Cultural Literacy and Advocacy

During quarantine, many people, including myself, have been looking for something to do and something to learn. Many chose to retrace their roots and learn something or make TikToks of their cultural outfits, which inspired me to do the same after constant struggles of fitting in as Vietnamese Americans who don’t look like Vietnamese Americans. It gave so many people the gift of cultural literacy to retrace their roots. Communities have come together during rough times as recently graduated high school seniors think back on their lives. I looked back countless times with the mindset of growing up; literacy has existed throughout our lives. Whether it’s growing up reading and speaking in different tongues or listening to music, these literacy forms are embedded in our behavior and identities as immigrants’ children. I realized that even though there are people of my race, others make jokes about us and how we need to fit into a white-dominant society. Even as a first-generation immigrant, many, including myself, have fallen under the “model minority myth.” Although I am fortunate enough to learn my native tongue and grew up in a diverse community, many individuals have lost connection with it due to the fast-paced society where English was the dominating language and others would be considered lower. And many regret putting their identities away for the dreams of success. One’s life can be defined by cultural literacy as balancing the difference of cultures between the motherland and the land of American ideals.

When technology wasn’t in the picture, people relied on stories, reading, writing, and learning to be the source of developing literacy. The stories of the moon, the two female warriors, and the liturgical followings of Christ has been there throughout my life as it taught me how to embrace the traits of respect, family, and hard work. Over time, these stories became dim, and technology became the new form of literacy as we have access to new knowledge and limitless possibilities. As my parents encouraged me to only speak English around the house, I lost the sense of my cultural literacy to fit into the new world. Literacy in other areas gave many students opportunities to communicate and effectively be active in any setting as it enhances the overall guarantee of success and changes to the world. Bringing it today, the life of a first-generation Vietnamese American, I learned to balance my culture’s traditions and the community’s modernized literacy to grow in knowledge and advocacy for others.

As I retained my cultural literacy and heritage, many people don’t speak a lick of their native tongue because they’ve grown accustomed to the life that the parents want for their children to become successful. As a part of the Vietnamese American first-generation children born in San Jose, they consider the festivals, the food, and the clothing to be their form of literacy because they cannot connect to traditions due to language barriers between the older and the current generation. It became customary to listen to American pop music and pick up an American teen’s culture in schools, but it becomes hard to pick up the difficult language itself. With all the cognitive, symbols, and dialects, the language isn’t a priority, and the media is their form of communicative literacy. There isn’t much preservation of the Vietnamese tradition’s tales and virtues, which becomes lost as the youth forget the language. Many Asian Americans under the ‘Model Minority Myth” as we are seen as the “perfect immigrant.” In a study done by Jean Yonemura Wing on The Model Minority Myth and the Invisibility of Asian American Students, Wing states that many students are dealing with their struggles, “[…] with cultural conflicts and cultural blending, and with parental concerns and family life. Their various identities, historical experiences, and their perceptions of opportunities influence their school performance and behaviors. Many of the obstacles and hardships they face are masked by the perception that Asian students are doing well and have no serious problems, or that they are culturally or genetically predisposed to do well in school.” (Wing, Asians are overlooked in the black-white definition of race in America). The childhood I see versus the transition of cultural literacy now is very different from spreading culture when certain statements are put out about traditions. Thus, the gap between modern change and stubborn practices continues to distance itself from each other.

I swayed from one side of cultural identity to another without much thought until I realized that I’d lost touch with the virtues of my heritage. It became a struggle to relearn the language and keep up with an American student’s new vocabulary and mindsets. One study from Lucy Tse’s research, Language Brokering in Linguistic Minority Communities: The Case of Chinese and Vietnamese-American Students, indicated “While brokers reported negative effects that included added stress and burden, they also reported positive results such as increased confidence, independence and maturity, acquisition of first and second cultural knowledge, and the establishment of trusting relationships with their parents” (McQuillian and Tse, 1995). She showed her reports from her studies regarding the language barriers of their native tongue and the English language that as brokers struggle to take on translators’ roles, their struggles between languages further developed their mindsets to become better citizens. Many immigrant children face the pressure of the language barrier and losing the sense of connection with their heritage as they continue to speak in two different languages growing up. Once I hit primary school, the focus was on English and the hardships of translating government documents and learning new terms. The words eventually get mixed up and lead to misinterpretation of the language. Without the language, the connection between culture and society becomes severed. In many ways, many children, including myself, have lost the relationship with the traditional values and the ability to speak Vietnamese fluently. Only with time, the importance of self-identity leads many first-generation Vietnamese Americans to embrace both traditions and modern takes of life within the community.

After much thought and consideration of finding out who I am, there is a way to embrace both without putting one above the other. Checker and Fishman’s concept of American life analyzed much of this in their reading of Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life in America as they stated; “We argue that these groups are not separating themselves but are struggling to join their voice to the mainstream and organizing to change public discourse. […] It is our hope that […] we can reconstruct dominant American concepts, theories, and strategies […] It is also our goal to show how ethnography can uniquely contribute to social problem solving” (Checker, Fishman, 15). Seeing that separating two cultures are common, but it is better to join them together to change what an immigrant is. Rather than trying to fit into the crowd and be a part of the model minority culture, it is essential to embrace the roots of one’s culture while also being progressive with change. They are seeing that in their analysis of Shalini Shankar’s definition of multiculturalism and the model minority, she states that goals of multicultural events for Northern California students are more damaging than inclusive because “[…] South Asian participants viewed these multicultural performances as an important venue in which to express their specific experiences as second-generation immigrants to their school” (Checker, Fishman, 19). It made me think of why I choreograph traditional-modern Vietnamese dances, and to me, it was my gateway to define myself. Still, in reality, it contradicts what other people think as South Asians in America. As much as it does hurt to see Shankar’s interpretation, it brings up a point that from the encounters of the model minority myths and the disintegrating connections of heritage and the progressive culture, our tradition ends up lost.

My dream to be fluent in Vietnamese is far from finished, as it is hard to balance American life and my roots. In one of the South Asian teens’ struggles, I must learn to use current community problems, space, and the system for the change to be instigated. According to Fishman and Checker, the terms of cultural activists state, “Thus the cultural activists in this volume are joining together publicly to assert collective identities that reflect their lived experiences more accurately. In so doing, they are redefining themselves as more powerful members of society, and they are attempting to reshape mainstream ideas about who they are capable of” (Checker, Fishman, 7). As a college student now, I want to become a cultural activist using cultural literacy to assert my identity firmly and bring upon the goals of redefining society in our turf instead of the myths of not only Vietnamese Americans but Asian Americans. I am not the typical Asian in the back of the classroom, but through cultural analysis and literacy, it brought attention to self-empower not only one person but also a whole community of people to make the negative cognitions representation and appreciation of one’s heritage. With self-empowerment, advocating for changes against the model minority myth is crucial to embracing traditional and American values.

Checker, Melissa, and Maggie Fishman. “Introduction.” Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life in America, edited by Melissa Checker and Maggie Fishman, Columbia University Press, NEW YORK, 2004, pp. 1–26. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/chec12850.5. Accessed 9 Sept. 2020.

Lucy Tse (1996) Language Brokering in Linguistic Minority Communities: The Case of Chinese- and Vietnamese-American Students, Bilingual Research Journal, 20:3–4, 485–498, DOI:10.1080/15235882.1996.10668640. Accessed 17 Sept. 2020.

Wing, J.Y. Beyond Black and White: The Model Minority Myth and the Invisibility of Asian American Students. Urban Rev 39, 455–487 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-007-0058-6. Accessed 20 Sept. 2020.