 |
|
|
|
|
Bui Diem is a consultant on Vietnam, author of "In the Jaws of History”, and
Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States from 1967 to 1972, one of the key
figures in the relationship between South Vietnamese and the U.S. in this
tumultuous period.
Nguyen Quoc Tuan arrived in the United States in 1981. He resettled in Olympia, Washington as a boat people refugee. He attended and graduated from the University of Washington (1984-1989). He worked 9 months in Rochester, MN as an intern for IBM during his senior year of college. He was actively involved with the Vietnamese Students Association (VSA) and the communities in Seattle and Rochester. He was elected vice-president and president of VSA during his sophomore and junior years, respectively. In 1989, Tuan joined the United States Navy and served in the Persian Gulf to enforce the No-Fly Zones over Iraq after the Persian Gulf War. He attained the rank of Lieutenant. After his military service, Tuan began his MBA and graduate studies at UC Irvine and the San Diego State University. From 1994-2000, he worked for the Navy as a civilian electrical engineer/project manager. He currently works for the US Department of State as project executive/construction manager.
His hobbies include sports, music, travel, reading. He is a registered
professional Electrical Engineer in California
and Virginia.
Born June 12, 1935, in Hanoi, Dao Thi Hoi received her early training in Vietnam. She obtained a B.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Saigon in 1960. Her graduate work was done at Columbia University in New York where she received a M.A. in Linguistics and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in 1961, her Professional Diploma in 1962 and her Ed. D. (Doctorate in Education) in the same field from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1965. Dr. Hoi—as she is professionally known—retired in June 2000 after 46 years of teaching (high school, college and university levels). Her last function before retirement was ESL Chairperson at Edison High School in Fairfax, VA. Before then, she taught Vietnamese Culture and Civilization in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at George Mason University (Fairfax, VA), was a bilingual teacher trainer at Trinity College (Washington, DC), in various Teacher Corps projects and in the School of Languages and Linguistics (SLL), Georgetown University. Dr. Hoi has been an educator all her life, having taught Vietnamese and English Literature in high school (Trung Vuong H.S. for Girls, Saigon) from 1955 to 1960; been in charge of teacher training for the Vietnamese American Association (VAA, Saigon) from 1965 to 1968, during which time she also cumulated the functions of Chairperson, Language Department, University of Saigon Faculty of Medicine, and Lecturer at various universities in South Vietnam (Saigon Faculty of Letters and Faculty of Pedagogy, and Van Hanh Buddhist University). In 1967-68, she represented Vietnam on the Southeast Asian Regional English Language Center (RELC) Coordinating Committee and was concurrently Rapporteur for SEAMEO (Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization)-RELC Coordinating Committee (Singapore). From 1969 till May 1971, she was with WIT (World Instruction and Translation, Inc., Arlington, VA) where she was first Senior Linguist and Chairman of the Vietnamese Department (41 teacher staff), then Academic Coordinator for the entire school (which taught 71 languages on Defense Department contracts). From August 1972 to April 1975, she assumed both functions of Dean of Studies and Secretary-General at Mekong University (Saigon, Vietnam). Since coming back to the States, she has been a Counselor in Camp Management, Ft. Indian-town Gap Refugee Arrival Center (1975), Bilingual Assistant to the ESOL Program Coordinator, Arlington Public Schools (Arlington, VA), 1976-77, and College On-site Coordinator for the Arlington-Trinity College Teach Corps Project in Bilingual-Multicultural Education (Elisabeth Maxwell, Director). Dr. Hoi is one of the founding members of NAVAE (National Association for Vietnamese American Education) in which she served as one of the original Vice Presidents, from 1979 to 1989. This association used to gather Vietnamese and American educators who are concerned with all educational issues and aspects affecting Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian students in the U.S. As a founding member of NCVA (National Congress of Vietnamese in America) since 1986, Dr. Hoi has also been a long-time member of NCVA’s Board of Directors, where she serves as General Administrator. In terms of management, Dr. Hoi has been Academic Coordinator in charge of teacher training at the Vietnamese American Association (1966-68) in Saigon and WIT in Arlington, VA (1969-71), and a teacher trainer at Trinity College, 1978-80, and GU-BESC (Georgetown University Bilingual Education Service Center), 1986-89. She was also the founder and first Chairperson of the Language School attached to Saigon Univeristy Medical School (1965-68), SEAMEO-RELC Coordinator and Rapporteur in Singapore (representing Vietnam), Dean of Studies and Secretary-General in charge of Management at Mekong University in Saigon (1972-75). In most of these functions she was the first person on the job and therefore had to develop full programs of studies for these institutions. Dr. Hoi is often called upon to lecture widely across the United States on Vietnamese education, contrastive analysis of Vietnamese and English, Vietnamese-American cultural differences, ESOL methodology and curriculum development. She is also a consummate workshop organizer, an expert on in-service and teacher training. Dr. Hoi is the author
and/or co-author of a number of educational materials, including a famous
sound-slide presentation (1/2 hour long) entitled Vietnamese Culture and
Language (1975) and a very well-known paper on the history of the Vietnamese
language, which she co-authored with Nguyen Ngoc Bich, “Linguistic Strata in the
History of the Vietnamese Language” (published by The Indochina Institute,
George Mason University, 1983). Her doctoral dissertation deal with
“Representation of Time and Time-Relationships in English and Vietnamese,” a
comparative analysis (1965).
