High School as a Second Language

When Quoc Anh Do spotted a vaguely familiar Vietnamese teen-ager outside the administration building at Valley High School, it was as if he had bumped into a next-door neighbor amid a throng of aliens speaking gibberish.

“I know you from somewhere,” Do said in Vietnamese to the youth, “but I don’t know where.”

But Tuan-Anh Nguyen knew. And Do flashed a thousand-watt smile when Nguyen refreshed his memory.

“We met in the refugee camp,” said Nguyen.

Do, 15, and Nguyen, 19, had parted ways two months earlier thousands of miles away at a Thai transit camp that serves as a way station between Vietnam and America. They never expected to see each other again.

But here they both were on a warm September morning in Santa Ana, facing a truly alien world--a labyrinthine campus of 34 buildings with thousands of unfamiliar people speaking in strange tongues.

For each youth, the reunion meant a toehold on familiarity. At least they would have each other with whom to explore high school--under the best of conditions one of the most telling and harsh microcosms of American teen life.

On just about any school day, students like Do and Nguyen from dozens of foreign lands take their first tentative steps into American schools, unable to speak the language and unfamiliar with the culture.

“This school--talk about intimidation--there’s 3,000 students here,” said Kathy Hayden, director of the English as a second language curriculum at Valley High. “This is like a city.”

Whether they are Latinos fresh out of tiny schools in tiny pueblos --those lucky enough to have schools--or Southeast Asians who have been subjected, in many cases, to more indoctrination than education in communist-run schools, thousands of students in Orange County and throughout the state each year wander into the world of American education with few clues on what to expect. The resulting psychological pressures can be overwhelming.

For a glimpse of how students like Do cope with these pressures, The Times accompanied him on his first three days of classes and interviewed him and his family. What emerged was a portrait of a young man who outwardly was a picture of calm, but who inwardly was grappling with a troubled past, the day-to-day pressures of adjusting to life in a new land, and an uncertain future. And that’s not to mention the ordinary wrenching emotional upheavals experienced by any adolescent.

“In the case where you have an adolescent who arrives at the high school level but speaks no English, the problems of language are compounded by the problems of adolescence,” said Ruben G. Rumbaut, a sociology professor at San Diego State University and co-author of the book “Immigrant America.”

“He’s not only trying to cope with the language, but he’s trying to cope with issues of identity, especially sexual identity. He also doesn’t have that much time before his high school years are finished. For someone who arrives at age 15, the clock is ticking, if you will.”

DAY ONE

‘I’m Not Very Sociable’

For Do, the clock started ticking at 7 a.m. on Sept. 10, when he left his parents’ modest but comfortable Diamond Street home for his first day of high school. Classes were scheduled to begin at 8 a.m., but Do wanted an early start to find out where his first class would be and to meet a friend, 17-year-old Thach Ngoc Nguyen (no relation to Tuan-Anh).

Although he had only been in America for two months, Do had already adopted the uniform of the American teen-ager--jeans and high-tops. The temperature on that day was expected to soar past 95 degrees, but there wasn’t a bead of sweat on Do’s brow, despite his long-sleeved, buttoned-to-the-neck white shirt. He strode out of the home, a multicolored binder tucked under his arm, hoping for the best but prepared for the worst.

He said little on the way to the Greenville Street school. But a few days before the start of classes, the shy, rail-thin youth with the boyish cowlick and wide grin spoke of his expectations of life in an American high school.

“I don’t expect to make a lot of friends in high school,” said Do, answering questions through an interpreter. “I don’t think the language barrier will be a problem because I’m not very sociable. If I can get to know (other students), then I’ll be their friend.”

Despite his gloomy prediction, there would be no shortage of teens to befriend. Thousands of students poured onto the campus from every direction, on foot, on bikes, in cars and in school buses. Most of the students were Latinos, with a good number of Asians mixed in.

