Whither Vietnamese Catholic Communities in America? Catholic Youth and the Clash of Faith and Culture (Introduction)

Whither Vietnamese Catholic Communities in America? Catholic Youth and the Clash of Faith and Culture (Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)

Introduction

Anna Nguyễn

As a native of Portland, Oregon, I grew up with two of everything — two names, two languages, two histories — each representing a different facet of my Vietnamese-American identity. I was practically raised in the Our Lady of Lavang parish community and participated in classes, events, and extracurricular programs like the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement as a kid. From New Year festivals, summer carnivals, and religious retreats, I became accustomed to seeing folks who looked like me, their familiar words lingering in the air in our shared mother tongue. My local church was a comfortable environment for me, but outside of this space my sense of belonging seemed to shift. Living with the irresolution of my two identities proved to be harder than I expected, and I felt lost. I felt like I was a stranger to the city I was supposed to call home, and as the years passed, my grasp of the language started to falter. Soon after, my adherence to the Catholic faith did as well.

But as I finished up my second year of college at the University of Oregon, I realized that I was not the only young adult struggling through this experience of religious and cultural alienation. It soon dawned on me that the Vietnamese community I had in Portland provided me with not just the spiritual guidance I sought in terms of developing my faith, but the space I needed to explore the parameters of my ethnic identity as well. This realization forced me to confront the truth that religion and culture are inextricable threads woven into the fabric of the Vietnamese Catholic history, and that it was up to my generation to cultivate that spark and keep it and the legacy of our predecessors alive.

It is this realization that motivated my research for this series of posts on the current challenges facing Vietnamese Catholic communities in the US. This post briefly reviews the history of Vietnamese Catholicism in America and the generational tensions within our communities. Subsequent posts will feature interviews with priests, nuns and a parishioner, to be followed by a discussion of the challenges Vietnamese Catholic youths face in maintaining a healthy balance between their culture and faith.

A Brief History of Vietnamese Catholicism in America

The institution of Vietnamese Catholicism on American soil unfolded in the wake of the Vietnam War, primarily beginning with the flight of refugees displaced by religious and political tensions in their homeland. This first wave of Vietnamese immigrants left for the United States in the immediate aftermath of the Fall of Saigon in pursuit of more economic opportunity abroad. Individuals in this collective typically had better access to higher education and occupational training since they were more affluent. On the other hand, many of the Vietnamese migrants who departed after 1980 were “boat people” who evacuated hastily and often in secret. These asylees generally had less knowledge of the English language, as well as fewer job skills and educational experience.^[1] These challenges—along with a multitude of other financial and cultural burdens—severely hindered their capacity to acclimate into their new and foreign surroundings.

Despite the adversities they faced as foreigners in a strange land, Vietnamese Catholics found a source of emotional solace through revering the Holy Mother. Ethnic incarnations of the Holy Mother (like Our Lady of Lavang for the Vietnamese) served as spiritual guides for disenfranchised communities on the margins of society. To many refugees, “mother figures emerge most vividly in contexts of pain, suffering, and mourning associated with displacement, isolation, and migration.”^[2] Although Our Lady of Lavang is not the first representation of the Holy Mother to appear in the history of Catholicism, her alleged appearance to the group of Vietnamese Catholics seeking refuge from harm deeply resonates with many immigrants that were forced to leave the only home they knew. Depictions of Our Lady of Lavang in addition to the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs (more commonly known as các Thánh Tử Ðạo Việt Nam) continue to represent the Vietnamese Catholic diaspora today as emblems of steadfast faith in the face of religious oppression and flight.

