Vietnamese language in the United States
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Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...
has more than 1.5 million speakers in the United States, where it is the sixth-most spoken language. The United States also ranks second among countries and territories with the most Vietnamese speakers, behind Vietnam. The Vietnamese language became prevalent after the conclusion of the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
in 1975, when many refugees from Vietnam came to the United States. It is used in many aspects of life, including media, commerce, and administration. In several states, it is the third-most spoken language, behind
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
and
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
. To maintain the language for later generations, Vietnamese speakers have established many language centers and coordinated with public school systems to teach Vietnamese to students who are born and raised in the United States. After several decades of development in a multilingual environment independent of the native country, Vietnamese in the United States has some differences from the Vietnamese language currently spoken in
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, and the community of Vietnamese speakers has consciously tried to preserve those differences.


History

The history of Vietnamese in the United States is fairly short and intimately connected to the presence of Vietnamese people in this country. Prior to
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Southeast Asian languages were virtually unknown in the US. At that time,
Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
was a French colony, so research on the Vietnamese language was primarily conducted by French scholars. In the 1950s, schools such as
Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
, Columbia,
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, and Georgetown, as well as the
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of the
Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nati ...
, brought the language into their curricula. In 1954, the Army Language School began to teach Vietnamese in the military. In 1969, there were about only 3000 Vietnamese people in the entire United States, including wives of American servicemen who served in Vietnam. As the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
deteriorated, the number of Vietnamese people gradually increased. By the early 1970s, there were 15,000 Vietnamese; this number doubled to 30,000 by 1975. Following
Operation New Life Operation New Life (23 April – 1 November 1975) was the care and processing on Guam of Vietnamese refugees evacuated before and after the Fall of Saigon, the closing day of the Vietnam War. More than 111,000 of the evacuated 130,000 Vietna ...
, the number of Vietnamese people in the US drastically increased. In 1975, ''Người Việt'', the first Vietnamese-language daily newspaper in the United States, began publication in
Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...
. The newspaper helped to bring news from the homeland to the refugee community, and helped them prepare for a new life in the United States. In 1980, Vietnamese had 200,000 speakers and was the 14th-most spoken language in the US. From 1980 to 2010, Vietnamese was the fastest-growing language in the United States, having increased sevenfold. By 2010, Vietnamese had surpassed many other languages to become the sixth-most spoken language (behind
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
,
Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...
,
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, French, and Tagalog). In the early 21st century, Vietnamese began to show signs of losing its hold on new generations of Vietnamese Americans who are born and raised in the United States and having limited connections to Vietnam. Vietnamese is still maintained among recent immigrants while more than 90% of third-generation Vietnamese Americans only speak English. However, only 20% of second-generation Vietnamese Americans entirely use English, compared to 46.8% in the first generation. This shows that there are efforts to preserve the language among Vietnamese speakers. Additionally, there are efforts among Vietnamese Americans to bring the language to public school curricula so that their children do not forget their heritage language.


Demographics


Distribution

Vietnamese speakers are primarily ethnically Vietnamese, so the language is most spoken in places with a high presence of Vietnamese Americans. In 2019, it was estimated that 71.4% of Vietnamese speakers were born in Vietnam, 23.5% in the US or its territories, and the remaining 5% born in another country. In four states (
Nebraska Nebraska () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...
,
Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
,
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
,
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
), Vietnamese is the third-most spoken language, behind English and Spanish. It has a strong presence in the
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to: Geography Australia * Western Australia *Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia * West Coast, Tasmania **West Coast Range, mountain range in the region Canada * Britis ...
, with 40% of speakers living in California, while
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
has the third-highest number of speakers. Vietnamese has a limited presence in larger cities; they have higher concentrations in the suburbs rather than in the inner cities.


Fluency

The fluency of the language among Vietnamese Americans is divided by generation. The first generation is defined as those born outside the United States (mainly Vietnam), the second generation are those who are born in the United States, while the third generation consist of those born in the United States and having at least one parent born in the United States. In 1980, 95% of Vietnamese Americans belong to the first generation, 3% in the second generation, and 2% in the third generation. By 2006, the first generation decreased to 77% while the second increased to 19%, the third generation still at a modest 4%. According to
US Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
estimates, by 2019 the percentage of foreign-born Vietnamese Americans decreased to 60.3% while those who are born in the US increased to 39.7%. Among those 5 and older, 22.3% only used English at home, while the remaining 77.7% used other languages (primarily Vietnamese) — among those 44.0% don't have a good command of English. Research in 1998 by Min Zhou and Carl Bankston showed that Vietnamese is maintained when it is used at home and in the community. From 1980 to 2006, the percentage of Vietnamese Americans who do not use Vietnamese at home (only speaking English) increased modestly (from 9.4% to 11.8%) while the percentage of those who speak English "very well" while still able to speak Vietnamese increased considerably (from 20.6% to 31.6%). This indicates a trend consistent with language assimilation theories — Vietnamese immigrants adopting English while maintaining fluency in their native language. However, there are signs that English is increasingly replacing Vietnamese among young people (under 21). In the first and second generations, about 46.8% and 19.9% respectively no longer use Vietnamese; in the third generation, while currently a small percentage of the total, more than 90% use English exclusively.