Do was designated a freshman by district officials after he was tested over the summer, even though he had just completed ninth grade in Vietnam. His inability to speak English required him, under Santa Ana Unified School District rules, to be automatically placed in ninth grade, although he was eligible to be moved to more advanced classes if he displayed extraordinary aptitude. So although he had yet to set foot in a classroom, Do was already a grade behind.

Like all other freshmen, Do was directed to go to the administration building, where green-and-white computer printouts were posted over the front doors. Dozens of confused freshmen huddled around the list, seeking their names and the location of their first-period classes. Printed next to “Do, Quoc Anh” was the location of his first class--Building 14, Room 1, where a Mr. Pham would conduct a course called “American Issues” for limited-English proficient students.

It was after Do found his name and extricated himself from the crowd of freshmen that he spotted a seemingly familiar face staring at him from across a lawn. After a moment, the memory of Tuan-Anh Nguyen and the refugee camp outside of Bangkok came flooding back.

“I didn’t know he was going to be here,” Nguyen said later. “I was really surprised to see him here today.”

Though unexpected, the reunion appeared outwardly undramatic. The youths’ only evidence of emotion was an exchange of broad smiles. Still, Do clearly was pleased to have a companion to accompany him through the confusing maze of buildings that was a far cry from Bach Dang Junior High School in Saigon, where Do completed ninth grade.

“In Vietnamese schools, the students stay in one room while the teachers move from room to room to teach a particular subject,” Do explained later. “The students can only get to know about 40 (classmates). With American schools, the students are the ones who move from room to room. Therefore, I can get to know many more friends and I like it better.”

Before setting about the task of finding their first-period classrooms, Do and Nguyen set off in search of Thach Ngoc Nguyen, another former resident of the Thai transit camp. They quickly discovered that finding him would not be easy.

Hundreds of students milled about, congregating around walls where class schedules were posted, greeting old friends with hugs and kisses, and shouting to each other to be heard over the ever-increasing din. An administrator, laden with a pile of green and yellow papers, walked around yelling, “Maps of the school! Mapas de la escuela! Maps of the school!” Do and Nguyen, unable to understand either English or Spanish, glimpsed other students taking maps, figured out what they were, and took copies.

At 7:53, just seven minutes before the start of his first class, Do abandoned the search for his friend and started looking for Building 14. He and Nguyen wandered into a couple of buildings, trying to match their location to the buildings on the map.

“This school is too big,” Do said.

At 8 a.m., the siren signaling the start of classes sounded. Do finally realized that the numbers of each building were posted on the walls. After a glance at the map, he got his bearings and, with Nguyen in tow, sped off for Building 14. They arrived about three minutes late, along with many other similarly perplexed classmates.

There were 32 students in the class--three Latinos and 29 Vietnamese, including Thach Ngoc Nguyen, Do’s missing friend. Do was assigned a seat in the front row by the teacher, La Pham. For Do, attending a predominantly Vietnamese class taught by a Vietnamese teacher was a strong cushion to the initial culture shock of his first foray into an American classroom.

Though shy and reserved in class, Do’s fears of being friendless passed rapidly. The trio of Do and the two Nguyens quickly grew, and the three youths found themselves accompanied by a small entourage as they blended with the onrushing tide of students headed for second-period classes.

Next stop for Do was Building 4, Room 14, where Dennis Maxey cheerfully greeted his students as they entered class for the first time at 9:05 a.m. Again, the class was mostly Vietnamese, although a few more Latinos were scattered around the room.

Despite their lack of comprehension, Maxey chattered on for the remainder of the period, explaining the nature of the course, the grading system and reviewing class rules, such as “act like ladies and gentlemen” and “no eating or drinking in class.”

“How many of you understand the rules?” he asks. No response. Maxey smiles and asks, “How many of you don’t understand the rules?” Still no answer.

Do’s third-period class was an introductory English as a second language class intended to teach students words and phrases typically used in high school classes. Do would spend three periods a day in ESL classes in Building 25, a portable classroom. The class was crowded--36 students, almost evenly split between Latinos and Vietnamese--jammed into the wood-paneled, trailer-like classroom.

