Subcultures in local communities

Subcultures in California

Vietnamese and Japanese-Americans and Implications for Teaching

This paper reviews two subcultures in the State of California, the Vietnamese and the Japanese. Each subculture has had special reasons for emigrating to the United States, at different times, and in specific ways. This paper suggests that the privileged positions of these two subgroups is due to the specific characteristics which they have brought with them from their home culture, in combination with specific freedoms available to them in the United States.

Secondly, this paper will deal with the different reception for both communities: the Vietnamese came to the U.S. In the 1970's and 1980's to a largely receptive community, while the Japanese came in the early 20th century to a country with substantial prejudice against Orientals in general, culminating in the "Jap scare" of World War II and the ignominy of the Japanese internment camps in the Western United States.

Vietnamese Sub-Culture

Most Vietnamese came to the United States at or soon after the 1975 end of the Vietnam War. Many were middle-class, military or government officials who collaborated with the United States. During the subsequent chaos of the North Vietnamese takeover of South Vietnam, and the subsequent war in Cambodia, many of these Vietnamese were able to escape via the payment of bribes (Do, 1999).

Vietnamese families have a strong family-support ethic, even in comparison to other southwest Asian cultures. In many cases, the families in Vietnam were able to send their most able-bodied or English speaking relatives to the U.S. In order to work at menial jobs, and to save enough money to be able to ransom additional family members. While known as the "boat people," many Vietnamese in fact exited their country through under-the-table and even official ransom paid to government officials. The amounts paid could be several thousand dollars per person, which posed a severe burden on the first Vietnamese immigrants to save their money as quickly as possible, and send it back to bail out the rest of their families.

The first Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970's were those who were sent with the collaboration of the U.S. government. They were generally high military officials who would have been killed or imprisoned if left behind in their home country. The U.S. brought over the interim President of Vietnam, Ky, who had been head of the Air Force. Ky brought his staff, and a series of additional military officers and government officials. Although Ky's role is disputed in the U.S., his role and that of the first immigrants was to use their wealth and influence to start bringing over additional Vietnamese middle-class government and military immigrants through indirect means.

The mix of Vietnamese immigrants started to shift in the late 1970's and early 1980's, the decade of the "Boat People." Desperate to leave the country with their entire families, Vietnamese would pay fishermen, pirates and captains of small freighters to ferry them clandestinely away from the Vietnamese coast. Hong Kong, although nearly 1,000 miles away, was a preferred destination because the Hong Kong government would generally try to ferry the Vietnamese out of their territory to a willing U.S. As quickly as possible. Their reception in Malasia, Thailand and other neighboring countries was less favorable.

What happened to the families once they landed on U.S. shores in California? Although the first wave of privileged Vietnamese received government and private assistance, the next generation was left to its own devices. Doctors, lawyers and former store owners ended up taking menial jobs in order to support their family. In California, Vietnamese settled in pockets where they could speak their own language, most notably Whittier and southern Los Angeles and Long Beach, where "little Vietnam" exists to this day.

The children of Vietnamese immigrants, for the most part, excelled in U.S. schools (Zhou, 1998). There are many stories of children who spoke no English arriving in California schools, and graduating at the top of their class a few years later. (Kao, 1995) Their academic performance was so superior that it has been studied extensively. The primary reasons why Vietnamese children performed so well appear to be (1) respect of the sacrifices their parents and relatives made for them, thus instilling a sense of obligation, and (2) the parents' devotion to assuring that their children advance as far as possible.

There are two exceptions to the brilliant record listed above: Vietnamese gangs and the Hmong. Not all Vietnamese children adapted to U.S. lifestyles. A vicious gang, centered in little Vietnam, became a major police headache in the 1980's and beyond. The Hmong, a mountain people from Vietnam, assimilated poorly. Unlike their flatland countrymen, they were primitive with relatively little modern culture. The Hmong continue to be overwhelmingly poor and dependent upon welfare assistance, despite generous U.S. government support (the Hmong were recruited to fight the Viet Khong).

Japanese-Americans in California

Japanese-Americans have succeeded in ways similar to the Vietnamese, but at a different time and for different reasons. The opening of Japan by Commodore Perry in 1854 brought significant changes to the Japanese culture and government. A population explosion in the late 1800's and early 1900's, plus a receptive U.S. looking for laborers on the West Coast, led to a significant number of Japanese emigrating to California during that period. They worked the menial jobs -- agriculture, railroads and the docks. Unlike the Vietnamese, many of the Japanese immigrants were peasants, but they brought their culture's strong work and family values.

1924 saw the imposition of very tough immigration rules on Asians during the "Yellow Scare," which effectively shut off Japanese immigration. Although some "Issei" and "Nissei" came to the U.S. after that time, the majority of Japanese families count their landing on U.S. shores before that time. They faced, along with other Asians, a great deal of discrimination in the U.S.(Daniels, 1977). The Japanese nevertheless were able to inculcate themselves into the U.S. culture while preserving their language and values. Many of them settled in the Central Valley, where they took up their agriculture of high-intensity, high-value truck farm crops for the growing California cities.

The advent of World War II at the end of 1941 created a "Jap scare" which caused the internment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese in internment camps throughout the Western U.S.. Despite the prejudice and internment, the Japanese (Kitano, 1969).

Japanese focus on family values and educational success has resulted in academic and professional excellence in California and the rest of the United States. Unlike some later immigrants, Japanese-Americans chose to immerse themselves in U.S. culture to the extent possible after World War II. For this reason, Japantowns, which were common and large prior to World War II, never regained their earlier popularity, as most Japanese chose to live in the general population in the cities and suburbs, or to take up farming again in one of the richest agricultural areas in the world.

Similarities and Differences

The Vietnamese and Japanese in America have two areas in common: hard work and a focus on family values, which includes a high value on supporting their children's education. They differ, however, in three key ways: (1) they came at different times, and therefore encountered a different economic and cultural situation, (2) the Vietnamese came to a largely accepting and open America, while the Japanese encountered systematic discrimination for the first decades in the U.S., and (3) the Vietnamese have retained their residences in enclaves, whereas the Japanese have moved out of the enclaves and into the general population.