Vietnamese-American students in the Midwest are getting ready for a large annual conference of fellow leaders from all over the country, to be held the week-end of April 3 to 5, 2009
Called the “Vietnamese Interacting as One” conference, the event is in its seventh year. Despite its age, the conference will forever be called “VIA-1″ and never “VIA-2″ or “VIA-3″ or whatever. As organizer Thục Nguyễn told the Bolsavik,
“Each year the location and theme of the conference change, but the Conference Name will always be Vietnamese Interacting as One (VIA-1). This year’s theme is ‘come together’. Each year there are around 200 attendees that attend the conference.”
Thục Nguyễn’s official role is Advisor and staff to the VIA-1 conference, which was started seven years ago by Bao Nguyen and a few Viet students from the University of Cincinnati. Two years ago, Thục and Bao joined forces and co-founded the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of the Midwest.
The UVSA of Midwest shall, as Thuc says, “be an independent organization and shall not be governed or controlled by any other organization. UVSA of Midwest is committed to empowering emerging community leaders within the Vietnamese community in the Midwest United States.”
The goal of VIA-1 is to “get Viet students in the Midwest to interact with each other.” Participants come together to collaborate in workshops, make new friends and see old ones, and to just have fun.
The VIA-1 is co-hosted by the UVSA and the VSA at Northwestern University, and held at locations throughout the Northwestern campus.
The ever young VIA-1′s web site is here. Check it out.
This is great news for our VN Americans being able to coalesce and contribute to society. I hope and pray that good leaders will arise from these association and conference, and these leaders will make us proud of our heritage.
Master XYZ, I hope you have another great entry on this topic.
Bolsavik,
You need to expand your subject matter to include issues and events that may effect the Viet Population. Obamas visit to OC yesterday would be a good example. Otherwise, your blog is becoming boring with the ethnocentric focus.
Paul Lucas hits it right on!
Bolsavik, how come no coverage of this conviction right here in the OC:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/tran-dao-park-2338912-keenan-enforcement
It seems the Viet politicians are too scared to associate themselves with bad news within the community.
Paul Lucas, did Obama visit our Little Saigon yesterday? I don’t think so.
Did Obama made any comments toward viet community during his visit? Yes…none.
Let Bolsavik run his own viet blog. Go Bolsavik!
Community,
Let Loretta Sanchez and Lou Correa speak up on this issue. They like to come in to the community to say “kinh chao quy vi” to get applauses. Ha ha!!
Jung Kim,
All Im saying is that I come to this blog because I like Bolsaviks style of writing. Its snarky (smart ass really), witty, and usually thorough. But I think that the voet community of readers and the viet community and the community at large would be better served as readers if he reported on things that arent soley limited to ethnocentric themes.
For example, I would have liked to hear a Viets perspective on how Barak Obamas becoming presidnet would effect the viet community. How is the Viet Community being effected bythe housing crisis and the economic downturn. I know for a fact that Viet restaurants are being severly impacted, and many viets are losing their homes for various reasons.
So although it is interesting to know that a dance troupe of viets is headlining a theatre I have never heard of, I would usually pass that yoe of fluff right o by when I read the LA Times or OC Register etc etc, and go to the section of how many foreclosers are in the zip codes that are heavily populated by Viets. Not only because I wanna know how Viets are being effected but how my community at large (zip coed city county region state etc) is being effected.
Whether you are Viet Korean, Whie Hispanic etc we all live in GG, Westminster, Santa Ana, Anaheim….
My Viet neighbor losing his home to foreclosure would effect the value of my home just asmuch as if my neighbor was Hispanic, Arabic etc.
Thats all Im saying.
:::smile:::
City # Sold January 2009 January 2008 % Change Yr-to-Yr
GARDEN GROVE 102 $322,500 $435,000 -25.86%
WESTMINSTER 35 $395,000 $524,000 -24.62%
SANTA ANA 232 $225,000 $442,500 -49.15%
TEMECULA 189 $250,000 $400,000 -37.50%
SACRAMENTO1,069 $130,000 $230,000 -43.48%
SAN JOSE 620 $375,000 $600,000 -37.50%
http://www.dqnews.com/Charts/Monthly-Charts/CA-City-Charts/ZIPCAR.aspx
Country first,
Those are some pretty dire numbers. Any insight on how many viet families are moving in with their parents/adult children?
