How Two Educators Approach the Challenge of Vietnamese Issues : Teacher’s Reputation for Caring About Her Pupils Precedes Her

The influx of Indochinese refugees into San Diego during the past decade, especially from Vietnam, has brought many changes to the area, altering the physical landscape of communities such as Linda Vista and East San Diego as well as presenting new challenges to schools and other public agencies. The changes have brought forth unusual efforts by many people. Here are two profiles of individuals whose work with Vietnamese-related issues has won them respect and recognition.

When Tina McCunney leaves a Vietnamese restaurant in East San Diego for after-dinner tea at a nearby Indochinese coffeehouse, the employees often get word ahead of time and greet her with questions about how she enjoyed the meal.

McCunney teaches English to foreign-born students at nearby Wilson Middle School, where more than one-fourth of the student body is from Indochina, many of them surviving “boat people” whose families recount harrowing tales of escape from their native countries.

But McCunney enjoys a reputation among the neighborhood’s many Indochinese immigrants far beyond that of the typical teacher, having become a celebrity for her efforts to learn about the culture of her students, and especially for her trip last year to Vietnam.

Her classroom acts like a magnet for Vietnamese students after school, who love to congregate and pepper McCunney with questions about her trip, even now--almost 11 months after she and her husband plunked down more than $4,000 of their own money for the experience.

“They want to know when I’m going back again,” McCunney said, laughing, during an interview last week. “I tell them I’ll go as soon as I save enough money.”

For McCunney, the one-month trip was the culmination of efforts during her four years at Wilson to learn and appreciate the background of her students. It continues to pay dividends by motivating her Vietnamese students as well as other ethnic groups, she said.

“I used to wonder why these people would give up everything to come to America, unable to speak a word of English and with no job,” McCunney said. “But, after seeing the conditions there, I can understand that, no matter how bad things might be here at first, they are much worse there . . . adults with good education who can’t fulfill their potential and poor, overcrowded schools on double sessions with five kids sharing a single book.”

Tonga Nguyen, a former teacher’s aide at Wilson, said McCunney has been helpful to the Indochinese community. “I think she does stand out for many . . . she and her husband are very close to some parents and children,” Nguyen said.

McCunney made her first stab at connecting with students during her first year at Wilson where, in return for the hard work and diligence shown by almost every member of the class, she promised to try to learn some Vietnamese at the local language school in Linda Vista.

“So there I was, sitting with a group of Vietnamese kids on Saturdays, and I was the only one not understanding a word of what was going on,” she said. “That made me realize how these kids feel when they first come here and are thrown into class. I recommend my experience for all teachers to go through once.”

Although McCunney has since mastered enough Vietnamese so that she “can write a bad note home when the kids goof off,” her strong rapport with students and their parents comes more from her effort to meet their culture halfway. Besides the trip, that includes regular forays into neighborhood shops and restaurants, where she often runs into the families and ends up having dinner at their homes.

(McCunney’s sister lives in Mexico City and has provided anecdotes and information for motivating Latino students also learning English in Engish-as-a-second-langauge (ESL) classes.)

“I had wanted to go to Vietnam for a long time because I knew that, from everything the students said about their country, it was a completely different world from here, and I figured that I could find an explanation for their behavior by visiting there,” she said. “But I didn’t think a trip could be possible.”

She and her husband found a travel agency handling such tours in the “Little Saigon” area of Westminster in Orange County. When she announced her plans to her students, they eagerly asked McCunney to visit their old school or neighborhood, told her about special foods and eagerly drew maps for her.

Everyone Became Involved

“At first, I thought that perhaps I would be leaving out those kids in the class who are not Vietnamese,” McCunney said. “But I found that everyone was extremely curious about Vietnam as well, about where all these kids came from.”

The visit included the cities of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Da Nang, Dalat (a mountain resort) and Hue. McCunney and her husband ferried letters and packages for relatives from several families in San Diego.

“Everyone we met had heard of San Diego, and one girl in a shop has a grandmother who lives only two blocks from Wilson,” McCunney said. “They wanted to know about English-language texts we use . . . they are all studying English; so many want to come to America.”

Many of her students had asked McCunney to visit the zoo in Ho Chi Minh City. “They all have fond memories of it as little children,” she said. “But the animals are now all gone and the cages are filled with chickens and goats. But it is still a lovely park, and people still congregate there.”

McCunney can now weave anecdotes and stories from her trip into class lessons, such as referring to Vietnamese fruits and vegetables during a lesson on nutrition. The trip reinforced her commitment to helping students adjust to a new country and gave her greater patience for their pace in learning, she said, after seeing how ill-prepared they must have been before arriving in America.

“Again, I think that all my students have benefited, because my lessons have gone further away from the text and pencil-and-paper exercises, and more toward dialogue and anecdotal lessons that motivate the kids more, because they can apply immediately what they learn toward their life today in San Diego. There is a chemistry in the class, where students are comfortable with me and with each other, where, for example, they can get up and read what they wrote” without embarrassment.

The excitement and interest shown by her students has been only partly mirrored by their parents, many of whom harbor bitter memories of the Communist regime in Vietnam and believe that a visit there is tantamount to showing support for the repressive government.

“Several parents approached me before I went, saying the trip was not a good idea,” she said. “But others said, ‘Gee, I wish I could go too,’ and said, ‘Put me in a suitcase’ when I asked what souvenirs of America I should take . . . .”

She and her husband, who works for the UC San Diego Medical Center’s Poison Information Center, took hundreds of slides and have shown them in her class and to friends. But a Vietnamese restaurant canceled a showing because the owners feared that some community conservatives would view the exhibit as support of the present government.

“But I think that parents are pleased,” McCunney said. “They came to open house and we talked about my trip . . . they expressed support that I think the kids are important enough to spend the time the way that I’ve done.”