Here’s another article: Link: http://www.sunherald.com/pageone/story/1395707.html Coast Vietnamese have become a culture dispersed Saturday, Jun. 06, 2009 meperez@sunherald.com Biloxi — They left everything in Vietnam and came to Biloxi, where the climate and work were familiar. In 30 years the Vietnamese who settled on The Point built homes, churches, businesses and a community. In about eight hours Katrina annihilated their new homeland. Cathy Nguyen huddled with her family in the attic while 8 feet of water flooded their home. “We fixed our house after the hurricane,” she said. “We’re back in the same house,” but not in the same East Biloxi. PHOTOS BY William Colgin/Sun Herald Xi Truong, a Vietnamese shrimper who works on the Captain John in Biloxi, repairs damaged sections of shrimping nets. Truong said shrimpers who have recovered from Hurricane Katrina are now being hurt by imported supplies driving down the price of shrimp. “It’s really strange, boring. There’s people moving out. It’s like a desert,” she said. Nguyen was born in Vietnam; she moved to the U.S. when she was 7. She’s 16 now and most of her friends have relocated to D’Iberville and Ocean Springs. There were 473 Asians attending Biloxi schools before Katrina and 269 now. The 2010 census will tell where Katrina’s winds have scattered the Vietnamese who lived in Biloxi. The 2000 census counted 2,590 Asians in the city and the 1980 census showed the Asian/Pacific Islander population was the fastest growing in the city. “Vietnamese families who used to live on Point Cadet are now everywhere,” said Trinh Le, community empowerment coordinator at Hope Community Development Agency. “After the storm, many had to move in with family or friends temporarily until they could find more permanent housing.” Some stayed in Texas, California or other states where they evacuated. On the Coast, the Vietnamese no longer are concentrated in East Biloxi, Le said. “We’ve been scattered everywhere, which makes it more difficult for us to disperse information and also for us to be united as a community.” Daniel Le, who works with the Coast Vietnamese through Boat People SOS, said Daniel Le, who works with the Coast Vietnamese through Boat People SOS, said about 65 percent of the pre-Katrina Vietnamese population has returned to East Biloxi. Many of the others took advantage of the high prices offered right after the hurricane and sold their properties to casinos and developers. He said they either wanted to move away from the water or they didn’t have insurance and couldn’t rebuild. The Vietnamese community faces the same challenges as others trying to return to the Coast — the high cost of housing and insurance, the elevation requirements to rebuild, the bad economy. Some Vietnamese have the added challenge of a language barrier. The first generation of Vietnamese in America worked so hard for their families they didn’t have time to learn English, said Kaitlin Truong, who organized a new group, Asian Americans for Change. “They risked everything to come here for their children’s future,” she said. Truong graduated from The University of Mississippi and came back to the Coast to work as a pharmacist. She said education is one of the most important things to the Vietnamese community. For Vietnamese parents who had the opportunity to rebuild their lives in America after the fall of Saigon, and have their children educated and giving back to the community, “it’s just a dream come true for them,” said Truong, “Some college students are coming back, but most aren’t,” said Trinh Le. “Many have moved to New Orleans, Mobile, Houston and even Atlanta because there’s more opportunity for jobs over there. Some people would call it a ‘brain drain.’ However, everyone usually comes back around the holidays because of the importance of family. And some do move back, should there be opportunity for them.” Jennifer Le just graduated from Biloxi High School, where she was named the most outstanding lieutenant governor for the Key Club district that includes Louisiana, Mississippi and West Tennessee. She also was in the National Honor Society and the school’s technology association. After competing for Biloxi Shrimp Queen, she will fly to Albany, N.Y., to decide if she wants to go to college there or start the first two years on the Coast. “I was born and raised in Biloxi. I want snow,” she said, along with the opportunity to study anthropology or go into a medical field. She doesn’t know where life will take her, but she said Biloxi will always be home, and her family has a crab-processing business here. “Seafood has always been a big, strong mainstay,” said Vy Thuc Dao, a graduate student at Tulane University who is researching how Katrina affected the Vietnamese community on the Coast. Many Vietnamese parents pushed their children away from the seafood industry, she said. “They think it’s hard work.” Van Ngo, the owner of the Captain Sen shrimp boat, speaks little English. Through an interpreter he said he’s paid too little for the shrimp he catches. “Some fishermen are selling their boats and getting out of the business,” said Royal Spragio, harbor master at the Lighthouse Dock in Biloxi. It’s a hard life, he said, with the smaller boats gone about two weeks and the large freezer shrimp boats out for four to six weeks. They return for groceries and fuel and head back out again. “They’ll go all the way to Christmas like that,” Spragio said. Magda Leleaux, program director for the Catholic Charities Migration & Refugee Center in Biloxi, said the Vietnamese contribute greatly to the community, from their work ethic to their cuisine. “I’m very proud of being a Vietnamese-American on the Coast,” said Truong. “I guess we need to raise the awareness of our community and what we are facing,” she said, so the Vietnamese can continue to be a valuable community in East Biloxi. | 
