Many important events have just happened recently regarding to the Viet-communities in the U.S.A., especially the Viet-students in American colleges and universities. Among them are the recent provisions which "threatened to slash student aid programs by $10 billions" (Spartan Daily, SJSU, November 1, 1995). Fortunately, however, the protest of students from different universities has forced the US Congress changing their final decision. The result is, because of the opposition of students from different universities and colleges all over the country, the cuts were reduced by $5.8 billions instead of $10 billions as mentioned.
Through this valuable experience, a sudden question came to my mind: "What can Viet-student, like you and me, do to prevent something similar to the above event from happening?" And then another question that has long time often challenged me now comes back: "What can the Viet-youths do to dedicate for the improvement of the exiled Viet-communities, especially in the U.S.A.?" Of course, there are many more important questions that I myself, like all of the Viet-refugees in the world today, cannot ignore or put aside, such as "What can we, the exiled Viets, do for a better future of our beloved homeland, Vietnam?"
Surely, all of the above three questions seem to be the toughest ones to most of us. They are tough questions not because of we, the Viet-refugees, cannot give them the best answer but because of the lack of one important factor in the process of combining the total strength of the exiled-Viets which seemed to miss in the communities of our Viet-refugees in a few recent years: WE ARE LACKING OF THE NECESSARILY ESSENTIAL HARMONY, OR THE STRONG BOND IN ACTION, OF THE VARIOUS VIETS’ POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS WHICH INCLUDES THE VIET-STUDENTS ASSOCIATION IN AMERICAN COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES.
Then the questions is "What’s wrong with us?"
Actually, there’s nothing seriously wrong with our Viet-communities expect several individual’s complaint which are being passed around in our communities by both the Viet people who have been the U.S.A. for many years and the Viet-newcomers. However, there are two opposite tendencies which I would like to mention here. When I put those three above questions to them and asked why they didn’t involve in the activities of the Viet-communities or the Viet-students’ activities in colleges or universities, people who used to advocate the first tendency usually told me that: "You know why? It’s just because our Viet -people are not united and couldn’t get along with each other." In the contrary, the people supporting the second tendency firmly told me that: "We really love to participate in different activities to develop the better Viet communities; however, there are so many people are just ready to blame or criticize others’ contributions but they themselves never do nothing. We feel bored and tired!" Maybe both of these two observations are partly right, but are not practical and helpful at all. These ways of thinking are so passive and negative. They both stop at the level of criticizing, and cannot go further, beyond their selfishness, to transform their thought into their more positive actions. Of course, I myself a little bit prefer the second one but I don’t choose it as the best solution for our communities. It’s much better and more helpful to act than just to stop at the reaction of complaining, blaming, or criticizing. We are greatly hungry for the Viet-people who heartily get along with other Viet-fellows for the more stable and prosperous Viet-communities in U.S.A., and we don’t need people who just learn how to complain, to blame, or to criticize others’ works but never spend any of their time to serve their community and their people. WE ARE THIRSTY OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE A VIET-HEART!
In different chats with my Viet-schoolmates at SJSU (San Jose State University) and in different discussions with some Viet-persons who have insistently scarified their time, their energy, and their own happiness for the stability and the improvement of our Viet-community in San Jose (instead of wasting their leisure time in the coffee-shops or next to some cans beer just to chat and to blame our community), I finally come to a conclusion that there’s one important and urgent task that we, the Viet-youths, can do right now is to participate actively in the different types of elections in the country we are living in. The first and easy thing we all can do, if we have already got our American citizenship, is to use our right to vote consciously, properly and confidently. Voting is among what most of the Vietnamese-Americans can do now and immediately to influence directly the politicians who really want our votes to run for their offices in the US congress, local governments, or even the presidency. Surely, our votes can affect directly to the bills, the issues, the measures, or the provisions suggested in the election occurring every two or four year in November. How can we influence those bills, issues, measures, or provision? The simple answer is we have a right to practically benefit our Viet-communities, and we don’t care of who suggest them (democrats or republicans). Therefore, the more our Viet-people participate in voting and go out to vote, the more power we can impact on the new laws, local or federal. Voting in this case becomes our only power. If we are lazy of going out to vote, it’s somehow we ourselves deny our civil rights that people in this country have so many times struggled for even by the sacrification of their lives: women, African-American slaves, and Koreans. In other words, the action of "not going out to vote" could be criticized as "a passive, negative attitude" and more than that "an irresponsible action" to the community that we are living in. Like the observations of some objective Viet-activists, our Viet-people and especially our Viet-youths often tend to ask what the Viet-communities can do for us but we rarely ask what we, the Viet-members, can do to make our exiled communities better.
Probably the immediate question is "Why is voting our only power right now?" A proper answer is we, until now, haven’t had any Viet-representatives in the US Congress yet and just have some rare Viet-representatives in some local governments like cities or counties. Some Viet-peoples have attempted to run for their offices but the problem was they didn’t receive any response or any support from the Viet-people living in the same district, city, county, or state. Furthermore, the ratio of the Viet-voters was too low compared to the Viet-population. For example, the Viet-population in Santa Clara county is about 30,000 in 1992, but the number of Viet-voters registered to vote is about plus 19,000 and the number of Viet-voters actually went out to vote was about 2,000. How sad and shameful we are! Probably, our Viet-people still need more time to think before we could come to a common thought in order to achieve our goals. We seemed not to care of many negative consequences that we have to accept passively because we are just wasting our time to wait for some non-Viet benefactors’ generosity in doing their charities to us. We’re kind of loving to depend on others in stead of trusting our own strength. How long are we going to need to change our way of thinking acting? One more century, are we? We have long time been so slaved to our small paths that it seems so threatening for our Viet-people, especially Viet-youths, to exit into the American freeways in order to participate in different American democratic games! We could not be familiar with the imagination or the thought that some of our Viet-fellows are going to be able to represent us and to raise voice in the US Congress. What may of us are waiting now is probably a miracle that will never exist if we continue not to get along with or not to trust other members in our Viet-communities. How long are we going to wait before we could effectively interact to achieve our common goals? Are we going to pass all these problems to the next generations, and so on? Can we surely survive individually without any Viet-communities? Are we sure that no problems will tumble over our heads in our daily lives at school, at workplace, or in society? Of course, the immediate and exact answer is "NO". In other words, we can wait no longer. WE NEED TO ACT TOGETHER RIGHT NOW AND RIGHT HERE! It’ s not a time for any of us, especially the Viet-youths, just to complain, to criticize, or to blame our Viet-fellows or our previous generations, such as our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, who had been suffered and tortured enough by the Vietnam War, by many years in prisons, and by losses of many beloved things. It’s time for all of us, the Viet-youths, to be ready to replace our fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters, to proudly and confidently fulfill our sacred duties to our communities and our homeland. And one of the first things we can do right here is to participate actively and energetically in the local chapter of our Viet-voters leagues (Vietnamese-American Voters Leagues) and to go out to vote. If we could do this, then we actively respond to the question: "Viet-youths, what and who are we waiting for?"
SJSJ, Fall 1995
"... to show my admiration to my beloved parents and to all people who dedicated their youth for the freedom, independence, prosperity of Vietnam and world peace."