Thanksgiving : A Gift of Holiday Recollections : Nostalgia Tinges Hope in New Land

They had survived their first raw winter in the new land--a harrowing time of scarce food, hard work and sickness that killed nearly half of the tiny band of 102 Pilgrims who had settled in Plymouth, Mass.

And so they gathered in the autumn of 1621, having been befriended by their Indian neighbors and blessed by a bountiful harvest, to rejoice and give thanks, as was their custom, with a harvest festival.

Three-hundred sixty-four years later, the spirit of that first New England Thanksgiving lives on.

It’s a theme with few variations: An annual reunion of family and friends, a festive occasion permeated with the tastes and smells of good things to eat.

But, as years go by, it is the memories of past Thanksgivings and the people we shared them with that help give special meaning to the annual rite of fall.

To find out what significance the national holiday has played in their lives, prominent Orange County residents were asked to share their thoughts on Thanksgivings past and present.

Mai Cong stood on the bluffs overlooking Laguna Beach on Thanksgiving night nine years ago, watching the multicolored fireworks exploding offshore.

“I was surrounded by people who were enjoying themselves; I felt very relaxed because for the first time in years I didn’t have to worry about what was going to happen next,” recalled Cong. She had fled Saigon a year earlier, days before South Vietnam fell to invading communist forces.

“I was happy because I didn’t feel like I was being watched. And I didn’t feel afraid of the people around me.”

Today, Cong, 48, is a leader in Orange County’s Vietnamese community. She is chairwoman of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., a Santa Ana organization that provides social services and employment training.

She also serves on the board of directors of seven other civic groups serving both the Vietnamese and larger Orange County communities. Despite her numerous volunteer commitments, Cong has a full-time job as an Orange County Mental Health Department counselor.

Although the Thanksgiving of 1976 was her second one in this country, Cong remembers it as her first--and most moving--celebration of the holiday. “The year before I had been at a resettlement center (at Camp Pendleton) and wasn’t aware there was a Thanksgiving,” she said.

In 1976, however, “a woman I worked with (in Orange County government) invited me to spend Thanksgiving with her husband and children at their home in Laguna Beach.

“Holidays can be very lonely if you were not born here,” Cong said. “They are family celebrations--not for outsiders. As a refugee, you might hear about Thanksgiving, but you are so isolated that you really don’t know what is being celebrated.

“My Laguna Beach friends were very kind to me. They helped me understand what Thanksgiving was all about: that it was a time to give thanks for having the opportunity to live lives as free human beings and to practice your religion.”

Yet, Cong said, the joy of her first Thanksgiving observance was tempered by nostalgia for Vietnam. “I was standing on the top of a hill, and I could see far out to sea. It felt sad because it made me remember Vietnam, the friends and family I had left behind, and the refugees, like myself, who had not been able to stay in Vietnam because of the communists.

“Whenever you’re in a happy mood, you get nostalgic about the past. I think that’s what part of Thanksgiving is about.”