Hoàng thị Diệu-Hiền

Vietnamese Studies has a new PhD! I am delighted to announce to VSG that a month ago at the UW School of Nursing in Seattle, Hoàng thị Diệu-Hiền defended her dissertation "Stories of Us – Chuyện Kể Nhau Nghe: Building Community for Health through Stories.” The dissertation was the crowning conclusion to multi-year community involvement and a year-long participatory action research project among Vietnamese-Americans in the Seattle area. It (a) examined the relationships between cultural displacement, community cohesion, and self-rated health (SRH), (b) explored the effects of inter-generational life review (story telling) interventions on these variables, and (c) assessed the feasibility and acceptability of "Stories of Us – Chuyện Kể Nhau Nghe" among Vietnamese-Americans. Diệu-Hiền’s dissertation committee comprised Drs. Elaine Walsh (chair), Elaine Thompson, Mayumi Willgerodt, and Shirley Beresford; at earlier stages of the project, Drs. Bonnie Duran and Laurie Sears also offered important guidance.

The dissertation found strong evidence that life review interventions reduced and prevented depression by improving meaning in life, ego integrity, mastery, and positive thoughts. It established promising evidence that inter-generational life reviews in particular promoted participants’ connections with each other and with other people; as a result, it developed a conceptual framework for further research with refugees and immigrants.

Research results of the "Stories of Us – Chuyện Kể Nhau Nghe" project contribute in important ways to existing literature on Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR), with the following insights: (1) mutual respect and trust are essential and must be gained from long-term involvement with the community, (2) CBPR projects need to utilize existing community resources to build capacity, facilitate empowerment, and promote ownership, and (3) CBPR organizers should commit sufficient time, expertise, and personnel to sustain health promotion activities and their impact over the long-term.

Finally, results from a community survey showed that cultural displacement negatively affected SRH, but that the effect is mediated by community cohesion. The evaluation showed that an intervention such as "Stories of Us – Chuyện Kể Nhau Nghe” is feasible and filled a community need among Vietnamese-Americans in the Greater Seattle area.

Through the dissertation process, Diệu-Hiền has maintained her commitment to nursing education and is pursuing an academic posting that will enable her to teach Nursing while continuing her research on cultural displacement, community cohesion and health. Congratulations, Dr. Diệu-Hiền!

Note: Dr. Diệu-Hiền noted that, in 1620, the new immigrants from the Mayflower started the practice of keeping their own names, spelling and pronouncing their names the way they do in English instead of following the traditions of the Peoples of the land to which they immigrated. Therefore, Diệu-Hiền follows their example, keeps her heritage, and writes her name the Vietnamese way, Hoàng thị Diệu-Hiền (family name first, given name last). She also prefers to be addressed by her given name as it is the Vietnamese way.

C. Giebel

UW-Seattle