2010 Collective Philanthropy Project
We are proud to announce the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation as the beneficiary for the 2009-2010 CPP Campaign.
These fundraising goals were set at the 2010 UVSA Midwest Leadership Retreat at Northwestern University on January 16, 2010.
The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation
VAHF’s mission is to document, preserve and promote the heritage of the Vietnamese American community. Their work includes gathering the stories and experiences of the Vietnamese American community.
“The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation celebrates and promotes our pride as Americans of Vietnamese descent. The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation provides opportunities for Vietnamese American individuals or organizations to contribute to the betterment of the American society and Vietnamese American community through the understanding of our unique history and heritage” (www.vietnameseamerican.org).
UVSA Midwest will work with UNAVSA and VAHF to support their “500 Oral History Project.” The project encompasses collecting 500 personal stories of Vietnamese Americans, archiving it and publishing it as an anthology. “So that younger generations of Vietnamese here and in Vietnam, and the American public can hear our side of history, and for American teaching institutions to teach our history” (VAHF).
VAHF will share these stories by hosting seminars and providing exhibits of these stories at community centers and academic institutions throughout the country. Copies of these published anthologies will be made available to the public to give students and educators and opportunity to hear our side of history and for American teaching institutions to teach our history.
Contact: Lisa Nguyen, CPP Director — lisa.nguyen@unavsa.org
About VAHF
The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation celebrates and promotes our pride as Americans of Vietnamese descent. The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation provides opportunities for Vietnamese American individuals or organizations to contribute to the betterment of the American society and Vietnamese American community through the understanding of our unique history and heritage.
500 Oral Histories Project
An Overview
After taking over South Vietnam, the Vietnamese Communist government burned books, re-wrote history, and imprisoned many writers, educators and intellectuals. We not only lost our homeland–we lost our history, our heritage, and our identity.
For several reasons, South Vietnam did not receive enough media coverage during the war. Unfortunately, the situation was not much improved after the war ended. Even today, despite a presence of 2 million Vietnamese Americans in the US, our story continues to be marginally covered in printed and visual media, especially textbooks. Furthermore, most of the information that is available to the public is misconstrued.
The Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation (VAHF) was founded in 2004 with the goal of restoring our lost identity. The aim is to improve awareness about Vietnamese Americans, by collecting, preserving, promoting, and celebrating Vietnamese American history and heritage. The best sources of history are the Vietnamese Americans who are living witnesses. Therefore, the oral history is the best method to capture these experiences. Unfortunately, many witnesses who were alive during the war are nearing 60 years of age and older, so we must do it quickly and diligently before the history gets lost in time.
Goal
Our mission is to collect five hundred (500) truly courageous and inspirational personal stories of success and struggles of Vietnamese Americans who have risked their lives to escape communist oppression to find freedom and then toiled tirelessly to find financial success and happiness for themselves and for their families in the United States. Their first hand stories told in their own words and from their personal point of view will be shared with their children as well as other groups of Americans. We will publish these stories in an anthology to be used by teachers and professors in their teaching of Vietnamese American history as well as American history. In addition, we will share these stories by hosting seminars and providing exhibits of these stories at community centers and academic institutions throughout the country. Finally, we will send copies of the anthologies to libraries throughout the country as well as post them on our website to give students and educators an opportunity to read and share these stories.
Resources
VAHF’s homepage
Informational video
CPP Informative Slides PDF
CPP VAHF Brochure PDF
Donate!