August 13, 2020
For many of us in PIVOT who are immigrants or children of immigrants, the news that Senator Kamala Harris, the daughter of an Indian immigrant and a Jamaican immigrant, has been chosen as the Democratic Party’s nominee for Vice President of the United States, is nothing short of astonishing and inspiring.
Read MoreVietnamese version: 06-26-2020
English version: 07-19-2020
Khai Q Nguyen, PIVOT Member
The 2020 election season is boiling up. There are less than four months left before the U.S. presidential election on November 3. Joe Biden will be the official Democratic presidential candidate. Therefore, in recent days, President Trump's supporters have fabricated and spread the news that Mr. Biden was against Vietnamese refugees in the mid-1970s in order to get Vietnamese-American votes for Mr. Trump. Since Mr. Biden had been a very young senator at the age of 30, just barely old enough to hold the office, a review of Congressional records will probably tell you what the truth is. This will also be a good opportunity to review laws on the evacuation and relief of Vietnamese refugees and related news in the 1970s.
Read MoreJuly 20, 2020
PIVOT-The Progressive Vietnamese American Organization is excited to announce its PIVOT Fellow program. We are seeking to identify and select PIVOT Fellows to work on the 2020 elections in the following states: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas. There may be opportunities for other states depending on funding. Fellows will work on a part-time basis with a local non-profit on voter engagement, primarily with Vietnamese and other Asian American populations.
Fellowship will run three month from August - November.
Responsibilities may include but not limited to:
-Outreach at community events
-Mailers and other print outreach activities
-Digital outreach including texting and mobile apps
-Coordinating volunteers for door knocking (if possible)
-Provide cultural and other expertise to other organizations
Requirements:
-Experience with campaigns and knowledge of Vietnamese-American community preferred but not required
-Strong interpersonal skills
-Positive attitude and ability to motivate others
-Valid Driver’s License and/or access to reliable transportation
Compensation
-$5,000 for three months
The application can be accessed here.
July 1, 2020
Hieu Le, PIVOT Board Member
The United States of America for decades has been a country of refuge for Vietnamese immigrants and refugees, offering levels of freedom and opportunities that were not possible elsewhere. Millions of Vietnamese people gave up everything they knew, uprooting and risking their entire lives to traverse to an unknown country. They did so because they knew that the United States represented freedom and opportunity.
This country has allowed many Vietnamese Americans to achieve the American dream, such as attaining quality education, providing better opportunities for their children, and having the ability to live in a democratic country where they can vote and exercise their civic duty.
Read MoreJune 28, 2020
Tung Nguyen, PIVOT president
I’ve been working through this for a while now but still haven’t got to a place of equilibrium regarding my privileges and whatever is the opposite.
Some of my privileges are that my 2-parents household was middle class, I received an elite education at the college and post-grad level, I am a professional making decent money, and though I have no formal power, I do have a certain amount of influence in my spheres of work, namely health research and academia. And I’m a man.
I don’t know what to call the opposite of privilege that I have, because I don’t consider them penalties but also privileges. I was a refugee. I was an English learner. I have always been a minority wherever I’ve been since I was 10 years old. I was young in a culture that respects the old and now I’m old in a culture that values youth. I live in a world that emasculates Asian men.
Read MoreJune 20, 2020
As of June 20, 2020, there are over 8.4 million people diagnosed with COVID-19 and over 445,000 deaths worldwide. In the US, there are over 2.2 million infections and more than 118,000 deaths.
The number of cases is surging in many states, particularly those in the South and Southeast. In Oklahoma, which has been in the news because of the planned Trump rally on 6/20, there were 450 new cases on Thursday, 150 more than the previous high earlier in the week. California had several days this week with over 5000 new cases, the most during the pandemic. Florida and Arizona also had the highest number of cases to date. As I’ve mentioned before, tracking # of hospitalizations is a good way to distinguish between increasing number of cases due to testing or due to new infections. In Texas, the number of people hospitalized with COVID is approaching 3000 per day, doubling what it was 3 weeks ago.
Read MoreJune 18, 2020
PIVOT celebrates today’s major victory with our DACAmented community, as we laud our nation’s decision to choose humanity over injustice. Today’s Supreme Court ruling recognizes that immigrants are interwoven into the fabric of America’s society.
As Vietnamese immigrants and refugees and their children, we stand in solidarity with these DACA recipients. As we breathe a sigh of relief, we know our fight continues. For the other 11 million immigrants who still face deportation. For our Black community whose lives are senselessly taken by police brutality and systemic racism.. For our LGBTQ+ community who face ongoing discrimination and violence for just being. As we celebrate this momentous victory, let us commit to continuing the fight for our collective liberation.
Let us protest. Let us kneel. Let us act in true solidarity. Let us fight for permanent legislative reforms. Let us vote. For those who cannot do so, and ultimately for all of us.
Read MoreJune 13, 2020
Thang Do, PIVOT board member
You could be an ordinary farmer, student, or housewife, going about your business. Strangers take you at gunpoint, tie you up and string you together with folks like you, then force you to walk, sometimes for a thousand miles or more. They pack you along with hundreds of others into the cramped hull of a ship. The place is ridden with disease; there’s barely enough air to breathe, room to move; people relieve themselves where they sit. The journey across the ocean will take at least two months. If you show signs of disobedience, they beat you mercilessly to set an example for others. They are prepared to kill you one by one and throw you overboard until you all “behave.”
Read MoreJune 12, 2020
PIVOT stands in solidarity with Black Lives Matter. We mourn the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Nina Pop and so many others lost to police and systematic violence and oppression against the Black community. We stand in support of millions of people taking to the streets to express pain, grief, and outrage, and to demand fundamental change in this country.
As refugees, children of refugees, and immigrants, who all have roots to Việt Nam, we have a history of denouncing injustice, fighting against oppression, and believing in a better future for ourselves and our family. We also recognize that our community has also been complicit in this systematic oppression. It is time we stand up against this injustice and fight alongside our Black brothers and sisters, as they have fought for us and ensured that we as Vietnamese Americans have equal rights in America. Communities of color must come together in this moment of test.
June 8, 2020
Tung Nguyen, PIVOT president
I've tried my whole adult life to stay out of the lightning rod in Vietnamese American communities of talking about the emotions and politics of the Viet Nam War. Partly because that has always been personally painful. Partly because I know it is much more painful for those who went through it and lost friends and family. But mostly because it is just a topic that begets a lot of arguments about the past that infects the present and usually does not lead to anything positive for the future.
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