Interview with Ngoc Tuan Tran of Vietnamese-American.org
Ngoc Tuan Tran runs Vietnamese-American.org a site about empowering Vietnamese Americans. Beyond his initial message of empowerment, Tuan’s site allows us a deeper insight of the changes and tribulations of a Vietnamese American. Or as he prefers - Eurasian.
Vietnamese-American.org has been running since 2000.
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us Tuan. Can you tell us a bit about yourself? What is your background?
My full name is Ngoc Tuan Tran. I was the first wave of Vietnamese refugees that came to the United States in 1975. I was fourteen years old when I left Vietnam. From 1975 to 1978, when I was in high school, I was known as Ngoc. When I was in college, I decided to go by Daniel, and I legally changed my name to Daniel T. Tran. For most of my adult life, I was ashamed of being Vietnamese, and I thought of myself as an American.
But sometime in the 90’s, I went through a personal transformation. It wasn’t any one particular event, but an accumulated series of events that motivated me into questioning my self-identity. At this point, I thought of myself as a Vietnamese-American. I decided to legally change my name back to my original name, Ngoc Tuan Tran. But most Americans cannot pronounce Ngoc, so informally, I went by my middle name, Tuan. I even created a website by the name tuantran.org, in 2001, just before I took my return trip to Vietnam. It was my intention at the time to return to Vietnam permanently.
However, I recently made a discovery that I am really not a Vietnamese-American, since that term denotes Americans of Vietnamese origin by race. To be more accurate, I am a Vietnamese Amerasian: half Vietnamese, half American. If I have to define myself by race, then I am a Eurasian.
I have decided to use the name Daniel, again, to represent the half of me that is Caucasian. I am changing my last name to Le, my mother’s last name, to represent the half of me that is Vietnamese. So, from now on, I am going by Daniel Le.
Why did you decide to create Vietnamese-American.org? What is the story behind it? The site seems to be very political-central. What are your views with regards to the current situation of Vietnamese Americans in the US?
In 2000, I created the website Vietnamese-American.org. My first objective is to empower Vietnamese-Americans. It seems at the time, and perhaps even now, Vietnamese-Americans were not politically involved. I understood that for a group of people to become empowered, they have to be organized and to vote. I saw political candidates courting different ethnic groups such as the African-Americans, the Cuban-Americans, the Filipino-Americans, the Mexican-Americans, as well as other ethnic groups, but they didn’t even try to appeal to the Vietnamese-Americans to vote for them. They knew most Vietnamese-Americans didn’t vote. The Vietnamese-Americans are disenfranchised as a voting group, due to being ignorant of the fact that voting is power.
My second objective is to give them the facts about the Vietnam War. There were so many lies about the Vietnam War, and too many Vietnamese-Americans didn’t have the facts about the war. They were so caught up on being radically anti-communists, even though most of them were too young, or not even born, during the war. I understood that Vietnamese-Americans cannot gain political power, or self empowerment in the United States by living in the past. I could see that both the Chinese-Americans, and the Cuban-Americans, didn’t gain any political power by being so anti-communist, or by living in the past. For this, I got some hate emails, from Vietnamese-Americans, labeling me as a Communist.
You’ve made some pretty strong statements ("Vietnamese-Americans can never become Americans because the United States is inherently a racist and eurocentric country.") - What do you see for Vietnamese Americans 5 years from now? 10 years?
That is true. However, I don’t want Vietnamese-Americans to become discouraged. Although the United States is a eurocentric country, people of color can rise to a position of power and command respect due to hard work. For example, Colin Powell knew from personal experience about racism, but he dedicated himself to the military and rose to the rank of a General. Presently, he is the Secretary of State who enjoys respect from both political parties. Another example is Dr. Condoleezza Rice, who applied herself to academia, and now is a trusted and respected National Security Advisor. Even during the height of racial strife, Thurgood Marshall, who eventually became a Supreme Court justice, was instrumental in achieving the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I think eventually Vietnamese-Americans will enjoy public acceptance, much like the Japanese-Americans after their experience of the Internment during World War II.
Did your letter to Mayor Bloomberg accomplish anything?
No. If the Vietnamese-American community is as organized and vote like the African-American community, then I would have received a response from the Mayor’s Office within hours.
Your site has been up since 2000 - Have you been able to see its effect for the past five years? What do you see in the future for your site?
It is difficult to know how much influence I have in the community, or if I have done anything good at all. It’s a lot like teaching. The students don’t usually tell you if you have made an impact on their lives. Once in a while, a student may return and say thank you, but that is pretty rare.
In the future, I will only keep the Vietnamese-American.org website, and store the contents of tuantran.org within Vietnamese-American.org. I will still update the Vietnamese-American.org website by writing an article occasionally.
A few years ago a couple of the big Vietnamese sites stopped being updated (namely VietGate/Saigon.com) - why do you continue with your site? How do you view the Vietnamese community online? What do you think of its future?
I think that is because my website is really a personal website, even though the domain name is Vietnamese-American.org. As I change, and we all do, then I write about what I have learned and contribute that knowledge to others through my website.
I think the internet is a powerful learning tool. A lot of Vietnamese-Americans are very computer literate. They will learn and share with each other via the internet. It will be a very important tool both in learning and in communicating with others.
Could you describe the Vietnamese American community in your area?
I am currently teaching in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. I plan to return to the United States early in March of 2005. I don’t know where I will settle down, yet. It all depends on where I will be able to land a teaching job.