The students grouped themselves by ethnicity as they walked in. But the teacher, Nancy Bolton-Brenner, put an end to that by asking the students to sit in alphabetical order. Do ended up seated in the first row, several rows away from the two Nguyens, and surrounded by Latino students.

The class size may have seemed large to American students and teachers, but as far as Do was concerned, there was plenty of elbow room. “The classes here are smaller than in Vietnam,” he said later through a translator. Then, in halting English, he said, “There, 45, 50.”

Students in the class ranged in age from 14 to 19--a common practice in ESL curricula, ESL director Kathy Hayden said.

“We can accommodate any student beginning in ‘A’ level,” the designated ESL class for students who speak little or no English, she said. “Our point here is, take as long as it takes to finish high school, but learn English.”

As in other first-day classes, Bolton-Brenner--who speaks neither Vietnamese nor Spanish and had difficulty properly pronouncing names--spent most of the period assigning seats and familiarizing the students with the class and the school. Speaking in a lilting Southern accent, Bolton-Brenner tried to ask the students about their backgrounds.

“How long have you been in California?” she asked Do.

“Santa Ana,” he responded.

“You live in Santa Ana?” she said. “And how long have you been in California?” At least a couple of the words must of been comprehensible to Do--he hesitated, then replied, “Two months.” The scene was repeated in fifth and sixth periods, a two-hour block of ESL classes.

In between, Do was scheduled for two of the more social periods at Valley High School--gym class, and lunch. Lunch is scheduled at two different times to handle the crush of students, and Do was somewhat confused about which was his lunch period. After comparing notes with his friends, Do finally determined that the sequence was gym, then lunch.

Outside the gymnasium, the Vietnamese youths grappled with the vagaries of a typical American fixture not often found in Vietnam--the soft drink machine. In this case, the machine dispensed a “Frezie,” a flavored slush drink. Like scientists studying a contraption from another planet, the teens huddled around the machine, trying to figure out how to use the coin slot. Eventually they figured it out, but Do remained confused by the Coke machine in the gymnasium’s vestibule--he failed to understand why the machine continually spit out the $10 bill he tried to feed into the dollar-bill slot.

“What’s going on?” he asked his friends, who were embroiled in a heated argument over American currency. “The small one is a dime, the big one is a quarter!” one yelled in Vietnamese.

The gymnasium, meanwhile, was utter chaos. More than 200 students sat in the bleachers in groups of about 40, as the gym teachers distributed forms for them to fill out. Do was separated from his friends again, sitting alone in his group while the others were grouped together in a class in the opposite bleachers.

But being separated from his buddies didn’t dissuade Do from trying to make new friends. He struck up a “conversation”--mostly in sign language, with a Latino student named Pablo seated beside him. Somehow, the two managed to transcend the language barrier, and shook hands as they left for fifth-period classes.

After two more periods of ESL, Do’s first day at Valley High School was completed at 2:43 p.m. His assessment?

“I think the teachers are nice and easygoing,” he said. “They seem really caring about the students.”

In fact, Do seemed surprisingly unfazed by his first day at school. But again, his cool reactions may have been a product of the hardened shell that he built up after years of adversity.

“I have been through a lot in Vietnam,” Do said a week before he started classes, “so I guess this ordeal seems small compared to what I’ve been through.”

Clearly, what Do has been through has already had a profound effect on his young life. Do’s parents fled Vietnam in 1977, when he was 2 years old, but were forced to leave him and his sister, Vi, then 6, behind. They were reared by their paternal grandmother and their father’s sister.

After six years, the family was granted permission to leave Vietnam under the Orderly Departure Program, which allows Vietnamese residents to emigrate to America if sponsored by a family member here--in this case, Do’s father, Anh. However, their ODP papers were lost and the family waited four years while Anh attempted to cut through mounds of red tape.

The family’s ODP application was finally approved in 1987, but it took another three years before the Vietnamese government allowed them to leave. In the spring of 1990, Do learned that he and his sister, grandmother and aunt would be leaving Saigon for the United States.

