Anhlan P. Nguyen, one of two new appointees to VEF

In announcing the appointment, President Obama said, “These individuals have demonstrated knowledge and dedication throughout their careers. I am grateful they have chosen to take on these important roles, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come.” He said those words not only of the two women but also of a 3rd appointee announced the same time – the first U.S. ambassador to Burma after 22 years of interrupted diplomatic relations.

The two new Board members of VEF are Anhlan P. Nguyen (Nguyễn Phúc Anh Lan) from Houston and Quyen N. Vuong (Vương Ngọc Quyên) from San Jose.

Nguyen is known for the activities organized by the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association (Hội Văn Hóa Khoa Học Việt Nam), a multi-faceted, well-funded group who gets its finger in just about everything going on in Houston, including the controversial election of community leaders.

ICAN's Facebook page

Vuong, on the other hand, is almost exclusively focused on human services. She previously spent a year with the UNHCR (High Commissioner for Refugees) in Hong Kong as a Fulbright scholar.

Vuong is currently the Executive Director of the International Children Assistance Network (ICAN), an organization she co-founded in 2000, which helps Vietnamese disadvantaged students both in Northern California and in Vietnam.

Created by Act of Congress and funded by the U.S. government, the VEF is an independent agency whose mission is “to strengthen the U.S.-Vietnam bilateral relationship through educational exchanges in science and technology.”

In addition to Presidential appointees, the Board of VEF include ex oficio members from the Cabinet – the Secretaries of Education, State, and Treasury – and bi-partisan members drawn from both houses of Congress.

The White House press release include more details about the appointees’ background:

Anhlan P. Nguyen, Appointee for Member, Board of Directors of the Vietnam Education Foundation
Anhlan P. Nguyen is currently an IT project portfolio manager at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Chair of the Board of Directors for the Vietnamese Culture and Science Association. In 1998, Ms. Nguyen established the National Youth Leadership Development Camp in 1998, and in 1990 she helped found the Vietnamese Youth Center of Toronto. Ms. Nguyen won the Women’s Leadership Empowerment Award by the Texas Women Empowerment Foundation in 2011 and was named one of the “Top 25 Women of Houston” by Comerica Bank and the Steed Society in 2010 for her leadership and community involvement. In addition, she won the Outstanding Community Leader Award from the Youth Leadership Council of Houston in 2004 and was selected as one of five outstanding young Houstonians by the Junior Chamber of Commerce in 2000. Ms. Nguyen has a B.S. and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Toronto, Canada.

Quyen N. Vuong, Appointee for Member, Board of Directors of the Vietnam Education Foundation
Quyen N. Vuong is the Executive Director of the International Children Assistance Network in San Jose, CA, an organization she co-founded in 2000. She is also a board member of the Pacific Links Foundation, an organization she co-founded in 2001, and a founding member of the Vietnamese American Non-Governmental Network, created in 2004. Ms. Vuong serves on the Board of Directors of the Santa Clara Family Health Foundation, the Community Advisory Committee for San Jose Children’s Discovery Museum, and the Advisory Board for the Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution for Mission College. She received a Fulbright in 1989 and worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Hong Kong. Ms. Vuong holds a B.A. in Economics from Yale University, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

The award went to the UC Berkeley Ph.D. dissertation “New Economies of Sex and Intimacy in Vietnam” by Kimberly Kay Hoang, from UC Berkeley. It is based on 15 months of ethnographic research in Ho Chi Minh City, where Hoang “worked as a bartender and hostess in four bars that catered to different groups of clients,” says the UC press release.

According to UC Berkeley sociology professor Raka Ray, who chaired Hoang’s dissertation committee, her research “highlights not just the structure and practices of sex work in Vietnam, but demonstrates how it serves as a vital form of currency in Vietnam’s political economy.”

