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Turnmeyer
Asian American Studies 113B 8AM
30 January 2015
From Vietnam to the San Fernando Valley: Rebuilding Homeland Communities in America
In 1915, C.J. Galpin, a sociologist, emerged with a definition of the word community,
which is trade and service areas surrounding a central village. However, different definitions
began to emerge in succeeding years, such as community is a geographical area," a group of
people living in a particular place or an area of common life (Smith, M.K. 2001). A
community is a space where groups of people that have similar characteristics such as customs,
beliefs, and rituals, live together. Communities form globally and are not unique to any
particular country or racial group; people around the world gravitate towards forming
communities.
The San Fernando Valley has a community where Vietnamese Americans live, work and
meet. Ethnic specific communities assist people from other countries, like that of Vietnam. They
assist ethnic or cultural groups to feel comfortable in America. America is a large, highly
diversified country and cultural communities help citizens form bonds to facilitate both a
comfortable life and success. While some citizens may believe that ethnic communities block
out or isolate, groups from the larger, dominant culture, the reality is that such communities
help citizens engage in a diverse by bringing Vietnamese together to share in their mutual,
culture, and traditions.

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Association Center- Corbin and Sherman Way

In the San Fernando Valley is a small but tight knit Vietnamese American community
consisting of citizens who immigrated from Vietnam. There are many Vietnamese businesses,
restaurants, and a place called HI NGI VIT SAN FERNANDO VALLEY" or in
English,Vietnamese Association of San Fernando Valley. The Vietnamese Association was
created in 1993 by Dinh Van Ngoc to teach people from outside the culture the traditions,
culture, and important history of Vietnam. Also, this space is where Vietnamese-Americans can
feel at home after the Fall of Saigon," that is, the defeat of their people by the communist
Northern Vietnamese, at the end of Vietnam War. This crushing and painful defeat caused a mass
exodus of Southern Vietnamese, as they fled ahead of imprisonment, torture, and death. Now in
America, the Center is a place where they can take their children to learn Vietnamese, martial
arts, and be tutored. This place is not only for Vietnamese people, but it is also a public space
where a diverse section of people meet other people from around or in the community. Most
citizens underestimate the complex importance of an ethnic community center such as the San
Fernando Vietnamese Association.
Community centers like the HI NGI VIET" provide a place where a smaller ethnic
community, in this case, the Vietnamese American and the larger surrounding community can

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come together and create a stronger and more meaningful bond. The center is a place where nonVietnamese people have the opportunity to learn the customs and culture of the Vietnamese.
Also, it gives people of Vietnamese culture a place to come together as a people, to share in their
culture and celebrate it together. This is especially important for people with children born in
America, as it allows the children to experience and learn about their heritage, language and
culture outside the home. Finally, the community center provides benefits to the larger
community. Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese, as a whole, that are not specifically cultural, such
as tutoring, self defense and athletics (martial arts and ping-pong). These activities are open to
the public and provide services that benefit members equally.
According to Ray Oldenburg, an urban sociologist from Florida who writes about the
importance of informal public gathering places (Oldenburg), the third space is where people
can meet different races in a public space like the Vietnamese Association Center. Oldenburg
explains that the third space balances out the peoples first place, which is their home, and
second space which is the work place. These three spaces comprise the community, as they
define where and how people interact at home, work and play. According to Oldenburg, the third
space is usually a place that is free or inexpensive to visit, and can even be a small business, as
long as regulars can congregate there. The Vietnamese Center houses several such small
businesses, which provide specific benefits to the Vietnamese American community and the
larger outside community as a whole.
One such cultural business is the martial arts class called Kienando. This martial art is
from Vietnam and is shared by Lam Nguyen, grandmaster of the system, and his son Johnny
Dainghia Nguyen, one of the masters of the system. The Association invited them to show off

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their martial skills that they learned in Vietnam, then offered them a space to teach in the
Vietnamese Center. Their teaching goes beyond the physical forms, however. "Besides teaching
the simple, physical aspect of the kung fu, says Andrew Ha, a former instructor, "Kienando also
teaches leadership and self confidence. We also stress traditional Vietnamese values, like respect
for parents and elders, responsibility, and charity. These forms are passed down from older
students and masters, to younger students. Andrew Ha explains "The forms that Kienando
performs help people who came here from Vietnam remember their country, while preserving
those forms for the future." This ensures that some part of Vietnam's ancient past will always live
on, and gives Americans access to Vietnamese culture and traditions. Helping non Vietnamese
Americans understand and learn their way of their Vietnamese American neighbor makes the
bonds between these groups stronger. Kienando is one way to bring these two cultures together
in a small space.

