She Helps the Young Know Their Roots : Thuy Nguyen, Student Union Activist

When Thuy Nguyen joined a Vietnamese student group, she discovered a lifetime cause.

“I saw it was a good opportunity for (Vietnamese) young people to find out about their own culture,” Nguyen said. And “once you’re stuck, there’s no pulling yourself away.”

The group Nguyen joined was the Union of Vietnamese Students Assns. of Southern California. Formed in 1982, its purpose was to unite groups from the region’s colleges and universities, to give Vietnamese students a voice and a cultural awareness.

Nguyen, who emigrated with her family to Southern California from Vietnam in 1975, said many of today’s college students were infants when their families fled their homeland and don’t know the old traditions. One of the association’s purposes is to teach those ceremonies and cultural events, she said.

For example, she said, “There are those who did not know about te le (ceremony). But by helping with our recent (New Year) celebration, they learned why and how we pray to our ancestors.”

Many “younger members are not even fluent with the Vietnamese language,” she added, “but they’re eager to learn. Their questioning of their roots leads to finding the path to knowledge.”

Now 29, the former president of the Union of Vietnamese Students remains an active member of the group, helping to organize its political protests, scholarship awards and cultural variety shows from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

Nguyen, who joined the club as a student at Cal Poly Pomona, said one of her most memorable experiences with it happened in 1987, when she represented Vietnamese youths at an international conference in Paris. At 24, Nguyen was the youngest of about 200 exiled Vietnamese invited to discuss the past, present and future of their native land.

Nguyen said she is consistently impressed by what youths with ideals can accomplish.

For example, the union raised several thousand dollars in December through a walk-a-thon around Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley for Legal Assistance for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers. That organization helps refugees at camps in Southeast Asia present their pleas to the United Nations for asylum in foreign countries.

Students are “more practical” than older Vietnamese activists, Nguyen said. “They want to see immediate results in whatever activities they plan. Instead of just going out to the streets yelling their protests, they raised funds to help the cause.”

Nguyen, now a co-partner of a trophy shop in Garden Grove, doesn’t plan to quit the group any time soon.

“I feel that when it comes to preserving our culture, you don’t do it for a while and stop. It should be a lifelong commitment.”