Dorchester-VietAID

In 2001, Vietnamese residents in Dorchester decided to build a center at the heart of the Vietnamese community in Massachusetts. The center would be a brand new complex with a non-profit tenant group providing a comprehensive mix of services to meet the needs of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants. The Vietnamese American Community Center was a major community project coordinated by VietAID staff and a 28 member Community Center Steering Committee. This committee involved 100 additional volunteers, who successfully raised more than $140,000 from over 1,000 individuals and businesses for the project. The organizing committee ultimately raised $5.1 million from grassroots, major corporate and foundation supporters, and government agencies to fund the construction project in its entirety. The center’s planning process built leadership within the Vietnamese community by engaging Vietnamese-speaking residents to identify issues and needs, mobilizing other residents’ support, and assisting VietAID to incorporate the community’s input in the center’s development phases.

To this day, the community center remains a safe and welcoming space where Dorchester residents can celebrate, organize, gather, and access needed services. The Vietnamese American Community Center (VACC) serves a place for the community to come together and take part in or learn about programs that can help them improve their health, education, financial well-being, and more. The VACC houses VietAID’s day-care program, which serves 58 pre-school age children, as well as our VSPY and VALA programs, with 65-70 children in the afterschool program and as many as 120 children here during summer months. VietAID is just one of several community organizations that operates out of the VACC. On any given day, as many as 200 children, youth, and adults access services in the building.

https://www.vietaid.org/about-us/history-mission/

BUILDING A COMMUNITY AND INSTITUTIONS TO SERVE IT

Essential to the integration process was an increase in self-advocacy and civic involvement on the part Vietnamese Americans. Originally the Vietnamese American Civic Association was the primary social service agency serving Vietnamese American residents and the community established several religious and social associations as well. The creation of the community development corporation, the Vietnamese American Initiative for Development (VietAID), in 1994 was a particularly important milestone for the Vietnamese community in Dorchester. Its leadership in convening a group of community members to design, finance and build the Vietnamese American Community Center in 2002—the first of its kind built from the ground up in the United States—was a nationally-recognized accomplishment. Today, VietAID administers a wide variety of services that are utilized by residents of all backgrounds including non–Vietnamese Americans. In particular, its day-care program and affordable housing projects benefit the community as a whole, and its 18,000 square foot community center provides space for many different organizations and events. In turn, mainstream neighborhood agencies like Bartholomew Family Day Care, Neponset Health Center, Dorchester House and Kit Clark Senior Services have increased their capacities to serve Vietnamese Americans (Liu and Lo, 2018).

Ironically, a very public incident of bigotry mobilized the Vietnamese American community to become more civically engaged. In 1992, while riding down Dorchester Avenue for the Dorchester Day Parade, Boston City Councilor Albert (Dapper) O’Neil was videotaped insulting the Vietnamese American enclave. Community members mobilized to protest the indignity and in the process built new relationships with some elected officials. Subsequent initiatives to increase voter registration and turnout among Vietnamese Americans in Fields Corner have been very successful. Another effort that enabled greater civic engagement by the Vietnamese American community was the successful fight for bilingual ballots in 2006. The measure became permanent policy in 2014 (Liu and Lo, 2018).

CHANGING FACES of GREATER BOSTON

A REPORT FROM BOSTON INDICATORS, THE BOSTON FOUNDATION, UMASS BOSTON AND THE UMASS DONAHUE INSTITUTE (May 2019)

ASIAN AMERICANS IN GREATER BOSTON

VIETNAMESE AMERICANS IN FIELDS CORNER (Pp 26-29)