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Two Students giving Grandmaster Lam a Birthday Present

Sun and Moon Performance

Within the center there is also a Table Tennis Club (ping-pong) that has meetings
there. Ping pong is a widely played sport, popular all over the world, and is well known for
bringing different communities together - like the Ping Pong Diplomacy between the US and
China in the 1970's. Howard Vu, the coordinator of Table Tennis Club, has found the
Vietnamese Association to be a good place to bring diverse groups of people together. Here,
advanced players teach newcomers or people that want to upgrade their skills, and people at all

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playing levels can challenge each other in friendly games. People from different countries comes
here, too, to compete in various competitions. In this way, the Ping Pong club serves as a kind of
bridge between different groups within the Vietnamese community as well as from the larger
community outside. Bridges between Americans and Asian American cultures help us to
understand each other through our common interests. These bridges, ping pong and Kienando
included, also help people put aside differences and accept the individual person. Plus, having
friendly competition breeds respect and camaraderie.

Practice Day

Practice Day

Aside from these businesses and clubs, the Association itself holds cultural events every
year such as the Lunar Moon festival and Chinese New Year festival. People can enjoy diverse
shows of live Vietnamese music and entertainment during these festivals, or have a mournful
day of remembrance for the Vietnam War and the Fall of Saigon, where the Vietnamese
military people in the south Vietnam died to defend against the north. This day of mourning is
very important to most Vietnamese Americans because this is the event that made most of them
refugees and exiles. As they memorialize friends and family who died in the war, they also
memorialize an entire homeland that was lost to them.

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7 Feb. 2014 Lunar New Years

The center may be a place to celebrate and remember Vietnam's past, but it is also a
place to plan for a new, more multicultural future. Johnny Dainghia Nguyen and his father, Lam
Nguyen, the professional martial artists that lead the Kienando classes, see the center as an
important first step in their plans. We are trying to expand Kienando to the Vietnamese
community before going international, said Johnny. We got invited by an Asian community in
West Hills to do martial arts performance and now we teach Kienando Kung-fu at the
Vietnamese Association Center, and that led us to teaching classes at CSUN. Because of this,
they could be close to the Vietnamese community to serve and teach their style style Kung Fu,
while also allowing a diverse group of people to learn about Vietnamese martial arts. Kienando is
building their way up while increasing community awareness.
Board Breaker- Lynelle Milate-Ha

Kienando Performance

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Howard Vu, the coordinator of the Table Tennis club, uses the Vietnamese Association
spot to teach table tennis to all kinds of people. We have table tennis players from different
countries that come here to learn and compete in tournaments, said Mr. Vu. I am grateful to
have international people that are Table Tennis players or Champion player to come so I can
meet them to become friends and learn from them. Mr. Vu stresses that learning from others can
have the benefit of strengthening a player's game, making them more adaptable and experienced.
Simon Loung, newly elected president of the Vietnamese Association Center, is working
for the center to provide the access of learning the Vietnams culture and tradition to people that
around the community. I want to be in this position because this center needs a leader, Mr.
Luong says, the center also needs lots of volunteer to teach the younger generation to know
their culture and heritage. I also want to have a stronger bond with the people. They advertise
these events that teaches the culture and traditions by having posters, vietnamese magazines
(Thang Mo or Viet Bao), and the internet. Mr. Loung also mentions that We do these events for
charity, which helps run this center. Richard Truong, two years former president says, In
2004, I became the President of Vietnamese Association of San Fernando Valley because Mr
Dinh Van Ngoc, 1993 president, was too old and sick. As refugees they feel lonely so they will
be happy if they can get together to have all kinds of activities with the same cultural, speak the
same language. Having a place where they can come together as a community helps to alleviate
their collective fears of separation and exile, and reinforces the bonds created by mutual
language and culture.
This community involves shared commitment and responsibilities of the leaders,
promotes negotiation and compromise to meet the needs of the community and its goal. Even

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though public spaces are free, there are limitations to them. In the Vietnamese Association
Center, there are limits on how groups can express themselves, space for equipment, and time for
use, because each group shares the place. Each group needs to pay rent in order to keep the space
so they need to find ways to pay for it. They receive the money from the members that
participate in their group, which benefits both the space and the members. The members can then
continue on participating in the center because of the rented space.
Each group has their own small space to store equipment and supplies that they need. For
example, the ping pong club is limited to how many ping pong tables they could have, and
Kienando has several cabinets to put their materials in, but cannot store larger items, like full size
targets. Also, most groups are allowed to go in certain rooms, but not others. Most of the rooms
are used to hold meetings and teaching classes, but there is one room the Association uses that
the other groups cannot, because it is where their materials are.
The individual groups also have a time limit to their use of the place. In order for the
space to be used efficiently, the groups have to cooperate with each other to find the time they
want to use, especially if their activities depend on certain times or daily events. Sometimes,
when the center is not being used by the other groups, they can use the space for extra practice.

