History of Overseas Vietnamese Youth Organizations
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Following the end of the Vietnam War on April 30, 1975, which brought about a massive exodus of Vietnamese refugees up until the early 1990s, many new Vietnamese Student Associations (VSA) were established to deal with the cultural transition for the overseas Vietnamese refugees entering college.
Beginning in the early 1980s, regional coalitions of VSAs began to form, such as the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California (UVSA) in 1982, and the Vietnamese Students Association of Victoria (VSAV), Australia in 1983. In January 1999, the Federal Vietnamese Students Association of Australia (FVSAA) collaborated and hosted the first International Vietnamese Youth Conference in Melbourne, Australia inviting Vietnamese youth from around the world.[1] The result of that conference formed the Len Duong International Vietnamese Youth Network. From thereon, a movement followed to strengthen the network.
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[edit] Australia
The Federal Vietnamese Students Association of Australia (FVSAA) is the coordinating body of VSAs in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, Adelaide and the Australian Capital Territory. In January 1999, the Federal Vietnamese Students Association of Australia (FVSAA) collaborated and hosted the first International Vietnamese Youth Conference in Melbourne, Australia.
The Vietnamese International Students in Adelaide (VISA) was established in 2000. In 2006, VISA had about 200 students at University of Adelaide, Flinders University, South Australia University and other colleges and high schools.
[edit] North America
In 2002, there was an attempt to create a continental structure of VSAs. It was not until May 2004, in which the first Vietnamese American National Gala (VANG) event took place, that student leaders from across the nation gathered and had an informal meeting that eventually sparked interest in creating this network. In response to that interest, a conference was held in Boston, Massachusetts in July 2004 by the New England Intercollegiate Vietnamese Student Associations (IVSA) to determine a continental structure of VSAs. The result of this was an organization called the North American Vietnamese Student Associations (NAVSA). In the following year, NAVSA was renamed to the Union of North American Vietnamese Student Associations (uNAVSA) and began its first Collective Philanthropy Project (CPP), essentially a continental campaign of a social issue students took interest in, and served as a unifying project for all VSAs to work on. In this case, the beneficiary they chose was the Vietnamese Alliance to Combat Trafficking (VietACT).
In April 2003, students of the University of Cincinnati VSA in Ohio organized the first VIA-1 Conference, or Vietnamese Interacting As One, aiming to unite VSAs from around the country, although successive conferences remained in the Midwestern United States.
In July 2003, UVSA Southern California co-organized the third International Vietnamese Youth Conference which was held in San Diego, California. Inspired by this conference, in March 2005, Vietnamese students in Texas organized the first annual national Vietnamese American Student Conference (VASCON), with Kym Pham as executive director, and sponsored by the Vietnamese Professionals Society (VPS). The conference's purpose is to unite Vietnamese American students nationally, and thus plays a pivotal role in gathering VSAs from across the nation, especially from Texas.
The fourth International Vietnamese Youth Conference was held in Sydney in December 2005, and produced a North American caucus who attended. After the conference, many of these caucus members remained in contact with each other to discuss how to build support for the Len Duong International Vietnamese Youth Network throughout North America.
[edit] Northern California
[edit] First Generation
The State of California has records of an existence of an incorporated Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Northern California (UVSA) which formed around 1985 (although officially incorporated in 1991) and lasted until 1995[2]. The primary activities of this generation included the production of cabarets as well as participating in political events in order to censure the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) who took control of the whole of Vietnam after the end of the war. These student activists believed that this arrangement was temporary and that they would one day be able to return to Vietnam without fear of being persecuted by the CPV. Over time, however, these political activities waned.