Usage

While not as well-known as Spanish or some other European languages, Vietnamese maintains a presence in some aspects of public life. In the media and creative arts, it is mainly used among the Vietnamese American community. It also has a small presence in commerce and administration. Most DMVs provide Vietnamese-language driving instructions, and some states even allow the test to be partly taken in Vietnamese. Vietnamese is an elective subject in many colleges and universities, and is seen less often in high schools.


Media

Most Vietnamese language media are published in metropolitan areas with high concentration of Vietnamese people. While small in comparison to English or Spanish language media, Vietnamese language media have flourished in the US. Published since the late 1970s, '' Người Việt'' from Southern California is the largest Vietnamese language newspaper in the United States. From 1999 to 2005, the ''
San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiar ...
'' published a Vietnamese edition named '' Viet Mercury''. After the ''Viet Mercury'' ceased publication, two other newspapers replaced it in Northern California: ''Việt Tribune'' và ''VTimes''. Early newspapers focused on local news for Vietnamese Americans; later they expanded to serving other readers. ''Người Việt'' has an English edition for Vietnamese Americans born in the US. Besides these publications, other publications in many other languages are also in circulation in the Vietnamese American community. There are two Vietnamese language radio stations broadcasting in
Greater Los Angeles Greater Los Angeles is the second-largest metropolitan region in the United States with a population of 18.5 million in 2021, encompassing five counties in Southern California extending from Ventura County in the west to San Bernardino Coun ...
(
KALI-FM KALI-FM (106.3 FM broadcasting, FM) is a Vietnamese language radio station licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to serve the community of Santa Ana, California, United States. KALI airs musical and entertainment shows. This st ...
and
KVNR KVNR (1480 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Santa Ana, California, and serving Orange and Los Angeles counties. It is owned by Estrella Media, and broadcasts a Vietnamese language format known as "Little Saigon Radio". Program ...
).
Little Saigon Radio Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...
was formed in 1993, broadcasts in the three areas with large Vietnamese American populations including Southern California, San Jose, and
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
. In additional to locally-produced shows, the station also rebroadcast Vietnamese-language programs from international broadcasters such as
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and RFI.
Radio Saigon Houston KREH (branded as Radio Saigon Houston) is a Vietnamese language AM radio station, licensed to Pecan Grove, Texas, United States. KREH's studios are in Little Saigon and in the International District in Houston, Texas.
was cited as helping to attract Vietnamese people from California to resettle in Houston when they hear its programming rebroadcast in California. Television stations include
Saigon Broadcasting Television Network Saigon Broadcasting Television Network, abbreviated SBTN, is a 24-hour Vietnamese language television channel targeted at overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese audiences living outside of Vietnam. Its headquarters are in Garden Grove, California, Gard ...
(SBTN) heardquartered in Garden Grove, the first Vietnamese-language TV station broadcasting 24 hours a day via cable and satellite nationwide since 2002. SBTN attracts a wide variety of audience in its diverse programming, including news, theatrical films, drama, documentaries, variety shows, talk shows, and children's shows.. Besides SBTN, there is also VietFace TV owned by
Thúy Nga Productions Thúy Nga Inc. () ( dba Thúy Nga Productions, variously referred to as Thúy Nga Incorporated, Thúy Nga Paris, and Trung Tâm Thúy Nga) is an American entertainment company founded in 1984 in Paris, and currently based in Westminster, Californ ...
, also broadcasting 24 hours a day in Orange County and nationwide via
DirecTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It ...
; and Vietnam America Television (VNA/TV) broadcasting in
Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...
, San Jose, and
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
with an anti-communist platform and committed to not showing programs produced in Vietnam. These and other networks are broadcast over the air on
digital subchannel In broadcasting, digital subchannels are a method of transmitting more than one independent program stream simultaneously from the same digital radio or television station on the same radio frequency channel. This is done by using data compress ...
s of television stations in large cities, such as KSCZ-LD in San Jose. Outside of California, Viet-Nam Public Television (VPTV) headquartered in
Falls Church, Virginia Falls Church is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 14,658. Falls Church is included in the Wash ...
serve the Washington, DC area. Some localities also have Vietnamese language programming on
public access television Public-access television is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels. Public-access television was creat ...
.
VTV4 VTV4 is a Vietnamese state-owned pay television network, serving as the international broadcaster of Vietnam Television. Launched on 7 January 1998, it offers a best-of package of programming from the three domestic channels ( VTV1, VTV2 and V ...
, the
international broadcasting International broadcasting, in a limited extent, began during World War I, when German and British stations broadcast press communiqués using Morse code. With the severing of Germany's undersea cables, the wireless telegraph station in Nauen was t ...
arm of the Vietnamese state-owned
Vietnam Television Vietnam Television ( vi, Đài Truyền hình Việt Nam), or VTV, is the national television broadcaster of Vietnam. As the state broadcaster under the direction of the government of Vietnam, VTV is tasked with "propagating the views of the ...
, was once broadcast via satellite in the US, but was deemed "boring"; its main audience consists of international students or recent immigrants from Vietnam. VTV4 stopped broadcasting via satellite since 2018. During the
COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
and the 2020 elections,
fake news Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...
became an issue in the Vietnamese-speaking community, especially among the elderly who are not well-versed in English and do not consume mainstream media. In response to the proliferation of fake news, some younger Vietnamese Americans who are fluent in both English and Vietnamese formed groups with the aim to challenge the fake news and bring accurate news in Vietnamese to the community, including Viet Fact Check, VietCOVID.org, and ''The Intepreter''.