Portions of Hoang’s research were previously published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (Hoang, Kimberly Kay. ““She’s Not a Low-class Dirty Girl!”: Sex Work in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 40.4 (2011): 367-396. ), and in Sexualities (Hoang, Kimberly Kay. “Economies of Emotion, Familiarity, Fantasy, and Desire: Emotional Labor in Ho Chi Minh City’s Sex Industry.” Sexualities, 13.2 (2010): 255-272. ).

People with academic library access can get the papers here and here.

In a message on anthropologist Lee Ngo‘s Facebook, Hoang said her dissertation will be published as a book in 2 years, and that is why the dissertation is not on ProQuest.

Hoang is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Rice University and will join the faculty at Boston College in 2013.

In her research, Hoang interviewed numerous sex workers and their clients in diverse areas of Ho Chi Minh City, from the working class outskirts to the upscale downtown District One.

Her work analyzes the stratas of the sex industry with differetn economic, cultural and bodily resources at each level. Unlike the stereotype that it’s all sex for money, Hoang demonstrates that at different layers of the sex industry, the levels of intimacy and relations differ.

Having read the papers, the Bolsavik is not surprised that Hoang won the award. It’s a mix of intense, in-depth field work, with top-level theoretical analysis.

Judge Jacqueline Nguyen

Judge Jacqueline Nguyen was confirmed Monday by the full Senate to the Ninth Circuit, becoming the first female Asian judge on the federal appellate bench.

The vote to confirm Nguyen, 46, was 91 for and 3 against, The Hill reports. Judge Nguyen is a former federal prosecutor who served as California Superior Court judge and is currently U.S. District Judge for the Central District of California.

Just before the vote on Nguyen, Sen. Dianne Feinsteinurged her colleagues to approve the nomination.

“If she is confirmed today she will be the first Asian female federal court judge,” Feinstein said. “And I am proud to express my very strong support for her nomination.” Feinstein was the Senator who recommended Nguyen for the district court position.

In nominating Judge Nguyen in September, President Barack Obama praised Judge Nguyen as “a trailblazer, displaying an outstanding commitment to public service throughout her career.”

A native of Dalat, Vietnam and a daughter of a South Vietnamese colonel, Judge Nguyen came to the U.S. in 1975 when communist forces overran the country. She was graduated from Occidental College in L.A. – the same school where the President spent his freshman year before transferring to Harvard. (Young Obama had left just when young Nguyen arrived.) After Oxy, Jacqueline Nguyen went to UCLA Law.

She joined Musick Peeler & Musick, Peeler & Garrett, one of L.A.’s top firms. After four years in private practice, Judge Nguyen moved to the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Central District of California, where she eventually became a deputy chief of the General Crimes Section.

She was named to the Los Angeles County Superior Court by Governor Gray Davis. When she was confirmed by the Senate 97-0 to the U.S. District Court in October 2009, Judge Nguyen became the first Vietnamese-American federal judge.

The Ninth Circuit is the federal appellate court, one level below the U.S. Supreme Court. Its territory covers the entire Western United States and consists of the states of: California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

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Dr. Thuy Vo Dang heads the Vietnamese American Oral History Project at UC Irvine.

UC Irvine is creating an archive of personal oral histories by members of the local Vietnamese-American community. This “Vietnamese American Oral History Project” is headed by Dr. Thuy Vo-Dang, a postdoctoral fellow in the university’s Department of Asian American Studies.

The Bolsavik interviewed Dr. Vo Dang for Nguoi Viet Daily News, published here. Following is the same interview, in its original English.

Q. How is the collecting work going so far?

Dr. Vo Dang: The collection of oral histories is going quite well! I have done 3 interviews that are fully transcribed, but we are looking for ways to have them translated (they are in Vietnamese). My students have gathered a total of 36 interviews that are fully processed. These are new interviews; there are existing ones as well.

Q. What do you mean by “fully processed”? What does it take for interview to be fully processed?

Dr. Vo Dang: It means they have been transcribed and ready to transfer over to the Southeast Asian Archive. All these interviews are audio-recorded and come with photos. Some have original documents that Narrators (what we call our interview subjects) have donated to be kept with their stories.

