'
to your parents,'' said Holly Hue Chau, a San Jose nurse and modeling
business owner.

Chau, 26, grew up in Bac Lieu, a mostly Chinese-speaking town in
southern Vietnam. She didn't even speak Vietnamese until after her
family came to the United States. But she has since taught Vietnamese
to English-speaking adults.

``My face is Chinese and my parents speak Chinese at home, but my best
friend is Vietnamese and I am very involved in the Vietnamese
community here,'' said Chau.

It's all pretty confusing, even to the Chinese themselves. Take the
members of the San Jose Chinese Alliance Church. All are ethnic
Chinese, and many don't know what to make of the Sino-Vietnamese.

``Even here, people thought we were conducting our services in
Vietnamese because we were from Vietnam,'' said the Rev. Lam. ``Some
people were surprised to hear that we speak Chinese also.''

Van Hoang's 5-year-old daughter, Lina, also doesn't quite know what to
make of it.

Lina, who lives in an upscale Berryessa home filled with exquisite
Chinese statues, giggled when asked what nationality she considers
herself.

``I'm English,'' she replied.

Laughing, her mother interjected: ``She's trying to tell you that she
considers herself American.''