Arts and literature

After 1975, many artists, writers, and intellectuals from South Vietnam left the reunified country under communist rule and moved to the US. In the beginning, Vietnamese-language literature published in the US revolved around themes of nostalgia for the past, the feeling of guilt for those who stayed, and exile. The early writers criticized American values such as material pursuit as well as social and moral values. With the arrival of
Vietnamese boat people Vietnamese boat people ( vi, Thuyền nhân Việt Nam), also known simply as boat people, refers to the refugees who fled Vietnam by boat and ship following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. This migration and humanitarian crisis was at its h ...
since 1977, Vietnamese literature in the US changed themes to wrath and agony; these new writers left Vietnam with a clear ideological purpose: to seek freedom and to tell the world about the "Vietnam in blood and tears". These themes are not only manifested in literature; in music and art the boat people composed works full of misery and anger. Hundreds of magazines and newspapers and books were published in Vietnamese with the aim to alert the world about the ordeal of the boat people. In contrast to the nostalgic works of earlier writers, the works of boat people authors paint a picture of Communist Vietnam as hell on earth full of human misery and agony. In music and arts, Vietnamese refugees began to build structures for media and entertainment as soon as they began resettling in the US. In the beginning, refugee musicians recorded and distributed music cassettes reflecting their exile status, strongly critiquing the communist government while also bringing their audience melodies that bring back to a time of peace. In contrast to immigrants from other countries, Vietnamese exiles strongly reject cultural productions that originate from their homeland now under communism. In the beginning, Vietnamese Americans watch dubbed Hong Kong and Taiwanese films via VHS for their entertainment needs. Starting from the 1980s and 1990s, the variety show '' Paris by Night'' by
Thúy Nga Productions Thúy Nga Inc. () ( dba Thúy Nga Productions, variously referred to as Thúy Nga Incorporated, Thúy Nga Paris, and Trung Tâm Thúy Nga) is an American entertainment company founded in 1984 in Paris, and currently based in Westminster, Californ ...
became a connecting bridge between the various Vietnamese communities around the world. The early production titles reflect themes related to exile, like ''Giã Biệt Sài Gòn'' (''Farewell to Saigon''), ''Giọt Nước Mắt Cho Việt Nam'' (''A Drop of Tear for Vietnam''), with anti-communist content as the guiding principle to attract audiences. With the changing tastes of the audience as they assimilate into American society, later programs shifted themes away from politics and towards contemporary American culture. After the success of ''Paris by Night'', other similar productions soon followed suit, such as , , and ''Hollywood Night''. By 2008,
Little Saigon Little Saigon ( vi, Sài Gòn nhỏ or Tiểu Sài Gòn) is a name given to ethnic enclaves of expatriate Vietnamese mainly in English-speaking countries. Alternate names include Little Vietnam and Little Hanoi (mainly in historically communist ...
in
Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...
was the largest Vietnamese-language production center in the world, dwarfing Vietnam by a factor of 10. Musical genres of Vietnamese music performed in the US include
folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
,
cải lương ''Tuồng cải lương'' (, Hán-Nôm: 從改良) often referred to as cải lương (Chữ Hán: 改良), roughly "reformed theater") is a form of modern folk opera in Vietnam. It blends southern Vietnamese folk songs, classical music, '' hát ...
, đờn ca tài tử, pop, etc. Because most Vietnamese people in the United States came from the South, these music have roots in southern Vietnam. Cải lương composers continue to create new works, while mobile theatrical troupes perform nationwide. In larger Vietnamese communities, pop music predominates. Since 1991, the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) worked to assist Southeast Asian artists, especially focusing on Vietnamese literature and arts. VAALA has organized the
Vietnamese International Film Festival First started in 2003, the Vietnamese International Film Festival (also known as ViFF) is a biennial film festival organized by the non-profits Vietnamese-American Arts & Letters Association (VAALA) and UCLAs VietNamese Language and Culture (VNLC). ...
annually since 2003, showcasing creative works made by or are about Vietnamese people. Additionally, many Vietnamese American authors achieved success in the mainstream American literary scene, primarily with English-language works describing the experience of Vietnamese people in the United States. They include
Viet Thanh Nguyen The Vietnamese people ( vi, người Việt, lit=Viet people) or Kinh people ( vi, người Kinh) are a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to modern-day Northern Vietnam and Southern China (Jing Islands, Dongxing, Guangxi). The native lang ...
who received the
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
, the poet
Ocean Vuong Ocean Vuong (born , ; October 14, 1988) is a Vietnamese American poet, essayist, and novelist. Vuong is a recipient of the 2014 Ruth Lilly/Sargent Rosenberg fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a 2016 Whiting Award, and the 2017 T.S. Eliot P ...
who received the
MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to ...
, journalist
Andrew Lam Andrew Lam (born 1964) is a Vietnamese American author and journalist who has written about the Overseas Vietnamese experience. Biography Andrew Lam was born Lâm Quang Dũng in 1964 in South Vietnam. He led a privileged life as the son of Gen ...
, writer
Le Ly Hayslip Le Ly Hayslip (; born Phùng Thị Lệ Lý; December 19, 1949) is a Vietnamese-American writer, memoirist and humanitarian. Through her foundations, she has worked to rebuild cultural bridges between Vietnam and America following the Vietnam War ...
, and cartoonist Trung Le Nguyen. Although their works were written in English, the authors include in them some Vietnamese vocabulary and cite the influence of their native language in their diction and syntax.