Every year, as a memebr pf the GG Elks Lodge, I go out and deliver care packages to families during christmas time. These packages include one whole turkey, two whole chickens, canned food, clothing, toys for children, sundries and other items such as stationary postage stamps etc
Requests for these packages has tripled from two years ago. Many of them go to viet families, hispanic families and of course caucasian families as well. The increase in Viet families is most drastic. Also, I havenoticed that these housholds are visibily more crowded as can be seen bythe number of cars in the driveway, family members sleeping in the living room, etc.
It is visibly obvious that many people are forced to moveback in with their parents or the adult children due to the economic downturn and real estate crash. Its hard to see people in such dire straights but at the same time very spiritual in seeing how grateful they are to receive the care packages we provide. especially the kids who getthe presents.
Paul Lucas, this is hard times …….for ALL. So far, the millions of dollars Obama administration has poured into the sour financial market has not resulted in great improvement of our lives.
My knowledge of Viet language is unimpressive, yet the number 1 seems anomalous… it seems out of character, especially carried out every year.
Jung Kim,
I know what youre saying. Its very scary right now and Im having alot of anxiety as some projects are comng to completion.
Im hopeful that President Obama will have a lot of positive impacts with his decisions on the economy. However, I really wish he would lighten up on the one liners, zingers, and rhyming talking points in his speeches and press conferences. The more he does that the more I lose faith in him as my bullshit detector and spidy sense starts tingling.
His blog is bbbbbbbbbbbbboring because he is busy eating out good food some where else.
Unemployment rates do not include many laid-off Vietnamese ;
* Most Vietnamese nail workers work for cash or as independent contractors.
* Most Vietnamese restaurant workers work for cash or as independent contractors.
* Most Vietnamese business owners work as sole proprietors.
* Most Vietnamese real estate agents work as independent contractors.
* Most Vietnamese manual construction workers work for cash or as sole proprietors.
Jobless rates within Vietnamese community is actually around 20%.
Country first,
You could probably assume the same for hispanic laborers and service workers as well. I would wager that the significant Serbian population in Costa Mesa is feeling the same pinch. And those who live in Little Arabia in Anaheim between Brookhurst and Euclid.
I went to the Old World Village today in Huntington Beach and was shocked at how many closed signs I saw in all the shop windows. The paths were deserted. The restaurants and banquet halls had some people in them but very few.
Across the street, I could see planly an empty and shuttered Mervyns, Montgomery Wards, and Levitz Furniture stores.
This economy is going to take alot of people into places and situations they will have no idea how to navigate. Some will prosper. Some will die. Some will stay static. No one wil be unchanged by the era we now embark on.
Empty Shopping Malls : too much space.
March 23 (Bloomberg) — U.S. banks, battered by record losses from the worst housing slump since the Great Depression, now must weather increasing loan delinquencies from owners of skyscrapers and shopping malls.
The country’s 10 biggest banks have $327.6 billion in commercial mortgages, which face a wave of defaults as office vacancies grow and retailers and casinos go bankrupt. A projected tripling in the default rate would result in losses of about 7 percent of total unpaid balances, according to estimates from analysts at research firm Reis Inc.
Commercial property prices are down almost 20 percent in the past year, and with the global recession worsening, there’s “significant stress” in the market, said William Schwartz, a credit analyst at DBRS Inc. in New York. Moody’s Investors Service is reviewing the financial strength ratings of 23 regional lenders, as “these losses are likely to meaningfully weaken the capital position of many banks in 2009,” said Managing Director Robert Young in New York
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aR72TKlxCQ7A&refer=us
HANOI, March 20 (Reuters) – Between 300,000 and 400,000 people will lose their jobs in Vietnam this year, and some 6,000 Vietnamese workers have been sent home from abroad due to the global slowdown, the labour minister said on Friday.
Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan told a parliamentary meeting the job losses this year would be mostly in export processing sectors such as garments and footwear.
At the end of 2008, Vietnam’s workforce stood at 45 million, with roughly half employed in agriculture, forestry and fishery. Unemployment was 4.65 percent, the ministry said, implying just over 2 million people were without a job.
Vietnam’s parliament officially forecasts economic growth this year of 6.5 percent, but economists widely view that number as unattainable, given falling exports, remittances and foreign direct investment.
Many, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, expect growth to be between 4.5 percent and 5.5 percent.
