Vietnamese population on rise in Hawai'i

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

When she tells the story of her life, Angie Phuong Bui sometimes glosses over the rough spots.

Angie Phuong Bui owns a jewelry shop in Chinatown and reads fortunes in Waikiki. She also works occasionally as a court interpreter. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

She is proud of her own accomplishments as an immigrant businesswoman. After a decade in America, she owns Lucky Jewelry shop in Chinatown, reads fortunes at Enchanted Tree at the International Market Place in Waikiki and occasionally works as a court interpreter.

She gave up a career as an herb doctor in her homeland, but she kept in mind her late father's advice: that she could be an entrepreneur. He taught her fortune-telling and told her if other business ventures failed, she could talk for money.

"I talk for money," she said with a laugh as she chatted in her fortune-telling booth, recalling his words. "Then the money talks."

Beneath the surface is a story of hardship and heartbreak. A brother, a translator for the U.S. Army, was killed in action during the Vietnam War. Another brother died in 1987, when the fishing boat he used to escape South Vietnam was attacked off the coast of Thailand. Bui became a "boat person" herself, going to a refugee camp and leaving her three sons behind to start a new life that might someday include her entire family.

Bui is one of 7,867 Vietnamese living in Hawai'i.

The number of Vietnamese has swelled 44 percent in the last decade, new census numbers indicate. They include refugees, boat people and an emerging second generation.

As a relatively new immigrant group, they are less likely than other groups in Hawai'i to count themselves as belonging to more than one race, and they are more likely to earn less.

Some observers say they may actually be undercounted.

"The census figures are probably low," said Stephen O'Harrow, director of the center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawai'i. "The population in Hawai'i is probably closer to 10,000."

Making America home

Twenty-six years after the fall of Saigon prompted an exodus of people from their homeland, Vietnamese now number 1.1 million in America. The first wave of immigrants had been refugees from South Vietnam's privileged and military ranks. Today's immigrants come from lower rungs of the socioeconomic structure.

Whatever their backgrounds, the language barrier can pose an economic hurdle to new immigrants. Many first-generation Vietnamese work in the service industry.

"Poor or rich, no matter who," Bui said, "they have a good chance to come and live in freedom."

Today, more than half of the nation's Vietnamese live in California or Texas. The biggest enclave is Little Saigon in Orange County, Calif. Other Vietnamese communities dot the map in places such as Las Vegas; New Orleans; Washington, D.C.; and Honolulu.

Here, Vietnamese immigrants find a climate and culture that feel a little like home.

For Nhung My Chung, 19, who came to Honolulu nine months ago to reunite with her husband, the weather and friendly Vietnamese faces feel familiar. Chung found work here as a manicurist and is one of about 20 immigrants who attend classes at the Diocese of Honolulu's Catholic Charities Community & Immigrant Services.

For this group of immigrants, coming here is about more than fulfilling the American dream, said program director Kim Winegar.

Their reasons are also political.

"It's not as harrowing now as it was in the 1980s, when we had the refugees and the boat people trying to escape pirates and everything," he said. "Today's immigrants mostly have relatives here who sponsor them."

But it takes only a few minutes in Winegar's English language classroom to hear why immigrants still talk about freedom as if it were a new concept.

Moi Nguyen's memories of his homeland were destroyed by the image of Saigon villagers being ripped from their homes by Communist fighters. At the time of the war, Nguyen, now 64, was a police captain. His status quickly changed to prisoner of war.

After making it to Hawai'i, where he makes sushi for a living, Nguyen doesn't take his life for granted.

"I am a survivor," said Nguyen, his accent still thick. "I thank you very much American government and all Americans. Now I feel happy because I live in freedom. America. I feel at home here."

Many uncounted

While the influx of Vietnamese in America has slowed since 1975, numbers now are rising because of family reunification and births.

About 100,000 refugees fled communist rule in 1975.

Thousands of families who came to be known as "boat people" followed, beginning in 1979, many on rickety boats that were unseaworthy or attacked. Many of those who made it found life on welfare to be less than their dreams.

In the following decades, more people were allowed to emigrate with the help of sponsors living in the United States. The late 1980s and early 1990s brought children of U.S. servicemen and political prisoners to America.

But many of them are invisible to the census, said O'Harrow, who teaches Vietnamese at the University of Hawai'i.

"There's a large number of people who are hidden in the population," he said, including military wives who are Vietnamese and their children, who identify with the race of their American partner on the census or are not counted at all.

Bui, here for a decade, made it into this census count. Her sister, Honolulu fashion designer Mai-Scherelle, has been counted since she left Saigon in 1969 with her husband, an American civil engineer who worked for the U.S. government.

Mai-Scherelle studied fashion for a few years in Paris but returned to the United States, feeling grateful to be living in safety, she said.

While Mai-Scherelle felt lucky, she said fitting into an American lifestyle was difficult.

Reuniting families

The war made her feel guilty about leaving her relatives back home. She was even uncomfortable in an American supermarket, where she still remembers the look a clerk gave her for mistaking a nickel for a quarter.

"I've been given opportunities," Mai-Scherelle said. "I realized the right to be free is more important than anything."

Starting a new life also made her realize the importance of family. Mai-Scherelle is from a family of 10 children who have been trickling to the states.

After Bui arrived, their siblings followed. Two of Bui's sons came to America the next year, and one son remains in Vietnam.

They made their occupations as taxi drivers, students and housewives.

"The whole family, we have American spirit," Bui said. "I have a pure American spirit. I love freedom."