1975-2002 , Le Van Ba, 81 years old, has been a resident of Gaithersburg, MD for
more than 27 year resident.
Lu AnhThu arrived in the United States in
1975 at Camp Pendleton, CA. In
1976, her family moved to Falls Church, Virginia. She graduated from the George Washington University
in 1982 and received her advance degree from Strayer University in 1994.
Her hobbies include traveling, sports, movies and lobbying.
Nguyen Ngoc Bich is currently Director of the Vietnamese Service at Radio Free Asia (RFA). Born in Hanoi, Vietnam, and educated in Saigon, the United States, Japan and Europe, Mr. Bich is fluent in seven languages. He came to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship as an undergraduate student and received his B.A. from Princeton University (Political Science, 1958). He did graduate work in Asian studies at Columbia University (1959-65), Japanese literature at Kyoto University (1962-63), bilingual education and theoretical linguistics at Georgetown University (1980-85). As an educator, Nguyen Ngoc Bich has taught at university level both in Vietnam and in the United States. Since coming to the U.S. in 1975, he has taught adult education, elementary school and high school in Arlington, Virginia, then at the university level at Trinity College, George Mason University (where he taught Vietnamese Literature and Vietnamese Culture and Civilization), and Georgetown University (where he was a teacher trainer in Bilingual and Multicultural Education). Together with his wife, Dr. Dao Thi Hoi, a linguist and ESL specialist, he was one of a group of educators who in 1979 founded NAVAE (National Association for Vietnamese American Education), the ancestor of NAFEA (National Association for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese Americans). Mr. Bich was the third president of NAVAE, which he headed from 1984 to 1986. Widely recognized for his work in education, he was appointed by President Bush to the post of Deputy Director, Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs (aka OBEMLA), at the U.S. Department of Education, where he served under Secretary Lamar Alexander from 1991 to 1993. Mr. Bich is Chairman, Board of Directors, of Boat People S.O.S., Inc. a community service organization located in Falls Church, VA. He was also the founder of National News Service, which provides news of interest to readers of Vietnamese language newspapers worldwide, and one of the founding members of NCVA (National Congress of Vietnamese in America, formed in 1986). He is the author of a number of publications on Vietnam, including An Annotated Atlas of the Republic of Vietnam (1972), North Vietnam: Backtracking on Socialism (1971) and Literature Under Communism in Vietnam (under press). But he is best known as a translator and writer on the arts. The author of The Poetry of Vietnam (Asia Society of New York, 1969), A Thousand Years of Vietnamese Poetry (Knopf, 1975), he also edited War and Exile: A Vietnamese Anthology (Vietnamese PEN, 1989) and translated two collections of poetry coming from the pen of Nguyen Chi Thien, Hoa Dia Nguc / The Flowers of Hell and Hat Mau Tho / Blood Seeds Become Poetry (both published in 1996). In the field of art and music, he co-authored (with his wife, Dr. Dao Thi Hoi) a bilingual collection of Christmas carols (1975) and translated a book on Vietnamese Architecture (1972). More recently, he has translated Truong Anh Thuy’s Truong Ca Loi Me Ru / A Mother’s Lullaby (1989); had a hand in doing a photography book by Tran Cao Linh, Vietnam, My Country Forever (Aide à l’Enfance du Vietnam, 1988), the catalogue of a traveling exhibition of Vietnamese and Vietnamese