Commerce

In
Little Saigon Little Saigon ( vi, Sài Gòn nhỏ or Tiểu Sài Gòn) is a name given to ethnic enclaves of expatriate Vietnamese mainly in English-speaking countries. Alternate names include Little Vietnam and Little Hanoi (mainly in historically communist ...
,
Orange County, California Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, a ...
, Vietnamese is ubiquitous: it can be found in signage in front of offices, stores, cemeteries, on billboards advertising companies such as
Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
and
McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...
, and even on
bus advertising In bus advertising, buses and their related infrastructure is a medium commonly used by advertisers to reach the public with their message. Usually, this takes the form of promoting commercial brands, but can also be used for public campaign mess ...
. Many stores and offices in the area serve a primarily Vietnamese clientele, so they use Vietnamese. In a survey among the Vietnamese American community in the Greater Los Angeles area, more than 50% of first-generation immigrants indicate that they use Vietnamese in their place of work, while the proportions for the 1.5 and 2nd generation are 25–30% and 50%, respectively. Vietnamese people have a large presence in the
nail salon A nail salon or nail bar is a specialty beauty salon establishment that primarily offers nail care services such as manicures, pedicures, and nail enhancements. Often, nail salons also offer skin care services. Manicures are also offered by gene ...
industry in the US. In 1987, there were 3,900 Vietnamese
nail technician A manicurist or nail technician is a person whose occupation is to style and shape a person's nails. This is achieved using a combination of decorating nails with coloured varnish, transfers, gems or glitter. Basic treatments include manicures a ...
s; this increased to 39,600 in 2002. Vietnamese people account for about 40% of those in this profession nationwide. In California, they account for about 59–80% of workers, and applicants can take tests in Vietnamese to receive their license. In cities with a large presence of Vietnamese people, there are also classes teaching this profession to newly-arrived immigrants. In a survey in 2007 among Vietnamese-owned nail salons, 70% of technicians prefer to read publications in Vietnamese. The existence of a large support network in the Vietnamese language for nail technicians in turns attract even more Vietnamese people into this profession. At many locales in the US, Vietnamese American small business owners form Vietnamese American Chambers of Commerce to support each other and provide training for companies seeking to conduct business in Vietnam. In San Jose, the Silicon Valley Small Business Development Center opened an office to serve local Vietnamese-speaking small business owners with resources in Vietnamese to help them navigate bureaucracy, new technologies and market expansion.