When refugees like the Vietnamese traversed the seas to America, they brought memories of their family, heritage, and religious beliefs along with them just like their Western European counterparts centuries ago. Religion is oftentimes the focal point for folks who are geographically displaced to such a degree, since members of these communities are united by a collective devotion to the same God. Immigrants who did not have significant technical skill or a firm grasp on the English language faced structural challenges in finding employment, financial resources, and opportunities for social interaction as they adapted to this new American lifestyle.^[3] More often than not, their faith was one of the few things anchoring them to reality. In times of happiness, all was attributed to God’s blessing. In times of despair, God’s grace would shine a light to guide them through the darkness. Vietnamese Catholics who found each other by chance immediately connected over their shared spirituality and experiences of migration, naturally amassing into a larger and larger community with each passing decade. Religious devotion was not just a form of emotional sanctuary at this time—it was a means for survival.

As the months and years went by, the intimate yet separate communities of Vietnamese Catholic immigrants resettled in Louisiana, Texas, California, and Missouri swiftly transformed into an active network of religious life spreading their ministry on a national scale.^[4] This spiritual proliferation was widespread and before long, Vietnamese Catholic immigrants finally had a space that allowed them and their children to live, learn, and thrive. A rapid growth of this size, however, also demands an answer to a question elicited from the New York Times: “How long will such devotion endure in a culture that esteems material wealth and individual choice?”^[5]

Generational Tensions Within Vietnamese Catholic Communities

In an ironic twist of fate, the language and cultural barriers Vietnamese refugees dealt with decades ago seem to be the same obstacles their children face in trying to reconnect with the traditions passed down from generation to generation. Disparities regarding upbringing, political views, and now receptivity to religious devotion between parent and child seem to simply heighten tensions between the former and latter. As said before, one aspect of religious engagement that Vietnamese Catholics are particularly exceptional at is vocational recruitment. In the twentieth century, young men and women all around Viet Nam answered their spiritual vocation, or what they deemed to be a divine call from God to join the religious life. A PBS video segment with Fr. Basil Ðoàn contends that many young Vietnamese-American men are experiencing religious callings to the priesthood, but a much larger number are from Viet Nam and come to the United States to serve their parish congregation (most of which are rural and white). The dominant reason for this massive influx of religious leadership appears to be that “seminaries and convents [in Vietnam] can’t accommodate all of the men and women who want to enter religious life, so many end up here in America.”^[6] Although the overall number of candidates for priesthood are dwindling in seminaries nationwide, Vietnamese Catholic priests still remain a central force in driving the movement for vocational discernment forward. This phenomena may very well be motivated by the merit Vietnamese families place on joining the clergy. At times jokes about future grandchildren are thrown around from parent to child, but more often than not the pressure to have at least one son or daughter pursue a spiritual vocation was inordinately high. These kinds of norms were common practice in traditional Vietnamese households throughout the twentieth century, but the turn of the new millennium marked a definitive change in attitudes toward religious life.

Many Vietnamese Catholics undoubtedly had to confront the challenges of adapting to a secular-oriented lifestyle after migrating to the States, but their children currently face an arguably more precarious cultural dilemma as they navigate a reconciliation of their Vietnamese and American identities. On a narrower level, Vietnamese-American Catholics “face a double challenge: how to maintain their cultural heritage in a foreign land and how to forge a new Christian identity in a new ecclesial environment.”^[7] Individuals from this second generation typically lived more privileged childhoods than their parents, which in some cases was as much of a curse as it was a blessing. For older generations, seeing their children and grandchildren take advantage of their newfound freedom to think and act independently elicited a sense of satisfaction but also concern. Vietnamese-American Catholics now had more leeway to critique the institutions they grew up with, which consequently led their parents to believe that they were straying away from the religious and cultural traditions their family so valued.

