Scouting Out Their Heritage : The Girls of Troop No. 2194 Are Also Learning Vietnamese Language, Culture

Seven-year-old Sandy Nguyen of Westminster says she loves being a Girl Scout. She enjoys camping, going on field trips and learning how to cook.

But that’s not where her scouting lessons end.

“I guess my mom wants me to learn Vietnamese too,” Sandy said.

What makes her troop--Troop No. 2194--different is that all the girls are Vietnamese Americans. When it’s time for a cooking lesson, they learn more than how to fry hamburgers. Their menu also includes Vietnamese dishes such as pho (a soup with rice noodles served with beef garnished with onion and mint leaves), mi-xao (stir-fried egg noodles with vegetables), egg rolls, and a tasty variety of fried-rice dishes and rice soups.

The younger girls learn how to use chopsticks and how to address adults with appropriate titles according to their relationship. (The Vietnamese language has different forms of addressing adults and children.)

Although there are several all-Latina troops and two smaller Vietnamese groups in Westminster and Garden Grove, Girl Scout officials say Troop No. 2194--with its 50 members--is the nation’s largest Vietnamese troop.

The troop’s leaders say that although members go to day camps, attend badge workshops and do other traditional activities, the girls also perform the trong com (rice drum) folk dance at cultural festivals.

Parents say they enrolled their daughters in the all-Vietnamese troop so they could learn the language and culture.

“She’s very polite when I ask her to do something,” Andrea Nguyen said of her daughter, Sandy, who speaks Vietnamese more fluently and takes on more responsibility at home since she joined the troop.

Veronique Tran, who organized the troop in January, 1994, said the group interacts with non-Vietnamese troops regularly. Recently, Tran’s troop gathered with others in the region for the Scouts’ annual mother-daughter event. About 50 mothers and their daughters wandered around cafeteria tables at Finley Elementary School in Westminster, showing one another how to attach dried flowers to 4-by-6-inch picture frames for Mother’s Day presents.

“It’s great to have different troops,” said Bonnie Duffey, mother of a Girl Scout. “When we come together and do activities, it offers the girls a chance to appreciate another culture and get along with one another. I don’t want my daughter to be one-minded,”

“I can count to 10 in Vietnamese,” said Melissa Duffey, 11.

Fawn Ngo, field director for the Orange County Girl Scout Council, said the troop provides a supportive atmosphere for Vietnamese girls: “We always put the girls first. We put them in an environment where they don’t feel that they have to compete with the boys.”

Tran said that in many traditional Asian families, parents focus their attention on boys. However, young Vietnamese girls also need to know they’re important.

“Most Vietnamese parents create opportunities for boys, not for the girls. They think the boys are chiefs,” Tran said. “I always tell the girls they’re just as talented and special.”

Hien Ba Pham, field assistant for the Girl Scout Council of Orange County, said most of the girls who joined the troop know little about Vietnam because they were born here. And many of their parents, he said, are too busy working to teach them about Vietnam.

“I think for most parents it’s also a feeling of nostalgia and wanting their children to know something of their own past,” Pham said.

Pham said the girls learn respect for themselves and other cultures around them as they learn about their own heritage: “Knowing who they are gives them a sense of pride and help them assimilate into the mainstream better.”

Eileen Simon, field team supervisor, said the Girl Scout Council of Orange County supports the Vietnamese troops.

“This type of troop affords them an opportunity to explore their heritage, language and custom, and we feel that if it fits the need of the girls in this troop, then that’s fine,” she said.

The idea of a mono-ethnic Girl Scout troop is not new to Connie Valle, field director for Santa Ana Girl Scout Troop No. 1971. Valle works with a 11-member Latina troop, whose members range from first through fifth grades.

“I think there’s an excitement that who they are is important. It’s special that they and their friends do things that are unique and all these activities go along with the Girl Scout program,” Valle said.

Several times a year its members perform folklorico, a Mexican folk dance, for the community. They draw a large crowd, Valle said.

Tran, troop leader for the Westminster group, said she became involved with the Girl Scouts to be closer to her two daughters and to provide them an opportunity to learn about their heritage.

Tran said she encourages girls who grew up here to teach English to girls who have recently arrived in the United States. In turn the recent immigrants teach the girls Vietnamese. “The more languages they know the better for them,” Tran said.

“For the parents, we want to keep the Vietnamese tradition alive,” she said. She added with a laugh: “For the girls who join, Girl Scouts is like another gang. But it’s a good gang.”