by Thao Mai

In my third year as an undergraduate, I told my dad that I chose psychology as my major. I remember vividly his response. He cast his eyes downward. There were wrinkles on his forehead. He was sitting on our worn, thrift store couch with his elbows resting on his knees, attempting to comfort his anxiety by knotting and unknotting his fingers. He was a slender man but there was a heaviness about him, as if something weighed him down. He was quiet. The tension in the air was unbearable as I waited for him to speak. I don’t remember what he said but it was definitely an expression of disappointment. Even though I was rebellious in those days, consciously choosing to reject the way my dad thought, the Vietnamese (American) refugee way, I knew what I was supposed to major in. I knew that my dad thought it was best for me to be a pharmacist because that was a sure thing to be. I would be able to provide for myself and my parents, as a good daughter should. I just knew that was what my dad thought and that was why I was so nervous to tell him about my major. But I didn’t waver and I sat there listening, enduring my dad’s famous last words, “when you grow up, you’ll understand.”

I think my dad’s disappointment had to do with my going against the collective expectation within the Vietnamese refugee community. It was the whole idea about striving for financial security. The Viet Nam War was a constant reminder of the fragility and instability of life as we know it, especially for those who experienced firsthand the war and the exodus. For most first generation immigrants, like my dad, this was articulated as a striving for survival. This emphasis on survival is revealed in the discourse of many Vietnamese American parents like my dad.

Co Hong,* who is 54 and a parent of two, explained why she wants her daughters to go into medicine: “I’m just afraid that my kids will starve.”

In 2006, thirty-one years after the war, the collective expectation seems to have shifted, transforming from survival to success. Rather than embracing the impermanence of things, a lesson of the refugee experience, many people in the Vietnamese diaspora community seems to be working toward holding on more tightly and securely to material life. Images or stereotypes of what it means to be Vietnamese are suggestive of one’s plight from nothingness and homelessness to a displaying of wealth, status and “progress,” all stereotypical components of success stories. Often such images are lessons that parents communicate to children. Co Lan,* a mother of three adult children, for example, explained how she raised her children, “I want my children to know that life is a journey full of surprises and obstacles and it’s important to overcome them, not only to survive, but also to succeed.”

For many Viet Kieu, the notion of success seems to have meshed with that that is commonly associated with other Asian Americans. In talking with some young Vietnamese American women who are college students and working professionals, the unanimous opinion is that success, as it was communicated to them within their families and the Vietnamese community, is about being the doctor, engineer, or lawyer. That is, it is about being in professions that will most likely provide financial security and status, perhaps a reflection of the refugee past that has transformed from the need to survive to a need to succeed. This notion of being successful is about obtaining achievements that are associated with financial worth, status and image, and, according to these young Vietnamese women, it is a notion that is a creation of their parents’ generation.

But how is this notion of success interpreted by the younger generation of Vietnamese Americans? In particular, how do young Vietnamese American women (re)define what it means to be successful? These were among the questions I addressed in my dissertation study. By interviewing 12 young Vietnamese American women and their family members, I found that success has varying and shifting meanings for the participants in my study. For the young women in Vietnamese (American) families, being successful means having to negotiate the dilemmas between their obligations to their family and their personal desires and aspirations.

Some young women, like Kim, who is 31 and lives in Sacramento, told me that their career decision came about because of their obligation to “pay back” their parents for the sacrifices they made. For Kim, “sacrifice” is an important word. It signifies the ultimate indebtedness toward her parents.