Government and politics

As one of the largest immigrant languages, Vietnamese is used in government, especially in areas related to immigration. In the federal government, since
2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...
Vietnamese has been one of 6 languages used in forms people can fill in for the census. The
Voting Rights Act of 1965 The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement ...
, amended in 2006, requires that state and local governments provide voting material to assist voters who speak minority languages if they are more than 5% of the voting population in a voting district, or if there are more than 10,000 citizens of voting age who do not have the English skills necessary to participate in the voting process. Accordingly, as of 2021 there are 12 voting areas nationwide where Vietnamese-language voting materials must be made availabe (including 6 counties in California, a town in
Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...
, 3 counties in
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, a county in
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
and a county in
Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
). Additionally, many federal agencies also provide materials in Vietnamese to serve people who are not proficient in English, such as the
Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...
. At the state level, most departments of motor vehicles provide informational literature in Vietnamese and some offer part of the driving test in Vietnamese. In California, the Dymally–Alatorre Bilingual Services Act require government agencies to provide reading material for languages used by at least 5% of the public being served, so Vietnamese is often one of the offered languages. At the local level, many areas with a large presence of Vietnamese people have programs providing assistance in Vietnamese. In San Jose, the Vietnamese American Service Center (VASC) was inaugurated in 2022 aiming to provide health and social services to more than 220,000 Vietnamese people in Santa Clara County. Some local agencies do not have Vietnamese language translations available but have personnel to translate when needed, such as via phone. Politicians in California have sparred over
campaign advertising In politics, campaign advertising is the use of an advertising campaign through the media to influence a political debate, and ultimately, voters. These ads are designed by political consultants and political campaign staff. Many countries re ...
airtime on Vietnamese-language radio and television programs.


Education

Researchers found a correlation between Vietnamese language ability and school performance among Vietnamese American students. A 1995 survey among Vietnamese high school students in
New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster.
; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...
showed students with higher Vietnamese fluency had better academic achievements even though their schooling was primarily in English. According to Bankston and Zhou, their Vietnamese language ability is connected to their ethnic self-identification, which was connected to adults in the social group, which in turn provide a support network for the students, promoting academic achievement. These results showed that parents enrolling their children in Vietnamese language schools will not only improve their Vietnamese language ability, but also their academic achievements.


Vietnamese language community schools

Vietnamese language schools started to appear from the end of the 1970s. Classes were usually conducted in churches, Buddhist pagodas, and other similar locations during the weekends. These schools were usually staffed by volunteers, and they were usually provided for free or only charged a nominal fee. In 1998, there were about 8000 students enrolled in 55 community language schools throughout Southern California. According to a survey by the Vietnamese government, in 2009 there were more than 200 institutions or centers teaching Vietnamese, each with between 100 to 1000 enrolled students. In California, there were 16,000 students enrolled in the 86–90 centers, with about 1,600 teachers. The Union of Overseas Vietnamese Language Schools (TAVIET), formerly the Union of Vietnamese Language Centers of Southern California, counts among its members about 100 Vietnamese language schools in Southern California. These schools coordinate to create a common curriculum and to create a common textbook, instead of using textbooks published in Vietnam. Textbooks created by TAVIET include ''Sổ Tay Chính Tả'' (a grammar book), the eight-volume ''Giáo Khoa Việt Ngữ'' for students in kindergarten to 7th grade, and the five-volume ''Sử Việt Bằng Tranh'' (''Vietnamese History through Pictures''). The textbooks produced by TAVIET are also used in some public school districts in California in their dual-language immersion programs. In addition, the National Language Center for Asian Languages (NRCAL) at
California State University, Fullerton California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...
also develops teaching materials based on Vietnamese-American experiences, are more culturally sensitive and in accordance with community needs. In a survey among the Vietnamese American community in Southern California, while only 25% of those from the first generation send their children to Vietnamese language schools, this doubled to 50% in the 1.5 generation and second generation.


Mainstream schools

From 1998 to 2016,
bilingual education In bilingual education, students are taught in two (or more) languages. It is distinct from learning a second language as a subject because both languages are used for instruction in different content areas like math, science, and history. The t ...
in California encountered difficulties due to a ban passed by voters. It wasn't until 2016, after voters repealed the ban, that bilingual education was allowed to flourish. In some school districts with a large Vietnamese American presence, many schools established bilingual classes in English and Vietnamese, principally at the primary level. In the 2016–2017 school year, 4 school districts nationwide had bilingual Vietnamese-English programs:
Westminster School District The Westminster School District (WSD) is a school district in Orange County, California, established in 1872 and headquartered in Westminster. It operates schools in Westminster, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, and Midway City. It operates elem ...
in California,
Austin Independent School District Austin Independent School District (AISD) is a school district based in the city of Austin, Texas, United States. Established in 1881, the district serves most of the City of Austin and surrounding towns, the City of Sunset Valley, the Village ...
in Texas, Portland School District in Oregon, and
Highline Public Schools Highline Public Schools (HPS) is a public school district in King County, headquartered in Burien, Washington. As of October 2007, it served 17,331 students and had 997 teachers, and served the cities of Burien, much of Des Moines, Normandy Park ...
in
King County, Washington King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the st ...
. In Austin, officials were considering more classes for middle and high school students. Students enrolled in these programs are primarily ethnically Vietnamese, but there are those from other ethnicities as well. In Westminster, the district coordinated with CSU Fullerton to develop the curriculum. By 2021, the programs had spread further, especially in the two areas with high concentration of Vietnamese people in San Jose ( Alum Rock and Franklin–McKinley school districts) and
Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...
in California. Outside of primary and secondary schools, some colleges and universities also have Vietnamese language classes as well as classes teaching Vietnamese history, literature, and culture. Efforts to bring Vietnamese language courses to universities were successful in schools such as
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
,
Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...
,
Cornell Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
,
UT Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
,
UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...
,
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
,
UCSD The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
,
Arizona State Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...
, and the
University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...
. At UCSD, students were successful in maintaining the program through community contributions after budget shortfalls threatened the program. In addition, about 300 instructors are trained annually at
CSU Long Beach California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) is a public research university in Long Beach, California. The 322-acre campus is the second largest of the 23-school California State University system (CSU) and one of the largest universities i ...
.


