ETHNORGRAPHY Porter Treanor

10 Dec 2018

Introduction:

The culture I want to do my ethnography on is the Vietnamese American culture. Why do

I want to do observe, interview and take notes on this culture? I have been very interested in
most Asian cultures, and now that I am assigned to do write a paper on one, I thought I would
make it on a culture that is closer to me personally.

My sister’s fiancé’s family is Vietnamese, and since they have been together, I have gone
to his house for family dinners and events. Most definitely an interest for me is their food, but
that is just the surface. I am hoping to find out more about the subtle things that are going on. I
want to see what gratitude and caring looks like. I also hope to find some insight on female and
male relationships, whether that means the wife always cooks and the man is the bread bringer,
and so on within the ambiguity of this culture.

Another interesting concept that is specific to the Vietnamese American culture is driven
by the events of the Vietnam war. Something that has long lasting impacts on many people. I
believe that this could be a piece of peoples cultural up-bringing’s in this mixed community we
have here in America. Not to be driven by this topic, I surely wont, but to have questions readily
to ask to gain more insight and awareness.

I want to know and have positive relationships with these people, especially because they
are close to my family and will likely continue to have participation in with it. Then they are my
family, so if I want to be a part and involved, I want to learn more. That is why I am choosing to
do my ethnography on the Vietnamese American culture.

Chapter 1: Language

Spending my time with this family, I have been exposed to the Vietnamese language.
While sitting at the dinner table or while helping out with the cooking I can’t always tell what is
being said. For one I do not speak Vietnamese and secondly sometimes you might be able to
deuce or figure pieces of the conversation out by watching hand gestures, body movement and
the inflexion of their voices. More often than not, I do not notice as many signals of
communication through physical movement, but they are much more subtle.
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10 Dec 2018

Just small hand movements they are using during conversations are almost the same.
They could be considered an individual thing that everyone no matter the culture might do.
Maybe that is why I did not really notice these things was because they are somewhat normal to
me. One thing I have overtly noticed is the names that the family call things when speaking in
English. They will slide back over to Vietnamese when referring to a food dish or vegetable.
Because our interaction is largely surrounded by food, there is a lot of this switching back and
forth between languages to help describe things. Often there are not even names in English for
the things she describes. I would say that is a focal language, between the wife and husband, they
were raised in different parts of Vietnam and so when comes to talking about certain foods their
names and ideas are different about those things.

A large part of this culture I am observing and spending time around it is obvious that
English now is a part of this culture. Being Vietnamese American, they use both languages to
communicate to all types of people. Although it depends upon who they are speaking directly to.
Such as if they were to be speaking to a server at a Vietnamese restaurant they will speak
Vietnamese. If they are speaking to people that are seemingly non-Vietnamese speaking people
they will start with English.

Chapter 2: Human Rights

When I think about the rights of this family in particular, and their culture of being
Vietnamese American, I don’t see any issues on the surface level. The wife owns her own
business and so does the husband. The wife owns her own nail salon, knowing that the portrayal
of Asians in America from the media we see them working and owning these nail salons. Human
rights include freedom, work and education. It may not be the reason that the wife is doing this
work because of this statistic or generalization, but it may be something to consider within the
scope of equal rights of career choice and education.

Although both the wife and the husband own their own businesses does not mean that
they have been treated with their rights from other people. For example, when the wife first came
to America she did not know how many things worked. For one she was a refugee from the
Vietnam War and came to America for a better life. Which she believes she has gotten, but
throughout the process of getting to know the U.S. and its people, she came in contact with
people taking advantage of her ignorance of the English language and possibly discrimination
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towards her citizenship status. A man whom was supposed to be helping the refugees was
tricking them. Taking the food that was for the wife that was given from an organization. This
seems of an example of personal racism and possibly institutional racism.

I think that the discrimination of these people is easily overlooked and are subtler. From
some of the stories that the wife has told me like the one above, I see the break of human rights
mainly by other people that show personal discrimination. For the wife and the husband, they
both feel grateful that they have come to America and feel that their rights have been more
represented here.

Chapter 3: Race, Racism, Ethnicity and Nationalism

For some people that shared race with a white person which during the war was not an
uncommon thing, but since the wife’s father was white, she was looked down upon. Once she
came to America it was somewhat similar, she wasn’t accepted on the American side either.
Knowing that she was half and half gave issues on either side. Being Vietnamese in America, she
had issues of being stigmatized by police officers and Vietnamese in Vietnam she had issues of
being accepted cause of being half white and discriminated there. Coming from both cultures
towards the other there was some racism.

Chapter 4: Gender and Sexuality

Something I have noticed between the genders in this culture and in this family is that the
female is usually doing the cooking of the vegetables and main dishes when as the male is
cooking and preparing the meats. I asked both the wife and husband that if this is a part of their
culture and the wife replied, “No, it’s because the husband cooks with no flavor.” So the first
look into the different roles of gender in this culture I see a difference, but when I ask the
questions the reason that there is a difference is usually has a functional reasoning to it, such as
“No, he doesn’t cook with flavor.”

