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For nearly thirty years, Vietnamese immigrants have been enriching the U.S. Catholic Church through their examples in courage and tenacious faith. In spite of enormous losses and suffering, they have shared their rich cultural heritage with and have responded generously serving as priests and religious. The Society of the Divine Word has been especially fortunate in the significant number of Vietnamese who have joined us and who continue to apply for admission to Divine Word College, Epworth, Iowa, and Divine Word Novitiate, Techny, Illinois and the Associate Program at Divine Word Theologate in Chicago. On March 27, a day-long program at Divine Word International, Techny, Illinois, entitled “Asian Voices,” celebrated and demonstrated in a variety of ways how SVD Vietnamese and other Asian immigrants, faced the challenges of exploring their ethnic identity, remembering their journeys from Vietnam, and discovering the many views—funny, sad and bad—of being Asian-American. The day encompassed a storytelling workshop for Vietnamese SVDs, the presentation of the Chicago Province Justice and Peace Commission 2004 BridgeBuilder Award to an outstanding Muslim leader in Northbrook, Illinois, and a storytelling concert concentrating on Asian-American experiences.
John Hung Le and
Michael Long Vu participate in the morning of jogging memories.
Twenty-one Vietnamese priests, seminarians and novices participated in the daytime oral history workshop led by three professional storytelling facilitators. Through brainstorming, interaction, group dynamics and individual exchange, the participants sought to surface stories, ideas, themes, metaphors and memories of the Exodus-like journey of the Vietnamese people from Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. |
 SVD seminarian Tuan Mai uses drumming to evoke memories of his homeland. Through a variety of creative exercises, the Vietnamese SVDs began to identify stories and themes of the Vietnamese immigrant journeys across oceans, through refugee camps and around the world and then to a new home in America. Later that evening, six of the participants joined the professional storytellers and gave the concert audience moving glimpses of their stories about their flight from Vietnam. The workshop was the first step in a proposed Vietnamese Stories project which will seek to rediscover some of these stories which reveal journeys of deep faith, hope and inspiration for all of us in our time. In the morning and afternoon, the twenty-one SVDs evoked memories by remembering proverbs from Vietnam, particular foods or games they played as children. In the evening, at the storytelling concert, the Vietnamese SVDs began their stories tentatively, speaking briefly about memories of a mother’s sacrifices, time in prison, time in refugee camps, leaving hand prints in the wall of a newly built house.
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