Kienando -Space for pictures

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There are many activities that are going on at Vietnamese Center for us to have access to
the studio during the weekend and Friday, so we have a limited of time to practice. said Mr.
Nguyen. We only get two hours to teach. Kienando also has lots of equipment to store
including mats (for self-defense or rolling,) sparring equipment, plastic boards (for board
breaking,) practice weapons, and others. They also have a limited space for pictures, flyers and
other media. This is used so to show people that enter the center what Kienando does and maybe
entice them to join the System.

Ping Pong Tables-Blocking their Pictures and Associations

I am the coordinator of the Ping-Pong club since 1995. said Howard Vu. I live locally
and I have found them and they are nice enough to let me rent the space; however, I can only
play on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 6:00pm to 11:45pm. They play on those
specific days because the martial arts class takes place on Fridays and the weekends, and most of
the Association events are on Saturday. I am limited on four table tennis tables because those
four tables take up the whole entire studio. said Mr. Vu. We post pictures on the walls, but
barely see them because we have to put the tables there. Mr. Vu does not have any other choice
because it is a shared place, they are limited to where they put their ping pong tables at. The

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center is pretty big, but is does not have enough space for their equipment to be hidden away at
the end of use.

Kienando Lion Dance

We have certain time and place to have our meetings and events due to all the other
business that we have at the Vietnamese Center. says Mr. Luong. We mostly do our events
during the weekends which includes the martial arts performances and have the Vietnamese
tutoring center do Vietnams culture and traditions." For example, the Lunar New Year
celebration was held on February 7, 2015, which was celebrated early, that had special

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performances such as lion dancing (by martial arts businesses like Kienando), and singers from
Vietnam. Richard Truong says, The Vietnamese Association of San Fernando Valley does not
have any activities relate with political Parties. We have this place to help Vietnamese people
reunite only. By 'reuniting,' Vietnamese Americans can face their shared past and future
together.
Their shared past includes a time of tragedy: The Vietnam War, ending as it did with The
Fall of Saigon, is a terrible time to remember for the South Vietnamese. In the years following
the Vietnam War, over one million refugees fled the war-ravaged countries of Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos because of they were in danger of the communist trying to kill them. Those
that were not immediately executed faced years in horrible labor camps and prisons. Waves of
Vietnamese fled in the years following, towards unknown futures in strange lands.
From the end of the Vietnam war, through the late 1990s, many Vietnamese refugees
ended up in America. Here, their language was unspoken, their culture unknown. The
Vietnamese Association Center gives these Vietnamese people hope and helps these people feel
at home. This center also gives their children, living in this strange place, a chance to learn the
language and customs of their forefathers. The events that the center holds, such as the memorial
day for the Fall of Saigon, unites people of the same culture to strengthen the bonds of their
community, and at the same time give a public face to their group experience.
While martial arts classes, ping pong tournaments, and other events bring people in from
outside the Vietnamese community, the Association itself celebrates Vietnamese culture from
within. This links the past of the Vietnamese people, scattered after the Vietnam war, to their
future, as important facets of America's diverse, multi cultural population.

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A community is a diversified place where groups of people are connected by the same
culture, traditions, and more. Inside the San Fernando Valley are many smaller communities that
touch and overlap each other, making places where the groups within them can connect with
each other. At The Vietnamese Association Center, Vietnamese Americans share their traditions
and culture with the other community groups around them. The events that the center hosts, and
the small business that reside within the San Fernando Vietnamese Center, both preserve and
celebrate these traditions as well as provide gateways for interaction with the community at
large. to share to Americans their customs, traditions, and culture. The center also helps to ease
the alienation felt by Vietnamese Americans who may be refugees and exiles, by strengthening
the bonds between the individual Vietnamese Americans within the community.

Citations
1. Oldenburg, Ray. "Our Vanishing "Third Places"" PlannersWeb. N.p., 15 Jan. 1997. Web. 01
Feb. 2015.
2. "The Fall of Saigon". HistoryLearningSite.co.uk. 2014. Web.
3."CBC Digital Archives - Boat People: A Refugee Crisis - Why They Fled: The Fall of Saigon."
CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 10 Sept. 2014. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
4.Luong, Simmon, and Richard Troung. ""Vietnamese Association"" Telephone interview. 10
Feb. 2015.

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5.Nguyen, Johnny D., Lynelle Milate-Ha, and Andrew Ha. ""History of Kienando Kung Fu""
Interview. n.d.: n. pag. Print.
6. Roneck, Emily. "The Positive Power of Ping Pong and People." DipNote U.S. Department of
State Official Blog. N.p., 27 Dec. 2011. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.
7. Vu, Howard. "" Table Tennis Start in the Vietnamese Associate Center?" Telephone interview.
1 Feb. 2015.
8. "Community Life." Www.Tiffin-Iowa.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Mar. 2015.
9. .Smith, Mark K. "What Is Community?" Infedorg. YMCA George Williams College, 28 Mar.
2013. Web. 03 Mar. 2015.