A Kindred Heart for Refugee Women : Culture: Theresa Do arrived from Saigon in 1975 penniless, but determined. She founded San Diego’s Refugee Women’s Assn. to help others from Indochina adjust to living in their new country.

The war had already made her a widow. Now horror threatened again. Communist troops were on Saigon’s doorstep. The city she was raised in and whose kindergarten children she taught was in chaos. It would fall the next day, April 30, 1975. Frightened, Theresa Do rushed to the airport with her two young daughters, other family members and little else.

The Americans and their military planes were waiting. Final stop was the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton and the beginning of a new life and a new commitment. There were hardships, a painful period of adjustment to curious American ways and, over the years, success. It was an immigrant tale of hard work, pluck and determination right out of the history books.

While Indochinese refugees faced common obstacles, Do’s experience--both personal and through her work at the county welfare department--told her that women refugees often suffered more. They were more prone to isolation, had more difficulty adjusting, were more ignored.

And so several years ago, she founded San Diego’s Refugee Women’s Assn., a nonprofit, all-volunteer group unlike any other in the county.

Starting was one thing; getting it going was another.

Among the group’s goals are advocating women’s rights, women’s self-sufficiency and women’s mutual assistance. In a culture where women were taught to be submissive to men, this attempt at coaching American-brand assertiveness was viewed with some skepticism, particularly by males.

Do sent out 100 letters inviting women to the first Refugee Women’s Assn. meeting in 1983. Ninety-nine showed up. The women elected officers and volunteered a day a week to take calls.

Today the group has about 400 members, prints 5,000 copies of a monthly, multilanguage newsletter and is involved in numerous activities, including helping refugee women find jobs and assimilate, providing a friendly ear and promoting the preservation of Indochinese culture.

The organization, composed entirely of refugee women, represents four main Indochinese communities--Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian and Hmong.

Through its newsletter, the group presses the Indochinese community at large to recognize its responsibility to help new arrivals. It also has urged those who provide health care to give special attention to women who have suffered lifelong emotional trauma after being raped and sexually abused during their refugee journey.

“Refugees have lots of problems but only their own people can help them emotionally,” Do said, citing a key reason for her group. “Only our people can understand the (native) way of life and things. We understand our own people better.”

The organization goes about its work quietly, ringing up small but important accomplishments for those inside the Indochinese community. For example, it printed 20,000 911-emergency calling cards in four Indochinese languages telling refugees how to ask for a policeman, a fire truck or an ambulance, a task recognized by the city in 1988 when Mayor Maureen O’Connor presented Do and her group with a special award.

Ruben Rumbaut, a San Diego State University sociologist and expert on Indochinese affairs who directs the nation’s longest-running study of refugee settlement in the United States, said it is hard to overestimate the importance of groups like the Refugee Women’s Assn. that work within the refugee community and provide leadership.

“Our own research has shown the pivotal role of women in the refugee community,” he said. “Official policies tend to miss that and instead focus on the husband or the head of household. The message is that women are somehow less important. In my opinion, that’s misbegotten. It’s bad policy because it ignores the absolutely central role of women in helping families meet their economic and emotional needs.”

It’s estimated that nearly 50,000 Indochinese live in San Diego County, including about 30,000 Vietnamese, he said. Rumbaut says the county is now home to the largest Laotian community in the United States, numbering 12,000 to 15,000 people.

To understand the Refugee Women’s Assn., it helps to know Do, a small, tautly muscled woman of 50. She often wears the ao doi , the traditional dress of Vietnam. Her delicate features and gracious manners mask a fierce energy.

She needed every ounce when she arrived at Camp Pendleton penniless and with barely passable English. She came with nearly 20 of her brothers and sisters and her parents. The rest of her siblings--23 in all--would be part of the leaky armada of boats that later fled Vietnam.

Do was educated in Catholic schools and was relatively well-off. She was a kindergarten teacher in Saigon and also taught French to high school students, skills that didn’t count for much in her new country.

As part of the first wave of refugees, most in her family were able to find work as dishwashers and waiters and such.

She eventually heard about a job at the county welfare department, which was beginning to feel the effects of the sudden Vietnamese migration. Do was hired as a case aide, the lowest job on the ladder, and became the first Vietnamese refugee hired by the county. Her job: to translate for other refugees seeking aid.

“I didn’t know how to speak well. I used sign language, I wrote things down on paper, I did what I could to make them understand me,” she recalls today, her accent thick but her words clear and precise.

To learn and improve her English, Do went to night classes at Hoover High School in San Diego. She also took work-related training classes and began taking and passing various job exams. She became an eligibility worker and kept on going. It took three years, working full time during the day and attending classes at night, but in 1983, Do earned a master’s degree in social work from San Diego State University.

It was while working at the county and doing her thesis work on homebound Vietnamese women refugees that Do became convinced she needed to help in some organized way.

“(Indochinese) women would come to my office at the county all the time. I knew their problems and their needs,” she said.

Do’s work has attracted attention.

She was named to the state Department of Education’s Advisory Council on Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs; she received a migrant and refugee services award from the federal government; she conducts a Vietnamese cultural awareness class at the Police Academy; she speaks to groups of new refugees, and she promotes Indochinese culture to young American-born sons and daughters of refugee parents, an effort she says is very important to the Indochinese community’s long-term stability.