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The National Congress of Vietnamese Americans (NCVA) held its 21^st annual national convention in St. Paul, MN, from August 23 to 26.  Founded in 1986, NCVA is probably the best known federation of Vietnamese American associations in the U.S.

            That is why the convention occasioned many greetings and letters of support from a wide range of politicians and legislators, from Senator James Webb of Virginia (who even sent a letter in Vietnamese professing “admiration and affinity for the Vietnamese culture”) and presidential candidate Barack Obama (“Since its inception, you have worked tirelessly to encourage Vietnamese and Asian Pacific Americans to be actively engaged in civic and national affairs, to defend human and civil rights, and to eliminate ignorance and prejudice”) to a scintillating array of Congressmen including Mike Honda of California, Chairman of the Congressional APA Caucus, Frank Wolf of Virginia, Loretta Sanchez and Ed Royce of California, Madeleine Bordallo of Guam…  Of course, Governor Tim Pawlenty and the two senators from Minnesota, Norm Coleman and Amy Klobuchar, are also happy that NCVA 2007 took place in their state.

VNCEO Meeting

One day before the actual event, NCVA co-hosted a VNCEO meeting which is meant to present various business opportunities for Vietnamese entrepreneurs.  Following the presentations, a site visit to two successful local Vietnamese American owned corporations, MME and Lemna, Inc. was found to be very informative.  MME is engaged in high class engineering and Lemna, Inc. has a portfolio of over one billion dollars a year.

Great Workshops

The actual conference started with a general session where the “state of the Vietnamese American community” was discussed.  Here it was learned that the Vietnamese Americans now stand at 1.5 million, making it the fifth largest Asian American population in the U.S., with such economic potential that it sends, together with another 1.3 million scattered around the world, some 4 billion dollars a year to Vietnam.

            Beside a hotly debated discussion of Vietnam-U.S. relations, the convention also went into such down-to-earth topics like “Home Ownership” and “CreditSmart Asian,” two programs sponsored by Freddie Mac, a workshop on various programs offered by State Farm, “Medicare and Medicaid Part D” (presented by Anne Avery of CMS, U.S. Department of HHS), and “Hazardous Chemicals in Nail Salons,” a presentation by Hien Phan of Boat People S.O.S. which drew quite a bit of interest since nearly 100,000 Vietnamese Americans are currently working in this industry.  Other topics like “Domestic Abuse and Human Trafficking in the Vietnamese American Community” show that NCVA is not reluctant to look into the negative problems found in our midst.

            In the past few years, NCVA has also engaged in partnerships with the Smithsonian APA Program (which produced the exhibit “Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon” which is traveling to California after Washington DC), with the U.S. Census Bureau (NCVA is now a CIC, Census Information Center), and with other Vietnamese American NGOs (like Boat People S.O.S. and NAVASA, which last year produced the “Katrina Report” dealing with housing issues affecting the Southeast Asian community in the Gulf Coast states).  A current project by NCVA dealing with the recent history of the Vietnamese Americans since 1975, which will eventually produce a book and a film entitled “NGUOI VIET DAT MY / VIETNAMESE IN U.S.A.,” also elicited much enthusiasm.

Caption for Photo 1: Organizing Committee, NCVA's 21st Annual National Convention in St. Paul, MN (Aug 23-26, 2007)

Caption for Photo 2:  Members of the National Board of NCVA with some of the main speakers at NCVA 2007