American paintings, An Ocean Apart (Smithsonian, 1996), the book Thai Tuan: Selected Paintings and Essays (VAALA, 1996); and has completed a comprehensive history on Seven Thousand Years of Vietnamese Ceramics (under press). His edition of the complete works of the poetess Ho Xuan Huong (ca. 1770-1835) was published in 2000 to wide acclaim. His most recent publication (2002) is Omar Khayyam – Rubaiyat: Tho va Doi, a study of the famous eleventh-century Persian poet-astronomer-philosopher and his world-renowned poetry collection made famous by Edward Fitzgerald’s English translation. Prior to joining RFA (in January 1997), Mr. Bich has worked for 13 years as a Vietnamese-language Program Director for WHFS 103.4 FM and WPFW 89.3 FM in Washington, DC. Because of his varied background and mastery of many aspects of Vietnamese culture, he is a much sought-after lecturer nationwide, on college campuses, at national and international conferences. As a world-renowned translator from and into Vietnamese, Mr.
Bich is also often asked to do simultaneous translation for international
conferences and in public courts of law.
Nguyen Manh Hung is associate professor of Public and International Affairs, director of the Indochina Program, and program coordinator of the Asia Pacific Studies Minor, George Mason University. He received his License en Droit (J.D.) from the Faculty of Law, University of Saigon (1960), and both his M.A. (1963) and Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Virginia (1965). Prior to 1975, Dr. Hung was professor of International Politics, National School of Public Administration and the University of Saigon, Vietnam, and a frequent lecturer at the National Defense College. Outside the academia, Dr. Hung chaired several committees to reorganize
the Vietnamese civil service, served as planning advisor to the President of the
National Economic Development Fund, then Deputy Minister of National Planning of
the Republic of Vietnam. A former Fulbright Scholar and Social Science Research
Council Fellow, Dr. Hung is the author of several books, book chapters, and
articles. His major publications include Introduction to International
Relations (Saigon, 1971), Peace and Development in South Vietnam
(with Nguyen Van Hao et al, Saigon, 1973), and The Challenge of Vietnam's
Reconstruction (with A. Terry Rambo and Neil L. Jameison, Virginia, 1991).
His contributed book chapters to New Directions in the International
Relations of Southeast Asia (Singapore University Press, 1973), Refugees
in the United States (Greenwood Press, 1985), The American War in
Vietnam: Lessons, Legacies, and Implications for Future Conflict (Greenwood
Press, 1987), Refugees in America in the 1990's (Greenwood Press, 1996),
Southeast Asia On The Growth Path (Universiti Pertanian Malaysia Press,
1997) and published articles in World Affairs, Asian Survey,
Pacific Affairs, Amerasia Journal, and Journal of Asian Thought
and Society. Dr. Hung is a member of the International Studies Association
and the Association for Asian Studies and has participated in major policy
working groups on Vietnam and Indochina, including the Indochina Policy Forum of
the Aspen Institute, the Indochina Study Group of the Council on Foreign
Relations, and the Southeast Asia Working Group of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies. He has served as an advisor to the National Association
for the Education and Advancement of Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese
Americans (NAFEA), the National Congress of Vietnamese in America (NCVA), and
the Vietnamese Association for Computing, Engineering Technology and Science (VACETS).
