A large group from San Jose’s Vietnamese community gathered to eat and watch live stage performances to reconnect with their culture on Saturday morning at the Vietnamese American Cultural Center.
Between the vendors tabling on the green lawn behind the cultural center, some of the visitors wore aó dài and spoke in Vietnamese with different vendors.
An aó dài is a garment with long sleeves and long panels of fabric attached to both the front and the back of the top. The garment is worn by both men and women in Vietnam and in English, aó dài translates to “long dress,” according to a June 30 article from Elle Magazine.
Lynnette Truong, a freshman from Evergreen Valley College, said her mom discovered the event on Facebook and decided to bring the whole family.
“It’s just an event for all these Vietnamese people around the area,” Truong said. “They just come together and do activities together.”
Truong said her favorite part of the event was the food.
At the back of the event, volunteers from Arise Generation Church served sweet rice with jackfruit, rice paper mixed with young papaya and cups of sugar cane juice.
Arise Generation Church is a Christian church in San Jose, according to its website,
At another table at the event, Hung Vo, the owner of a company that imports rice from Vietnam, displayed different rice products.
Vo said he decided to have his company table at the event a second time because he wants to expose more of his products to the Vietnamese community.
“We want to be a bridge of the different product[s] from Vietnam to America,” Vo said.
He said it is important to have Vietnamese products available to the community, but it is very difficult to buy products from their home country because many manufacturers in Vietnam don’t follow FDA standards.
Quynline Lam, Miss Vietnam San Francisco, said she thinks it’s great to bring the community together.
She also said her favorite part of the event was the singing and dancing.
“Like what’s been going on stage was kind of crazy,” Lam said.
On stage, hosts from the community gave away prizes and young children performed dances and plays on stage.
At the beginning of the event Samantha Tran, a sophomore student at Oceana High School in Northern Pacifica and one of the singers on stage, also sang anthems of the U.S. and Vietnam.
Lam said although she does not see herself as a famous representative for the Vietnamese community, she does feel she represents women’s empowerment in the community.
“I think a big part of why I’m here is to represent women empowerment and just being strong in the face of it all,” Lam said.
Councilmember of District 7 Bien Doan said he is proud to be both Vietnamese and American and is honored to represent the community at City Hall.
Doan said he immigrated to America in 1975 when he was ten-years-old.
He said his Vietnamese was limited when he was young, but he learned how to speak more of his native-tongue as he started being more involved with the Vietnamese community.
Doan said the whole Vietnamese community has been working hard to support the younger generation, but have issues resonating with the youth.
“It is our responsibility as Vietnamese to learn about our culture, learn about our language,” Doan said. “Not only it will help you understand who you are, which direction you go in, and how you can help the community if you don't know who you are, then you can't really help, right?” Doan said.
Doan said the Vietnamese community is an economic power, but it still needs more representation.
“We need our voice to be heard,” Doan said. “We need to change [policies] that affect our community.”