[edit] 1.5 Generation
Following the first International Vietnamese Youth Conference in 1999, Northern California saw the creation of Light Up Our Faith Vietnamese Youth Network of Northern California (MLNT). Although there is no evidence to suggest that MLNT formed as a result of the international conference, another factor that prompted its creation was the Hi-Tek Video Incident, where in February 1999, a Vietnamese American named Truong Van Tran hung a photograph of Ho Chi Minh and a communist Vietnamese flag in his Hi-Tek Video store in the middle of Little Saigon in Orange County, California. Mr. Tran's actions provoked dramatic and unprecedented demonstrations among Vietnamese Americans of all generations that reverberated in Orange County and throughout the other Vietnamese American communities across the North American continent. The demonstration in San Jose, California was organized by MLNT in April 1999.
Out of that demonstration, an independent civic organization also formed, known as the Vietnamese American Youth for the Future (VAYF), lasting from 1999 to 2001. Composed mainly of high school students, VAYF members sought to empower their young leaders in getting involved in the community. While there is insufficient documentation regarding the activities of the VSAs around this time, the Piedmont Hills High School Vietnamese Student Body Association (VSBA) perhaps exemplified what many VSAs did: a focus on producing cabarets and the fundraising activities surrounding it. Perhaps the politically-charged activities of the first generation overlooked the socialization process of the next generation; the second generation were seeking ways to preserve their Vietnamese identity, and so their primary activities would be the production of these cabarets. This paradigm shift, however, alienated students who did not have an interest solely in singing and dancing.
Eventually MLNT collapsed within a few months of its founding. In fall of 1999, two VSA coalitions formed: Bay Area Vietnamese Student Association (BAVSA) and Vietnamese Student Associations Link (VSAL). BAVSA was founded by Tien Vo from Fremont High School in Oakland, California, and the coalition consists of high school VSAs from the East Bay (San Francisco Bay Area). VSAL was a coalition of collegiate VSAs throughout Northern California, and saw many productive years with collaborative activities with its member schools. An unprecedented statewide collegiate VSA leadership camp was held jointly between VSAL and UVSA Southern California in August 2002. But while BAVSA continues to exist, VSAL had its last event in late 2003, and no new officers were elected for 2004, bringing an end to the coalition after five years.
[edit] Second Generation
In fall of 2002, community activists (most of which were delegates of the first International Vietnamese Youth Conference) brought together 25 high school VSAs (essentially including BAVSA) around the San Francisco Bay Area, and helped form the United Vietnamese Student Organization (UVSO). One of the activists, Le Xuan Cao, actually helped organize the Vietnamese American High School Alliance (VAHSA) in Orange County, California a year earlier. Michelle Phuong Tu became its first interim president. Tu led a delegation to the third International Vietnamese Youth Conference in San Diego. In January 2004, the executive board restructured UVSO and ratified a new constitution, changing their name to United Vietnamese Student Associations of Northern California (UVSA), not to be confused with the 1980s organization with the same acronym and geographic focus, at least from a legal standpoint. The mission of UVSA was "Committed to cultural awareness, educating youths, and community service." Additionally, the new UVSA allowed for membership with both high school and collegiate VSAs after they learned of the demise of VSAL. Although its scope is all of Northern California, for the first few years, most of the members were high school VSAs within Santa Clara Valley. Serious efforts to work with collegiate VSAs started to occur towards the end of Tu's term, and going into the term of the second interim president, Huy Ngoc Tran (2006), who was once a member of VSAL. In Tran's administration, staff members felt mixing high school and college VSAs was ineffective, and so UVSA members pushed for a separate high school network in which UVSA would play an advisory role. Thus UVSA was to become, like its Southern California counterpart, a collegiate coalition.
In fall 2003, members of the California State University, Sacramento VSA brought together VSAs within their area and formed the Vietnamese Student Association Union of Sacramento (VSAU) with Hai Nguyen as its first elected president. In fall of 2005, Be Nguyen of San Joaquin Delta College VSA initiated a proposed Vietnamese Student Association United of Stockon (VSAU), although the organization does not yet have a charter. In February 2006, An Le of San Jose City College VSA initiated an alliance of 5 community college VSAs in Santa Clara Valley called the Vietnamese Student Union, although the alliance also does not yet have a charter. Only VSAU has managed to hold interschool activities, including hosting a student-run Tết Festival for the Sacramento community in February 2005. Both the VSAU Stockton and VSU never formally organized.