One well-known locus of Vietnamese Catholic activity is the bustling community of New Orleans, Louisiana. As an epicenter for religious and cultural interaction, New Orleans boasted an energetic as well as tight-knit Vietnamese community for families in the area. This Vietnamese Catholic congregation lived, prayed, and depended on each other, from household to household. But as their numbers incrementally grew in size, so did the extent of their power. In many social circles, “conformity to the expectations of the family and the ethnic community endows individuals with resources of support and direction.”^[8] The Vietnamese Catholic network of New Orleans was no stranger to this feat, and wielded conformity as a productive tool to establish a safety net of resources intended to support their congregation. The efficacy of this sociocultural system was visceral since assimilation was a means for upward social mobility. Many other Vietnamese Catholic communities followed suit during this transitional period, and incorporated themselves into the American middle class through orienting themselves and their children toward avenues of education and religion. Eventually, this drive for prosperity incarnated in the assumption that societal expectations tandem to community values “constitute a source of direction to guide children to adapt to American society the Vietnamese way.”^[9] Vietnamese-Americans saw their peers achieve success, and emulated their behavior. The fishbowl effect evident in Catholic social circles heightened the power of household surveillance and mitigated any deviations from the norm. Personal triumphs became community triumphs, whereas individual failures brought shame to the whole congregation.

So if these strategies are effective, why does the trajectory of Vietnamese Catholicism appear to be on a decline? I reached out to a few priests, nuns, and community members over the course of several weeks to gain their insight on this predicament and hopefully find some answers. The next three posts will include excerpts of these interviews and discuss the challenges Vietnamese Catholic youths face in maintaining a healthy balance between their culture and faith.

Rev. Khôi Anh Đoàn is a Vietnamese priest currently living in Washington state. He is involved in the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement (also known as Thiếu Nhi Thánh Thể) as the head chaplain of the Northwest Region, and has served multiple congregations in Portland, Oregon as well as Dallas, Texas, and Seattle, Washington.

Rev. Liêm Trần currently resides in Houston, Texas, as a parochial vicar at Our Lady of Lourdes parish. His experiences as a member of the clergy in Vietnam, Canada, and the United States have given him the opportunity to work with a variety of congregations that encompass different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Mr. Johnathanh Mai is a parishioner at Our Lady of Lavang Parish in Portland, Oregon. For the past several years, he has worked with Vietnamese youths of varying ages as an educator of Catholic teaching. Mr. Mai is also an Extraordinary Minister at his parish, and is an integral part of the community’s Confirmation program.

Sr. Duyên Anh and Sr. Hằng Nga are Dominican sisters of the St. Catherine Convent in Houston, Texas. Both have taught sacramental classes at their local parish and currently serve as theology instructors at Catholic schools. As of right now, Sr. Duyên Anh is also a Vocation Assistant for their convent with Sr. Hằng Nga as her assistant.

Notes

[1] Peter C. Phan, “Vietnamese Catholics in the United States: Christian Identity between the Old and the New,” U.S. Catholic Historian 18, no. 1 (2000): 20. www.jstor.org/stable/25154702.

^[2] Thien-Huong Ninh, “Holy Mothers in the Vietnamese Diaspora: Refugees, Community, and Nation,” Religions 9, no. 8 (2018): 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9080233.

^[3] Charles Hirschman, “The Role of Religion in the Origins and Adaptation of Immigrant Groups in the United States,” The International Migration Review 38, no. 3 (2004): 1207. www.jstor.org/stable/27645430.

^[4] Gustav Niebuhr, “Vietnamese Immigrants Swell Catholic Clergy,” New York Times, April 24, 2000, Section A, Page 17. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/24/us/vietnamese-immigrants-swell-catholic-clergy.html.

^[5] Niebuhr, “Vietnamese Immigrants Swell Catholic Clergy.”

^[6] Judy Valente, “Vietnamese Catholics in the US,” Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, PBS, September 21, 2012, Audio. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2012/09/21/september-21-2012-vietnamese-catholics-in-the-us/13094/.

^[7] Phan, “Vietnamese Catholics in the United States,” 26.

^[8] Min Zhou and Carl L. Bankston, “Social Capital and the Adaptation of the Second Generation: The Case of Vietnamese Youth in New Orleans,” The International Migration Review 28, no. 4 (1994): 824. doi:10.2307/2547159.

^[9] Zhou and Bankston, “Social Capital and the Adaptation of the Second Generation,” 831.