Cultural Values In Vietnamese Culture

Improved Essays
Little Saigon in Garden Grove has the highest population of Vietnamese living in the United States. In fact, it is the highest number of Vietnamese living outside of Vietnam. How did they retain their language and cultural practices virtually unchanged after they immigrated to the United States? The preserve their culture and traditions and continue to teach it to the following generations that follows. Although, some of the children are born here they are still fluent on their Vietnamese language and carry on with their heritage. Americanized but still following the footsteps of their own ethnic group, most of my experience working in the airport we often come across a family of Vietnamese traveling together and they bring goods that it’s …show more content…
They are strongly attached to their own customs and tradition and they don’t want to change it a bit, that is one good reason that they still retain their cultural heritage and identity. This can be related to integration, while maintaining their own tradition they are also part of American community here in the United States. Cultural relativism can be also an argument why Vietnamese living in Garden Grove has preserved their culture. They might view that American culture is totally different from their own and it could be wrong to them. For example, divorced is widely accepted in American culture, to them is could be wrong because of traditional family values. What considered right in American culture can be wrong in Vietnamese culture and vice versa. This might be one of the reason why they kept a tight community and continue to practice their own way of life. Discrimination can take place also if they trying to fit into American culture and their features does not, it just makes them look like an outcast from their own community. In order to avoid being discrimated they stick with their own community, work with their own people and stay in their own comfort

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    They were accepting of me and I felt like I didn’t need to conform to anything in order to feel accepted because I knew I belonged there. In the reading “Foreign Asians”, Pham had a much different experience. Although he was born in Vietnam, he was rejected from his community because they didn’t believe he was from Vietnam since he lacked the accent. In the reading, Pham quotes, ‘You’re all right!…

    • 1354 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Disagreement on Staying Put Hunting and gathering was the basic life skills of early humankind. These skills were co-dependent on the aspect of mobility and nomadicity. Our ancestors, hunters and gathers, followed wherever the animals went. Soon they created civilization to make everything convenient and accessible. This investment and innovation lead society and human evolution.…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Howard Ramos’s article “It Was Always There? Looking for Identity in All the (Not) So Obvious Places,” Ramos explores identity and to what extent his own cultural identity is defined by himself as well as by others. As a first generation Filipino-American with immigrant parents, I can relate to Ramos’s questioning of his and his father’s heritage and how it can affect the ways people label them. Especially in the modern age of technology where people are able to judge others’ images, faces, bodies, and lives through social media, labels can become an important part of life since it can influence your friends, your choices, and ultimately your future.…

    • 1021 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I identify as a Vietnamese-American, however, this was never the case. It was almost ironic how strongly I identified with American culture when my family’s time spent in America was fairly new. Since my parents traveled to America after the Vietnam War in the 1980’s, my siblings and I are the first American-born generation. I grew up as an American, so I quickly found out that I had no knowledge of the Vietnamese culture, language, or history. It came to the point where I realized, I couldn’t truly know myself before I knew where I came from.…

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Our world is made up of many different cultures and it would not be how it is today without these different cultures. Some cultures believe they are superior to others and this results in cultural differences and barriers. In Anne Fadiman’s book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, she explains cultural barriers that can develop through cultural differences, when one culture enters into another culture’s area. Fadiman writes about the Hmong culture entering the United States and evaluates their cultural differences, which leads to their barriers. Fadiman also describes many important individuals from both the Hmong culture and the American culture.…

    • 1470 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down it goes over the beginning of the life of Lia Lee. She is a young Hmong child who has unfortunately been born with epilepsy. The family had come to America to escape the tyranny going on back home where they had been forced out of their homes. When arriving they already had kids and they kept having more and more. Lia was one of the last born, or at least for a while.…

    • 1112 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Tran's Radical Tone

    • 265 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Tran’s radical tone suggests that she feels the dynamics of the traditional vietnamese family are being destroyed by using phrases like “The family has very little time to be together after work and school...” and “...they think they have lost their authority to raise their children.” Tran feels that the way of life is being taken from vietnamese families. The way that vietnamese families and american/western families interact with each other have very stark differences. In vietnam you are allowed to discipline your child as you please without any restrictions. On the other hand you have american parents who aren't allowed to hit their child because that is seen as cruelty.…

    • 265 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I have always been known to be the one who is smiling and laughing, the one who is always happy and cheerful. Many friends and family members have said I have a wonderful smile that boosts their day. No one really quite knows where this happiness of mine comes from though, not even me. But as I start to think about it, what makes me happy is knowing how much of an impact I have on others. Although my life has been much harder than that of any of my peers, I have always worked hard to achieve my goals and keep a smile on my face.…

    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hmong Families

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The war in Laos impacted the Hmong people; many men had left their families to become a soldier. During the war, many families were split up, some families stayed in the villages and other families decided to fled Laos because the country fell into communist forces. The families who decided to flee the village were technically fighting in the war. Many family members such as: wives, children’s, and grandparents had died because of starvation or being left behind. Coming into the United States, was a miracle for our Hmong people.…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hmong Movement Analysis

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Since 1975 the Hmong have experienced and accomplished many milestones in the United States. Previously in Laos there was a secret war which was a part of the Vietnam War and the Cold War. This secret war was the reason that about half of the Hmong of Laos became refugees and resettled in the United States of America. “Many Hmong who had formerly been allies of the Unite States and supporters of the Royal Lao Government become targets of postwar mistrust, retaliation, and retribution by the post-1975 communist government of Laos” (Pfeifer, Chiu, and Yang, p.3, 2013). This lead to the movement of thousands of refugees from Laos to Thailand and later to the United States in 1975.…

    • 711 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    US and Vietnam are two completely different country on the surface geography and culture. However, the world becomes globalized, the countries exposed to many cultures and new experiences. There is a change that is due to everyone in the country together through different cultures but they remain separate traditions of their country. There are some similarities and differences between the US and Vietnam such as: education, food and social…

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Race relations are relations between members or communities of different races. Race relations have been problematic since the 15th century. Over the past 40 years, the positive change in racism is what has made our general public hope for a future involving a racist free country. Today's America, has shown that tensions between different ethnicities, have decreased from the discrimination that has ultimately affected our country. It is possible that race relations are continuous today, and may conceivably never end due on the grounds that we share a typical dialect, a typical society, a typical past, present, and future.…

    • 917 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Growing up as a first-generation Vietnamese immigrant was difficult. My parents had little education. They spoke no English and had no understanding of the American culture. Nevertheless, they raised my sister and I the best they could. I was fortunate to have immigrated at the young age of 3.…

    • 674 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Hmong Folk Tale

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Hmong had a folktale, that expressed how they became mountain dwellers. For a multitude of years they lived high in the mountains, where they were very independent and maintained very little contact with those who lived in the plains. They had this belief that it would make them sick. As mentioned by Yoost and Crawford (2017) culture is symbolic in many ways; signs, sounds, clothing, tools customs, rituals, and other items were able to represent meaningful concepts to people (p.395). The Hmong had cultivated their lifestyle in a way that they would be able to freely express themselves and live out their traditions any way they wanted.…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Although I grew up with an American influence in my household, my family and Vietnamese culture has encouraged me to attain greater aspirations for myself and to become a better influence for a younger generation. Growing up with a very predominant Vietnamese influence within my household impacted every aspect of my daily life, from how I was raised as a child to how I see the world currently. Many things played a role in shaping me, for example my family and culture. I was raised by a single mom giving me a different outlook. My mom taught me that no matter what happens in the course of life, I have to be able to count on myself; she raised me to be independent and to stand on my own two feet.…

    • 1019 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays