Santa Ana : Refugees Find Help, Fellowship at Center

To the 50 regulars who pay daily visits to the Vietnamese Community Center in Santa Ana, the center is a place to learn English or a trade, or enjoy fellowship.

The center’s goal, said Tuong Nguyen, the center’s director, is to help Southeast Asian refugees help themselves.

“We try and provide all services to help them obtain self-sufficiency in the shortest time possible,” said Nguyen, 39.

With a staff of six, including two part-time volunteers, the center offers everything from English classes to exercise courses for the elderly. At least 500 people visit or use the center on a monthly basis.

In April, a group of refugees aged 18 to 22 began an intensive 40-hour English course that will follow with job training and placement, Nguyen said.

The program is financed by a $90,000 grant awarded through the county to help 66 youths in the period from April to June, 1986, in easing their transition to life in the United States.

The state’s Office of Refugee Services also helps support the Vietnamese center that provides services for Orange County’s growing Indochinese community, estimated at 65,000.

Nguyen, who left Vietnam only two years ago, said he identifies with many of the center’s clients.

Born in North Vietnam, he fled from the communists to South Vietnam in 1954. After high school in Saigon, Nguyen studied in Australia and returned to Saigon as a bank officer.

He had long wanted to come to the United States and succeeded in his eighth attempt in escaping Vietnam.

“Here, we’re helping train all refugees, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian,” he said. “We’re helping them find jobs.”