Ngan said about 6,000 Vietnamese Vietnamese working abroad had been sent home after being laid off by foreign employers. The government was still aiming to send some 90,000 workers overseas this year, up from 85,000 last year.
Vietnam sent nearly 18,000 workers abroad in the first two months of 2009, mainly to South Korea, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Japan. (Reporting by John Ruwitch and Nguyen Nhat Lam; Editing by Alan Raybould)
China : 20 million jobless migrant workers
The employment situation is not any better. At least
one million migrant workers had returned to Hubei after they lost their jobs in factories in the coastal cities as China’s exports hit the snag, greatly increasing the pressure on the government to ensure employment, he said.
Across China, more than 20 million migrant workers have become jobless as the worst global crisis since the 1930s continues to bite, according to government data.
I’m not half the man I used to be,
There’s a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, yesterday came suddenly…
– The Beatles –
Just earlier today, after carefully reading the entry…the girls are in the front row, perfect everything, total knockout, and suddenly…, in a moment of sentimentality, I felt connected to those in the picture.
Thirty years ago, yes, so quickly, in a completely unspectacular Whiteville, only few Asian girls, who either avoided me or already with their trophy white boys. Not to make a point, I lusted after the big-titish blonde and curvy brunette, who were like “the fashion accessory of the moment.”
However, I always dreamed of playing a leading role in Miss Saigon, The World of Suzie Wong, or whatever it is … along the Asian theme. I would fall hard and fast for a girl who has the requisite skin tone and facial features and possesses Oriental Kama Sutra secrets.
Well, it’s like an “egg”: white outside, yellow inside.
With the dearth of prey in town, I was looking for an out of town opportunity to meet one special girl.
Anybody remember the eighties?
In the spring of 1985, there was a maybe-you-will-meet-someone-here conference near Tahoe. Yes, spring is the time of renewal, and man on earth must be in tune with the mood of the planet.
So, in the crisp early morning air of the newly minted spring day, man on fire moving toward a lake, hoping for an opportunity to explore the wet spot.
Lots of girls seemed to emerge from everywhere, in a garden variety of category: best legs, best smile, straight A to noticeable D (I am not talking about report card). A beautiful girl, who had a million hit a day, brought along a semi-attractive friend for protection. The difficulty that faced me was to separate the two girls. I had to think about a stratagem to peel off from the formation and fly alone. Most of the time, the girls were so elusive that the entire weekend would have passed without conquest.
I am a firm believer in the no-means-yes theory of intergender communication, but even the best gamblers get dealt the occasional deuce. When girls couldn’t even be consistent in their inconsistency, it was time to be a good sport and throw in the cards.
After picking up a plate of chicken a la Denny, back at the motel and stuck a big toe through the hole in the pajamas…
Why did she have to be so beautiful, so sexy, so hot, so adoring, and so disinterested?
A Japanese kamikaze pilot who survived, and when asked him why… and he said:
“What, you never did anything crazy? You weren’t young once?”
Hey, pal, I’m with you!!!
The past is past.
It’s been said that if you’re not a Democrat, you have no heart;
but if you’re still a Democrat at forty, you have no brain.
Of course, either way, at sixty you usually have no teeth.
I’m no longer a Democrat and I live in the now.
The future isn’t what it used to be…Viva VIAGRA !!!
Spring time again.
It is the time to dump the old and fall in love with the new.
Participants, pardon me but it would be no fun without the drama, the chase.
Hasta La VIA !!!
@Paul Lucas:
Of course this blog is ethnocentric. Why do you think people visit this blog anyways?????
Maybe you missed this blog’s byline ‘All Viet, All the time’.
You want to know how Vietnamese people feel about issues outside the ‘Vietnamese sphere’? Well let me tell you, Vietnamese people, in regards to non-Vietnamese issues tend to be quite conformist, non-confrontational and non-controversial. In other words, boring.
But when Vietnamese people discuss issues that directly affect the Vietnamese community (ie ‘Ethnocentric stories’)….. that’s when things get spicy and interesting.
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I really wish he would lighten up on the one liners, zingers, and rhyming talking points in his speeches and press conferences. Why did she have to be so beautiful, so sexy, so hot, so adoring, and so disinterested ?
The paths were deserted. The restaurants and banquet halls had some people in them but very few. Durham Solicitors