By Mark Muckenfuss

Phuong Nguyen doesn’t remember much about Vietnam. He was just 2 when his parents and aunt stole his uncle’s fishing boat and left the port city of Nha Trang, heading for the open sea.

They were part of a large migration known as the Boat People, who fled post-war Vietnam over the course of more than a decade. Nearly 2 million fled the country by sea, many perishing in the attempt.

“We left Vietnam because I was sick with a lung infection and the doctors could not treat me,” said Nguyen, an associate professor and chair of the Humanities and Communication department. “They said, ‘If he doesn’t get treatment, he will die.’”

Nguyen’s family was picked up by a Taiwanese ship and taken to a refugee facility in Okinawa, Japan, where he got the treatment he needed. Eventually, the family made its way to New York and then California. His father found work in Monterey, first as a fisherman and later in construction and lawn care. Nguyen graduated from Monterey High School and went on to earn degrees at UC San Diego and USC. He is the author of “Becoming Refugee American: The Politics of Rescue in Little Saigon” (2017, University of Illinois Press).

His experience as an Asian American, he said, is integral to every course he teaches. May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and he believes it is even more important to talk about that experience in that context.

“We came into this country without much money at all and without a big social support network,” Phuong said. “That helps me understand the kind of isolation, and the need to build community, that’s always been a part of the Asian American experience.”

Having a month to spotlight that is a good opportunity for discussion, he said. 

“I think it’s very important,” he said about having that spotlight. “It makes a strong statement that Asians are also Americans. Asians have been here a long time. They have contributed to our economy and culture in ways they have not always been credited for. It helps Americans of many other races understand that immigration is our superpower.”

Asian American immigrants have been responsible for transforming communities and whole regions, Nguyen said. 

“They’re often moving into areas that aren’t doing that well,” he said. “They’ve helped to revitalize this country. In Southern California, places like Little Saigon and Westminster were dying. It took immigrants to revitalize them. You can say the same thing about urban Chinatowns and Little Tokyos. 

“The Salinas Valley was swampland before Chinese immigrants came in and drained it,” he added. “They made it into fertile land.”

The local region was impacted in other ways as well. 

“Chinese and Japanese immigrants were instrumental in jumpstarting the fishing industry in Monterey Bay,” he said, “so much so that Japanese Americans owned at least half of Fisherman’s Wharf before they were incarcerated during World War II. And of course Asians of various backgrounds, from Chinese in the late 1800s to Japanese and Filipinos in the 1900s, did a lot of the backbreaking farm labor that made the Salinas Valley one of the richest agricultural regions in the world.” 

He also talks to students about discrimination and the downside of being an ethnic minority. Recently, he has focused on the escalation of race-related violence against Asian Americans in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some dubbed the illness the “China virus.”

“We have to deal with that backlash,” he said. “But this is not an isolated incident.”

Asians have been discriminated against since the initial waves of Chinese immigrants arrived in California in the mid-1800s. Most worked low-wage jobs. Many did the back-breaking labor involved in building the early railroads. Laws were passed that denied them the right to own property and Asian enclaves were as much a result of the immigrants seeking community as of blatant discriminatory restrictions. 

Nguyen said he tells students that despite the fact that things have changed and Asians today are often tagged with certain positive stereotypes, those too can be problematic.

“Even positive stereotypes become negative eventually,” he said. 

Those who excel in academics or business can draw criticisms of being “too smart” or working “too hard.”

It’s important, he said, to celebrate the diversity of American culture and the idea of pluralism. He believes this country is unique in the opportunities it allows for the mixing of cultures.

“We’re good at encouraging pluralism,” Nguyen said. “You can be Asian and American at the same time. The idea that we are Americans only, misses out on the variety and beauty of what this country has to offer.”

The Asian Pacific Islander Desi American affinity ceremony is scheduled from 5-8 p.m. on Saturday, May 11, in the Otter Student Union Ballroom.