According to the wife there used to be major inequalities between the genders, but “That
is changing now,” the wife said when I asked her the question. By spending more time, I see
more and more equality between the husband and wife. If anything, I think that the wife has
more power between the two because she makes more of the money that goes into supporting the
house. To address what used to be the case for the Vietnamese culture, the male used to be a
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higher-lass citizen and women couldn’t have jobs. An example of male power, if the wife were
to be married by the man and if they were trying to have a baby boy and all they were having
was female in a two-year span then the man could go and look for a new wife. For women they
did not have many rights, but one thing they did have control over was in the process for a son to
be married it would be up to the mother to accept the girl he would marry. Now this has changed
like the women had said before, women have jobs and it is illegal for men to find a new wife if
the women could not produce a male baby.

Chapter 5: Kinship, family and Marriage

Marriage is very different from the American way. One specific detail that is interesting
is that if the women is pregnant before the wedding than she will have to enter the back doors of
the house instead of walking through the front. Also, the groom would go to the bride’s home to
bring her to the groom’s home to then have the ceremony and reception.

As I asked the wife “what are the major things about family in your culture.” And she
brings up different celebrations that they enjoy. I gather that celebrations such as the new year,
which is a major holiday (as most Americans would say) for their culture, to spend time with the
family. The Chinese New Year is also celebrated by the Vietnamese and is one of the biggest.
The children receive red envelopes with money in them to keep safe and to be protected from the
devil.

Something I asked the wife and husband is why do they not say thank you when someone
passes a food dish (this is against what my family culture believes), or when someone does
something for you? The wife and husband both said that “because when you are family or friend
you don’t need to say it for every little thing, if were family or friend we don’t need a thank
you.” This is something that I take in consideration when I am spending my time with them.

There are other things that fit in between each of these chapters and don’t only fit in one
space. Culture is a colorful basket of flowers that all differ from the other, but probably have
relationships to each other that impact their growth. Also, I have not gotten everything I would
need tp know about these chapters, that takes much more time than a semester, so I am
continuing to spend my time every week with them to enculturate myself.

Chapter 6: Class and Inequality

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For specifically this type of culture, Vietnamese American, it was difficult to grow up in
Vietnam. Even more specifically as half Vietnamese half Caucasian. during the war time the
mother was seen as “something the enemy left behind” because of her fathers’ “race”. As a poor
family just, her and her mother were living in a small room with no running water or bedroom.
The inequality came mostly from the war and towards white people from America, and since she
was half white, she wasn’t treated with equality. Though she was able to go to school, it was
expensive, and she had to drop out after the 3rd grade. She hadn’t told me anything about specific
classes in Vietnam, but she was on the poor side. She had to get a job after 3rd grade to be able to
support her mother who was sick. Being in the poorer class she and her mother did not have
things easy. In addition, since she was half white other kids would tease and make hate songs
towards her and people who were half white.

Chapter 7: Politics and Economy

For the economy, she says that it was horrible. During the time of the war most of the
crops grown in south Vietnam where the was living, was sent to northern Vietnam. What they
had to do was receive imports from Russia when they came. the southern people were starving,
but what they got from Russia was a lot of raw oatmeal. Which the people in Vietnam didn’t
know how to cook it, so at times people became constipated because the lack of digestibility of
the raw oatmeal.

At the time she said that there was only one party. Her mother said that there is only one
political party and that was the communists. Her mother also said, “that the government can
change the laws as fast as you could flip over your own hand.” Looking at this it seems to show
that the politics hadn’t been in the people’s hands and they had struggled with a corrupt system.
She hadn’t really said much about the politics in Vietnam, I think because she said that there is
no politics and only the one party (Communism). She also said that the economy was terrible
especially in the 70s and 80s. but these things lead to great struggles in Vietnam and for a poor
family it did not run smooth for them a many people. 1990 is when they were able to come to
America in search of better politics and a better economy that can support its citizens.
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10 Dec 2018

Chapter 8: Religion

She told me that she grew up Buddhist with her mother. She also said that the two most
common religions in Vietnam when she was living there was Buddhism and Catholic. Once she
left Vietnam and came to the U.S. she eventually got married and then changed to Catholic.
Since this wasn’t a religion to unfamiliar it wasn’t too difficult to make the shift.

Although I have spent many hours with both the wife and husband of this culture, it was
rare for any religious topic to come up in conversation. It has been sometime since I have been
able to spend time with this family, so I haven’t gotten many opportunities to ask more about
religion. It also seems that the mother doesn’t wish to discuss more in depth about religion.

Chapter 9: Health and Illness

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to make contact with my informants for further
information. I have learned so much from spending time with my informants. I’m grateful to
have had this interesting opportunity to seek more what the lives of others that have experienced
a whole different world than I have. This experienced you would call enculturation important for
people to try and understand how others may do things. This was a great learning experience for
myself and I will continue to spend time with people with other ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
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10 Dec 2018

Sources:

https://www.everyculture.com/multi/Sr-Z/Vietnamese-Americans.html
http://hmongstudies.com/VanDo2002.pdf

https://www.asian-recipe.com/vietnam/vn-information/cultural-differences.html
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Pictures of Field Notes and a Couple Dinners:

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