Q: What kind of stories do you have so far?

Dr. Vo Dang: The stories are already quite diverse and interesting. Many reeducation camp stories, ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese experiences, a handful of folks who worked for Boeing, 2 French-Vietnamese-Americans, community leaders, educators, artists, business owners.

Q: Any surprises? Any anecdotes you can share with us?

Dr. Vo Dang: One of the most interesting things that has come up: many of my students have interviewed a parent and unearthed stories they’ve never heard before.

One of those stories involves the sexual abuse of a group of teenage Viet refugees in Georgia in the 1980s by a sponsor. I think this story is very telling of the manipulation of the refugee-sponsorship system by nonprofits, churches, and other MAAs at that time.

Another student interviewed her Vietnamese language teacher from high school and he told her that when he was young (during the war) he ditched school and was therefore put on a priority list for the draft and then ended up in the military in South Vietnam. After the war ended he was imprisoned by the new regime. So, he would use this as a cautionary tale to his students to not slack off, miss school, or be lazy or they could end up in prison!

One of my Narrators told me about his reeducation prison days and he mentioned that his job in prison involved painting the background for stage performances. His friend drew three flowers as part of the backdrop and got called in my the inspectors and asked why he drew three flowers. They wanted to know if he meant it as a critique of the new regime (three flowers in Vietnamese is ba hoa which also means liar) and then they made him draw in another flower to make four.

These are some stories that are emerging in the interviews, but there are so many more “ordinary” tales of perseverance, struggle, and triumph. I am so excited about this collection of stories!

Q: You mentioned something about existing interviews. Can you elaborate?

Dr. Vo Dang: On top of these original new interviews, I am working on processing interviews that the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation conducted in 2010, through their “500 Oral Histories Project“. I am also processing old interviews from 2003-2005 conducted by Professor Linda Vo‘s students at UCI. So, you see, the work is not only about doing interviews but bringing together existing interviews and making sure they are ready for online presentation and historical preservation.

I expected to have 100 by the end of the year and we are on track for this to happen. Since I now have the first batch from my students on hand, I will be transferring them to the libraries by the end of this month.

Q: What kind of outreach have you used to get to narrators?

Dr. Vo Dang: So far, I’ve used UCI communications’ press release and news features, academic newsletters, our project website, Facebook, and outreach at community events such as Common Ground (to recruit volunteers).

Word of mouth has been the best form of outreach–my students’ and the organizations and community leaders I work with–this helps to recruit Narrators through a credible link.

Q: How about Vietnamese media?

Dr. Vo Dang: I am hoping to launch a Vietnamese media campaign soon. Vien Dong has a story on us. I hope to get Nguoi Viet and Viet Bao to also do a feature on the project or run free ads for Narrators to contact me.

Q: Does your project involve remote states?

Dr. Vo Dang: The project is only focused on Southern California, so the Narrators have come from all over OC, LA, San Diego and a few from the Inland Empire. I’ve gotten inquiries over FB and email from people all over the country, but we are only interviewing So Cal Vietnamese. There’s a professor at Grinnell College in Iowa that contacted me about donating her students’ interviews of Viet-Americans there, so we are in communication about how that would work.

Q: How do people get hold of you to tell their stories? Do you pick and choose or take all comers?

Dr. Vo Dang: People can email the project at vaohp@uci.edu or email me directly. They can contact us on FB.

So far, we’ve taken all who are interested in telling their stories but these Narrators have to be willing to sign the release that allows for us to make their interviews public.