Role of the Vietnamese government

In a 2004 interview with ''
VnExpress ''VnExpress'' is a Vietnamese online newspaper, run by FPT Group. It was the first newspaper in Vietnam that was not produced in paper format.
'', Tôn Nữ Thị Ninh, then the deputy chairwoman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the
National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...
, answered a question about "individuals and organizations teaching Vietnamese to overseas Vietnamese people, without waiting for a project from the State": For many years, the Vietnamese government had plans to send language teachers to diasporic communities; in 2004, the
Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contraction ...
launched a project to spend 500,000 USD to send language teachers from Vietnam to work overseas "where it is possible". This project was aimed at researching the status of language teaching in overseas Vietnamese communities, building syllabi, publishing study materials and organizing classes in community and cultural centers. However, there were reportedly some difficulties in spending money, due to the prospect that any Vietnamese language school in a refugee community in the West funded by the Communist Vietnamese government will be immediately boycotted and picketed. Officials have approached Vietnamese academics overseas to offer financial support to develop syllabi and organize classes. These classes were planned to provide "neutral" language learning materials to "update" the "old-fashioned" Vietnamese spoken overseas, provide some professionalism to the classroom and create a forum free of politics, in contrast to the community language classes. However, with the difficulties associated with bringing government-supported teaching materials into diasporic communities, these plans were only possible via electronic means (through the Internet and satellite TV). In 2010, the US was one of 6 countries in a pilot government project to teach Vietnamese to overseas Vietnamese. In an interview, a government representative stated that one of the challenges for "those who participate in maintaining Vietnamese among generations of Vietnamese overseas" is "the competition for influence among external Vietnamese language teaching centers". Since 2005, the Vietnamese government began to compile the curriculum for teaching Vietnamese to overseas Vietnamese people. In 2016, the
Ministry of Education and Training The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET, vi, Bộ Giáo dục và Đào tạo) is the government ministry responsible for the governance of general/academic education and higher education (training) in Vietnam. Vocational Education is co ...
published two books, ''Tiếng Việt vui'' and ''Quê Việt'' for this purpose. The use of Vietnamese government-produced teaching material in the classroom is vociferously rejected by the Vietnamese community in the United States, which is composed mostly of refugees who fled Vietnam to escape Communism. Those who are opposed contend that Vietnamese government-produced materials are not appropriate for Vietnamese American students, and do not fulfill the needs of parents in teaching their children why they left their country of origin. In 2015, the mayor of Westminster
Tri Ta Tri Ta (born 1973) is an American politician currently serving as a member of the California State Assembly. He represents Assembly District 70, which consists of much of the Little Saigon area of northwestern Orange County, California, Orange C ...
sounded the alarm about a textbook widely used in public schools in the United States, in which terms that are only used inside Vietnam (such as "đăng ký
hộ khẩu The hộ khẩu is a family register and residence registration system in Vietnam. ''Hộ'' (戶) is the Sino-Vietnamese word for "household," and ''khẩu'' (口) is the word "mouth", hộ khẩu itself meaning "household member." The local author ...
" - ''family registration'' and "đăng ký kết hôn" - ''marriage registration'') are taught to students, and even the Communist Vietnamese flag is seen in a picture of a stamp. This is seen as proof that "Communist materials are used to teach Vietnamese".