“When I heard the news that I would come to America, I was really nervous and excited,” Do said. “I left Vietnam and we went to Thailand, and stayed there for a week, near Bangkok, in a refugee camp.”

It was there that Do met Tuan-Anh Nguyen and Thach Ngoc Nguyen. Before leaving the camp, Do learned that Thach Nguyen was also bound for Santa Ana. They vowed to meet again in California.

On July 7, Do and his sister flew to California to be reunited with their parents after 13 years and to meet Tommy Do, their 11-year-old brother, for the first time. The reunion was a paradox for Do--although he was being reunited with his mother and father, he and his sister were, in effect, being sent off to live with virtual strangers.

Despite the excitement of getting acquainted with his new family, country, school and friends, Do yearns for the old. “I have hopes of going back” to Vietnam, he said. “It won’t be long.”

DAY TWO

A Question of Timing

Do may harbor hopes of returning to Vietnam, but on his second day at Valley High, it was clear he was already getting used to his new life.

Like any other teen-ager, he had no complaints about the news that the school day would be shortened because of the intense heat. Confident that he now could find his way around the school, he left home 30 minutes later than on Day One and arrived at school 15 minutes before his first class.

Do’s adverse past in Vietnam and Thailand had at least one positive effect--it’s clear that he is adaptable. He strode onto the campus as if he had spent his whole life there and made a beeline for Building 14, unaided by a map. Several members of his new-found entourage awaited, and gently chided him about the reporter, photographer and interpreter chronicling his every step.

With each class shortened to 39 minutes, the teachers found little time to do more than continue checking in the new students who unceasingly stream into school for the first time and process seemingly endless reams of paperwork. In second period, however, Maxey kept the students occupied with a diagnostic math test to determine each student’s skill level. Do proclaimed the test easy, but said he could not finish it because of the shortened period.

“I felt more comfortable today than on the first day because I know my way around,” Do proclaimed after school. All that was left for him was to get his timing straight.

DAY THREE

Signs of Success

By Sept. 12--another school day shortened by the heat--Do bounded off to school with enthusiasm. Quiet and reserved at home, he seemed eager to get out among his new friends, with whom he laughed, joked and ogled girls. It didn’t take long for him to become a typical American high school student.

His prediction that he wouldn’t be “sociable” turned out to be unfounded. Do chatted in Vietnamese with neighbors in just about every class--and gestured in sign language to those who didn’t speak Vietnamese. After an ESL class, Do and his friends joined a group of Latinos gesturing toward a group of girls.

In class, Do remained studious, carefully copying down assignments and trying to keep up with his English-speaking teachers. “If they (teachers) say 10 words, maybe I can understand three or five.”

Even that is quite an achievement for a Vietnamese student who never spoke English before. Prof. Rumbaut of San Diego State University said Vietnamese students often have difficulty when first learning English because of the divergent nature of the two languages.

“The Vietnamese language is a tonal language, it’s a completely different language family altogether,” he said. “There are different rules of grammar and syntax. In Spanish as well as English, each particular syllable has a particular sound associated with it. In Vietnamese, the same syllable can be intoned six different ways and would have totally different meanings.”

Apart from learning English, there are “a number of risk factors stacked up against” older students like Do, Rumbaut added. “Getting good grades may be more difficult, and when a student begins pushing 18 or 19 he may decide that it’s hopeless,” he said.

Whether Do is successful in school is anybody’s guess--he has the advantages of coming from a supportive home environment, but his parents’ odd work hours make it difficult for them to supervise his work. He has a strong support system at school, but few Vietnamese role models. And with 1,000 ESL students at Valley High--about 100 of them Vietnamese--Do can count on little personal attention.

But he definitely showed signs of success.

A week after The Times spent three days with Do, a brief return visit revealed that he had shown an interest in diving and was getting more involved in school activities--something many Vietnamese students shun.

Do was, in fact, becoming a typical American high school male. He was last seen flirting with four girls.

Times correspondent Thanh Thuy Nguyen contributed to this report.