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Thuy Vo Dang is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Asian American Studies at UC Irvine. She earned her Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, San Diego. She conducted oral history interviews with first generation Vietnamese Americans in San Diego for her doctoral dissertation on cultural politics and memory. Thuy has also collaborated on a Pacific Rim Foundation-funded project, interviewing over 70 Vietnamese Americans in Southern California. Her writings have been published in Amerasia Journal, the anthology Le Viet Nam Au Féminin, and Journal of Vietnamese Studies. Thuy serves on the board of directors for the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA) and the St. Anselm’s Cross-cultural Community Center. She’s also a contributing blogger on www.diaCRITICS.org.

The complaint involves BP’s Vessels of Opportunity (V.o.O.) program, which hires local fishing boats to join the cleanup. It was part of BP’s efforts to mitigate the losses suffered by fishermen who were grounded by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Over half of the fishermen affected by the oil spill were Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans; however, of the 5000 marine vessels hired, only 350, or less than 10%, were Vietnamese or Cambodian, the federal court action claims.

The reason Viets were so grossly underrepresented, the 41 plaintiffs allege, is because BP expressly instructed its V.o.O. contractors not to hire Vietnamese and Cambodians. The plaintiffs are seeking class action status to represent 4,000 professional fishermen.

BP hired DRC Emergency Services and Danos and Curole Marine Contractors to manage the V.o.O. program, and, “during the implementation of the V.o.O. program, BP sent out e-mail messages to [the contractors] that specifically demanded that they not hire vessels owned by Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans,” the complaint states.

The complaint alleges that the contractors complied with BP’s demand and “colluded in this despicable order by limiting the number of Vietnamese and Cambodian Americans that they hired.”

Not that getting on the V.o.O. program may have been such a great deal either: Many vessels hired for V.O.O. have filed lawsuits claiming they weren’t paid.

Miranda Du testifying at her confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee.

Almost eight months after her nomination, Vietnamese-American civil litigator Miranda Du from Nevada was confirmed by the U.S. Senate last week to be U.S. district judge for that state, the second Viet federal judge in the country and the first Asian-American federal judge in Nevada.

Du had been recommended by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Upon her confirmation, Reid issued a video statement saying “I’m impressed by Du’s extensive litigation experience and her unquestionable devotion to the state of Nevada.”

Speaking to the Senate before the vote, Reid also noted the historic first that Du’s judgeship would represent for Nevada:

“Although 9 percent of Nevada’s population is Asian-Pacific American, if confirmed Ms. Du will be the first Asian-American federal judge in the history of the state.”

In a separate statement, Nevada’s other senator, Dean Heller, also lauded the confirmation, saying, “I believe she will make an outstanding District Court judge in the great State of Nevada and I am pleased the Senate has confirmed her. Miranda has maintained a dedication to the preservation of justice and integrity throughout her career.”

The vote to confirm was 53-39, with bipartisan support but also with many Senators questioning Du’s qualifications. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, said while her life story was admirable, Du was unqualified for the appointment.

“This is no place for on-the-job training,” Grassley said, according to the AP here.

Du joins the Central District of California’s Jacqueline Nguyen as the only Viets on the federal bench. Judge Nguyen, meanwhile, has been approved by the Judiciary Committee for elevation to the Ninth Circuit and is awaiting full Senate confirmation.

The White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders applauded Du’s confirmation and noted that “In all, almost six percent of President Obama’s confirmed judges have been AAPI, compared to just one percent for Presidents Bush and Clinton.”

Du’s father had served in the South Vietnamese army. In 1979, when Du was 9, her extended family including aunts, uncles, cousins, fled the country by boat – as she told superlawyers.com in 2009, here.

The boat got to Malaysia, but at first it was turned away. They then did what many other boat people also had to do: They sank the boat, and everybody swam ashore. “If we swam to shore, we couldn’t be turned away,” Du recounted.

Du’s family spent a year in the refugee camp before coming to the United States, settling first in Alabama and then in California. She graduated with a double major in economics and history from UC Davis and received her law degree from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall in 1994. She then moved to Nevada to join the McDonald Carano firm in Reno where she has been ever since, making partner in 2002.