Computer support

Vietnamese speakers in the United States were instrumental in adding support for the language in computer systems. In the early years of the Internet, Vietnamese users used the
VIQR Vietnamese Quoted-Readable (usually abbreviated VIQR), also known as Vietnet, is a convention for writing Vietnamese using ASCII characters encoded in only 7 bits, making possible for Vietnamese to be supported in computing and communication system ...
convention in online forums to express Vietnamese with the
ASCII ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...
character set using standard keyboards used in the United States (which did not have support for tonal marks). In 1989, the Viet-Std Group was formed to coordinate with international standardization organizations to standardize the various encodings for Vietnamese. Viet-Std proposed the
VISCII VISCII is an unofficially-defined modified ASCII character encoding for using the Vietnamese language with computers. It should not be confused with the similarly-named officially registered VSCII encoding. VISCII keeps the 95 printable chara ...
encoding standard to support Vietnamese characters with tonal marks. Another non-profit, TriChlor Software, developed word processing software that can support Vietnamese on computers. At the same time, other organizations such as
VNI VNI Software Company is a developer of various education, entertainment, office, and utility computer software, software packages. They are known for developing an Character encoding, encoding (VNI encoding) and a popular input method (VNI Input) ...
,
VNLabs VNLabs or VN Labs is a software company based in San Jose, California, that specializes in input methods for various languages. History VN Labs was founded in 1984 by Viet Nguyen, an engineer at Teledyne, in Newport Beach, California. The previo ...
, and the Vietnamese Professionals Society also proposed standards and produced software to support Vietnamese. With multiple competing standards, support for Vietnamese on computers was complicated until the
Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
standard was widely adopted. Due to political reasons, the TCVN standard developed by the Vietnamese government was not widely used outside of Vietnam. In 1999, , and John Balaban formed the
Vietnamese Nom Preservation Foundation Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...
aiming to preserve the
chữ Nôm Chữ Nôm (, ; ) is a logographic writing system formerly used to write the Vietnamese language. It uses Chinese characters (''Chữ Hán'') to represent Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary and some native Vietnamese words, with other words represented ...
script. The Foundation helped to digitize and make available online many works written in the script. The Foundation was dissolved in 2018 after declaring that its initial goals had been achieved.


Characteristics

After several decades with no frequent contact with the country of origin, the Vietnamese language outside of Vietnam, especially in the United States, has diverged. Observers have noted some differences between the varieties and observed that the language outside of Vietnam showed signs of influence from English, and some variations in syntax and vocabulary when compared to the language as spoken inside Vietnam.


Influences from English

Many Vietnamese speakers in the US are also fluent in English. In daily speech, many people
code switch ''Code Switch'' is a race and culture outlet and a weekly podcast from American public radio network NPR. It began in 2013 with a blog as well as contributing stories to NPR radio programs. The Code Switch podcast launched in 2016. In the wake ...
, mixing English vocabulary in Vietnamese phrases. Đào Mục Đích from the
Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNUHCM, vi, Đại học Quốc gia Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh) is one of the two largest national research universities in Vietnam (the other is Vietnam National University, Hanoi), founded on 27 ...
observed many English influences in the Vietnamese spoken overseas, in usage of vocabulary that seem to be glossed directly from English that seemed strange to speakers inside Vietnam, and in the insertion of English words in mass media, especially in advertising. The author also cited several syntactical formations that showed influence from English, such as excessive usage of the
passive voice A passive voice construction is a grammatical voice construction that is found in many languages. In a clause with passive voice, the grammatical subject expresses the ''theme'' or ''patient'' of the main verb – that is, the person or thing t ...
construction "bị/được bởi/do/nhờ" that is rarely used in Vietnam because their usage is still a matter of debate. For
heritage language A heritage language is a minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a d ...
users, their usage of Vietnamese may show characteristic influences from English such as using generic terms translated from English instead of more expressive terms available in Vietnamese (''carry'' - mang, vác, khiêng, bồng bế, xách, bưng; ''wear -'' mặc, mang, đeo, đội), overusing the generic classifier ''cái'' or omitting classifiers altogether, not using
reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word (or part of it) or even the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The classic observation on the semantics of reduplication is Edwa ...
, or using simple
pronouns In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts o ...
such as ''con''.


Differences from language spoken in Vietnam

After 1975, the Vietnamese language in Vietnam evolved due to increased interaction between the various dialects; at the same time, Vietnamese overseas still maintain the phonetics and vocabulary from South Vietnam prior to 1975. While Vietnamese in the US also has three distinct dialects (Northern, Central and Southern) like in Vietnam, the Northern dialect is phonetically influenced by the Southern and Central dialects due to migration of Northerners to the South between 1954 and 1975. The Northern Vietnamese dialect spoken in the US does not merge the initial consonants ''l'' and ''n'' and does not pronounce the consonants ''r'', ''d'', and ''gi'' like the dialect in Vietnam. The Southern (Saigon) dialect remains the standard and is overwhelmingly used in the Vietnamese American community, whereas in Vietnam the Northern (Hanoi) dialect is promoted by the government as the standard. In the US, speakers of the Northern dialect are stigmatized and treated with suspicion as supporters of the Communist government until their political views are known. According to Đào Mục Đích, Vietnamese spoken overseas use Sino-Vietnamese words much more often than the language spoken in Vietnam. In the variety used in Vietnam, these terms are either replaced by native terms (for example điều giải - hòa giải, đệ nhị thế chiến - chiến tranh thế giới thứ hai, túc cầu - bóng đá) or by direct borrowings (for example sinh tố - vitamin, phụ hệ di truyền thể - DNA, Mỹ kim - đô la Mỹ). These also include country names such as ''Á Căn Đình'' for
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
, ''A Phú Hãn'' for Afghanistan, ''Phi Luật Tân'' for
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, and ''Tô Cách Lan'' for
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. Vietnamese spoken abroad also tend to create new words using Sino-Vietnamese roots, a tendency that he also observed in domestic media. He also cited some word usage that he described as inaccurate or inappropriate for the context. Conversely, some Vietnamese American activists such as the journalist Trần Phong Vũ contend that the Vietnamese language spoken in Vietnam use many new words inappropriately when considering their original meanings. He stated that some new language developments in Vietnam have the tendency to "go against morals", counter to the "tradition of modesty" of Vietnamese people when "bombastic" terms devoid of meaning are in wide use, although he conceded that some creative terms are acceptable when used carefully and wisely. In 2018, the Vietnamese History and Culture Research Institute organized a convention to standardize the orthography of the Vietnamese language spoken in the US, attracting many participants. During this convention, participants voted on and agreed to maintain the current alphabet of 23 letters (without adding "f" or "j"), place the tonal mark on the main vowel (in accordance with phonetic principles), continue to use both "i" and "y" as vowels, and to use Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in "a proper and judicious manner".


