Vuong has found his niche in the system as an interpreter for Interpreters Unlimited, helping patients communicate with their doctors, nurses, physical therapists, counselors and court mediators. He hopes to work in the non-profit sector after graduating from UCSD. As an interpreter and a member of VSA and the Vietnamese American Youth Alliance, he has recognized the Vietnamese American community faces a larger, perhaps more significant discussion than whether cultural expectations and pressures dictate undesired career choices.

“Despite being called the model minority, we Asians, particularly Vietnamese are still very under-served,” Vuong said. “We are not fully aware of all our rights and privileges within the U.S. systems. My experience as an interpreter exposes me to many problems that Vietnamese Americans have to face due to their language-barrier. My education as an ethnic studies major has opened my eyes to some of the social ills of today and my experience working with the needy people has further motivated me to pursue my choice of career and education.”

Many Roads Can Lead to Success
For a professional in the video game industry in San Jose, Calif., 25-year-old Michael Nguyen said he neither went against the grain nor succumbed to cultural pressures. Nguyen graduated from University of California in Berkeley in 2004 with a comparative literature degree. Fate led Nguyen to a position as e-commerce manager at RedOctane, a video game publisher, where he managed the online store for the company. He is currently spending his year off in Viet Nam to reconnect with his heritage before returning to the U.S.,

The video game industry and comparative literature are anything but the average Vietnamese formula for success, and yet, Nguyen insists he made all of his academic and professional decisions single-handedly.

“I don’t think stereotypes influenced or pressured my decision-making in education or careers,” Nguyen said. “For my parents, they wanted me to be successful, and probably gave advice for success, but overall, none of the decisions I have made reflect them or stereotypes.”

Nguyen’s success is emphasized in the way he got himself to where he is today. Before attending Berkeley, he began his stint at RedOctane first as an intern. He later returned and was hired as an entry-level assistant and then progressed to the managerial position of running the company’s online store, contributing to RedOctane’s growth in sales.

Nevertheless, he does see where cultural expectations could have influenced the way people chose their fields of study.

“I think for some of my friends, they may have been steered a certain way because they felt that path would lead to success,” Nguyen said. “Many of my friends, including myself, took computer science or engineering in high school or college.”

Nguyen believes they were steered in a certain direction because they were not yet seasoned enough to understand what they wanted to pursue as a career.

“I think it is more that we did not know what to do, and so we followed a path that seemed somewhat of a reliable predictor of future job status,” Nguyen said. “When we were able to understand what we wanted, though, then we made decisions to reflect that new maturity. For those who truly enjoyed the sciences, they stayed in there, [while] those who didn’t, left to find something they enjoyed or were better at.”

To Nguyen, it is not a question of whether cultural expectations and pressures define career choices and ultimately the identities of the younger generation, rather, it is the question of haves and have nots in society, which includes looking at the histories and economic factors rather than cultural ones that lead to certain expectations among all ethnic groups, not just Asian Americans.

Nguyen brings up a different line of reasoning to the discussion of cultural pressures defining success. After reading Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, he recalls the argument that a child was more likely to do better if his parent was successful in education or money, instead of the social belief that success is connected to socioeconomic factors such as race, school quality, neighborhood and the like.

“If this is true, perhaps more Asians do better to make up that model minority because more Asians have a better start versus those in other minority groups rather than any true pressures or style of parenting,” Nguyen said.

The discussion about whether cultural pressures and standards actually define and directly have an effect on career choices is not just limited to the Asian American family. However, the pressures to excel, abiding by Vietnamese standards, do not appear to be as aggressive and explicit as they once were portrayed.

Possibly one day, Asian Americans and other groups alike can say these cultural expectations and pressures are unconventional and outdated.

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Annie Han Nguyen graduated cum laude from UC San Diego in June 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, and now lives and works in Washington, D.C.

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