Dang Pham has been appointed by San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown as Executive Director of the Immigrant Rights Commission/City Census 2000 Liaison on October 18, 1999. With this appointment, Dang was the first Vietnamese American appointed as the Department Head in the history of the City and County of San Francisco. He was the former Deputy Assistant Secretary/Chief of Staff of the Office of Bilingual Education & Minority Languages Affairs, US Department of Education. Dang was appointed by President Clinton on February 28, 1994. In November 1996, he was on a one-year special assignment as the Deputy Director of the Office of Presidential Personnel in the White House for outreach to the Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders community. Dang left Washington, D.C. in 1998 and became the Executive Director of Petrusky Educational Center in Garden Grove, Orange County. The center offers an after school program for the Vietnamese students in the Orange County area. Dang Pham was appointed by Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts in 1986 as the Educational Program Director of the Massachusetts Office for Refugees & Immigrants. He was the first Asian American appointed as the Commissioner of the Fair Housing Commission of the City of Boston. He was a secondary math teacher and discipline coordinator in Boston Public Schools for 7 years. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1988, 1992, 1996 and 2000. Dang received a number of national awards to recognize his strong commitment and advocate for the language minority community such as:
Nam Van Pham has been a community activist for more than 20 years. Currently, he chairs the Massachusetts Governor Asian American Commission and the American Cancer Society’s Asian American Advisory Board. He has traveled to many states and countries to inform the American and international public about human right abuses in Vietnam by Hanoi communist government. Recently, he organized the Massachusetts Commission for Human Rights in Vietnam, a coalition of Vietnamese American organizations and leading activists to advocate for respect of religious freedom and other individual rights for Vietnam. He is also establishing the Next Vietnam Foundation, whose goal is to advocate for an open Vietnamese society, which includes free elections and government accountability. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses, VietAid, and Veteran Benefits Clearing House. Previously, Governor Weld appointed him to chair the Governor’s Advisory Council on Refugees and Immigrants. After having served the Commonwealth as Commissioner of the Office for Refugees and Immigrants for four years and Deputy Director of International Trade for one year, he returned to the private sector. He has been a Vice President of Metropolitan Banking for Citizens Bank since August 2000. In 1990, the Boston Jaycees honored him as one of the 10
Outstanding Young Leaders. He holds a Master Degree from Harvard’s Kennedy
School of Government and BS from University of Minnesota. He is a fellow of The
Royal Institute for International Affairs, British-American Project. Nam also
taught at Tuft University on Vietnam War as well as US immigration policy.
Jackie Bong-Wright received her Bachelor of Arts, University of Bordeaux, France and Saigon University, Vietnam in 1964. In 1984, she received a M.Sc. in Foreign Service, Georgetown University, International Relations. Jackie Bong-Wright has been involved in numerous activities. In 1981, she was named one of ten outstanding Asian-Americans in the U.S. for 1981 by U.S.-Asia Institute, Washington, D.C. In 1995, she was awarded the Key to the City of Kingston, Jamaica by the Mayor for her social work. Her book Autumn Cloud: From Vietnamese War Widow to American Activist was published in 2001. 2002 – Outreach Worker, Project Resilience, Department of Human Services, Arlington County, counseling Vietnamese affected by 9/11. 2000 – Certified Medical Interpreter, Northern Virginia Area Health Education Center (NOVA-AHEC). 2000 - Recruiter and Trainer of enumerators, U.S. Census Bureau. 1999 – President & CEO, Vietnamese-American Voters Association (VAVA). Educates Vietnamese-Americans on how to access services that contribute to citizens’ civic, social, health, and economic growth. 1998 – Consultant on educational and health-related issues to public and private organizations. Conducts surveys and needs’ assessments. Organizes workshops and conferences, and gives lectures on cross-cultural and belief systems to Department of Health and to public schools. Radio talk show host on Vietnamese radio. Interview Vietnamese on topics including women, youth, health, politics, and the economy. Reporter, Asian Fortune and various Vietnamese newspapers, reporting on community activities. 1985 – 1997 Accompanied diplomat husband to Thailand, Mexico, Trinidad, Jamaica and Brazil, and did immigration work in U.S. Embassies. From 1964-1972, she taught
French at the Alliance Francaise, Saigon, Vietnam. From 1972-1975, she
served as the Director of Cultural Activities for the Vietnamese-American
Association in Saigon, Vietnam. From 1979-1982, she served as the
Executive Director of the Indochinese Refugees Social Services (IRSS) which
provided resettlement and employment services to refugee boat people.
|
|
Home | Events | Programs | Issues | Internships | Donations | Resources | Media Center | Privacy Policy | Contact | About NCVA Copyright 1986-2005 © National Congress of Vietnamese Americans. All rights reserved. |