In November 2003 at the Asian American Pacific Islanders Issues Conference, youths formed the Vietnamese American Caucus to build Vietnamese representation within Asian Pacific American coalitions. In November 2004, under the direction of Duy Bao Vo, students formed the Vietnamese-American Policy Research Institute (VAPRI). VAPRI focused on activities such as policy research and community service activities. That was the appeal for students who wanted to do other things besides cabarets in their VSAs. The majority of the members were never involved in the VSAs at their schools. The organization went inactive in April 2006 (by then named Vietnamese American Public Resources Institute) lacking leaders to carry on the mission after Vo stepped down from the Executive Director position. The remaining few members were absorbed into UVSA. For the same reason, in fall 2004, the Piedmont Hills High School Vietnamese American Club For Improving Communities (VACFIC) formed out of a need to do community service which the VSA at that school lacked. VACFIC lasted until the end of the school year.
In July 2005, at the joint VIA-1 / NAVSA Conference, a Northern California delegation consisting of members of UVSA Northern California and San Jose State University VSA made a bid to have the next conference in Northern California. The third uNAVSA Conference, as it later became named, occurred in July 2006 at San Jose State University, and is the first Vietnamese-American student conference in Northern California. During the conference, a regional caucus of students from Northern California discussed what they wanted to see youths do for Northern California, though the discussion did not produce any action items.
[edit] Southern California
The Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California (UVSA) incorporated in 1982, comprising collegiate VSAs within Southern California. In February 1982, UVSA organized their first Tết Festival for the community in Orange County, California. Eventually the festival became the largest Vietnamese event outside of Vietnam, drawing over 100,000 attendees by the turn of the millennium. With the profits from the festival, UVSA allocates funding for future festivals, funding for its yearly operations and programming, and the rest are awarded as community grants to non-profit organizations. Between the years 2002 and 2008, over $800,000 has been given back to the community.
In the summer of 1990, students from the Southern California VSAs organized Trại Hè Về Với Non Sông I. In 2001, the camp became known as UVSA Leadership Camp and was open to high school and college students. In 2002, VSA Link of Northern California and UVSA Southern California co-organized an unprecedented statewide "Oxygen" Leadership Camp. In 2003, the camp further developed into two separate camps with focused audiences. UVSA Leadership Camp targeted collegiate VSA officers and VAHSA Leadership Camp targeted high school students.
In 1997, representatives of the UCLA Vietnamese Student Union (VSU) proposed the formation of the Alliance, a collective of collegiate Vietnamese student organizations starting with UC Los Angeles, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and CSU Fullerton. The Alliance served the critical function of organizing activities that fostered networking among the schools. Within a few years, UVSA integrated the Alliance into the organization, which then became the Inter-Collegiate Council (ICC). This gave each school a vote (hence, a voice) in important matters within UVSA. Today, ICC consists of following organizations: CSU Fullerton VSA, CSU Long Beach VSA, CSU San Bernardino VSA, CSU Los Angeles VSA, UC Los Angeles VSU, UC Irvine VSA, UC San Diego VSA, UC Riverside VSA, UC Santa Barbara VSA, Cal Poly Pomona VSA, University of Southern California VSA, Mt San Antonio College VSA, and San Diego State University VSA.
In fall 2001, members of UVSA and the Orange County Asian Pacific Islander Community Alliance (OCAPICA) gathered Vietnamese high school students and helped oversee the creation of the Vietnamese American High School Alliance (VAHSA). One of the VAHSA advisors, Le Xuan Cao, moved to Northern California where she oversaw the creation of UVSO.
With their strong organizing capabilities, UVSA then proceeded to host the third International Vietnamese Youth Conference in San Diego in July 2003.
In 2003, students formed the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance of San Diego (VAYA). In February 2006, VAYA successfully hosted their first Tết Festival at Qualcomm Stadium, drawing some 40,000 participants. Like the festival UVSA organizes, a portion of the proceeds went to non-profit organizations.