Challenges

Usage of Vietnamese in the public sphere has at times generated controversy. In 2008, two co-valedictorians used a Vietnamese phrase to thank their families during their graduation speech at
Ellender High School Ellender Memorial High School, is a public high school located in Houma, Louisiana, United States. It is within the Terrebonne Parish School District and is the fourth public high school to open in that district. Ellender Memorial High School was ...
in
Houma, Louisiana Houma ( ) is the largest city in, and the parish seat of, Terrebonne Parish in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is also the largest principal city of the Houma– Bayou Cane–Thibodaux metropolitan statistical area. The city's government ...
. After the incident, the
Terrebonne Parish School Board Terrebonne Parish School District is a school district headquartered in Bayou Cane, an unincorporated area in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, near Houma. The district serves residents in Terrebonne Parish, including the city of Houma as well as the ...
proposed rules to require that graduation speeches use only English. Faced with opposition from the
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
(ACLU) and the
Council for the Development of French in Louisiana The Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL; french: le Conseil pour le développement du français en Louisiane) is Louisiana's Office of Francophone Affairs (french: Agence des affaires francophones). It is a state agency wh ...
(CODOFIL), as well as Vietnamese-American parents in
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
and
Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...
, the school board rescinded the proposal. Many Vietnamese Americans are leery of some Vietnamese words that appeared after 1975 and reject them as "communist" or as being characteristic of the communist regime. When translating material into Vietnamese for the Vietnamese American community in the United States, translators who did not avoid such terminologies possibly risk triggering some painful memories in their target audience. For example, Vietnamese Americans prefer "ghi danh" (''to sign up'') instead of "đăng ký" (''to register'') and "thống kê dân số" (''population tabulation'') instead of "điều tra dân số" (''population investigation'') for "census". Government agencies that did not consider these subtle differences in their translations have seen increased mistrust, lowering participation rate in government programs, such as voting or responding to the census. In 2010, after the ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill, many Vietnamese American fishermen in
Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
were initially reluctant to file for compensation from BP because the company employed translators from Vietnam who used allegedly "communist terminology". In 2018, a billboard advertising flights to Vietnam operated by ANA sparked outrage in the Vietnamese American community in San Jose because it referred to the largest city in Vietnam as "
Ho Chi Minh City , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...
" in English instead of "Saigon" as in the Vietnamese text; this ad was quickly removed. In addition, many translations made by government agencies caused confusion when translating too literally, as in documentation for
Obamacare The Affordable Care Act (ACA), formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and colloquially known as Obamacare, is a landmark U.S. federal statute enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by Presid ...
, when "insurance marketplace" was translated literally as a physical
marketplace A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a '' souk'' (from the Arabic), ' ...
. In many Vietnamese classes at the university level, instructors who were trained in Vietnam after 1975 often use the Northern (
Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi is ...
) dialect to teach, as this was mandated by the Hanoi government.
Heritage language A heritage language is a minority language (either immigrant or indigenous) learned by its speakers at home as children, and difficult to be fully developed because of insufficient input from the social environment. The speakers grow up with a d ...
learners exposed to the language through their families, who are often from the South or Central regions, were often chastised in class for using "improper", "outdated", or "backwards" vocabularies. Attempting to learn the Northern dialect to communicate with their families would backfire due to the stigma associated with this dialect among Vietnamese Americans. This would lead to antipathy towards the language and cause the student to abandon learning Vietnamese. Many parents have registered complaints with the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
but , this disconnect still persists.


References


Bibliography


Primary sources

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Books

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Research

* * * * * * * * * * * *


News

* * * * * * *


External links


NRCAL
- National Resource Center for Asian Languages at
California State University, Fullerton California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...

TAVIET
- Union of Overseas Vietnamese language schools {{languages of the United States Vietnamese-American culture Languages of the United States Languages without Glottolog code Vietnamese language