Accompanying slides for this lesson may be found here: https://ucdavis.box.com/s/w06o5og3tg9hl9qihc00l7xl5adg2acp

1. Cultural Energizer (5 minutes)

• Prompt students to think about common stereotypes surrounding gangs. How are they typically portrayed in the media? 
• Students can share with a peer.

2. Lesson Introduction (10–15 minutes)

• Show to class the following music video: thuy - i hope u see this (official music video) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOXRCzmNgXs)
  • Context: This is an introductory music video that demonstrates the “Viet Original (or OG)” aesthetic and characteristics.
  • Ask students to identify which aspects of the music video most resonate with their own understanding of Vietnamese Americans.
    • What about this music video strikes you as particularly Vietnamese American? 
  • Solicit student responses to class.
    • Suggestion: Teacher to write on board common ideas and responses to serve as word bank.
  • Continue to expand on student responses of key aspects by allowing them to conduct a quick online search of these additional terms and ideas:
    • Asian Baby Girls (ABG), and Asian Baby Boys (ABB), Postwar Generation (Vietnamese American Youth), Culture and Subculture, Social Capital, Cultural Capital, Racism and race-based discrimination, Model Minority Trope, bad refugee (according to Y.L. Espirtu’s Body Counts), Adaptation & Acculturation, Survivor Mentality, Community and sense of belonging as safety.
      • Some concepts are more general and thematic than others, the teacher to preface that these terms may be reflected throughout the lesson.

3. Providing Background Context (15–20 minutes)

• Teacher to provide historical context on racialized histories and sociocultural conditions of Vietnamese American Youth with the following notes below (recommended slide deck text below). Recommended for teachers to share the presentation with discussion. Teachers can screencast the presentation so students can pre-watch and re-watch or interact with them independently. Ask students to explain what the content means after each slide.
  • Sociohistorical context
  • Vocabulary
    • First Generation: A first generation immigrant is someone who is born in Vietnam and comes to the United States as an adult.
    • 1.5 Generation: A 1.5-generation immigrant is someone who comes to the United States as an adolescent (before 18 years old). Some 1.5-generation Vietnamese immigrants come before high school and may identify with the first generation. While some 1.5-generation Vietnamese immigrants may be more fluent in English.
    • Second Generation - A second generation immigrant is born in the US but their parents were born in Vietnam.
  • Overlapping histories of the “War on Crime” and arrival of the second and third waves of refugees from Vietnam (1980’s and beyond)
    • Historical Context
      • 1983: Reagan organizes the President's Commission on Organized Crime.
      • 1984: meeting about asian gangs (Chinese/ Japanese/ Vietnamese)
      • 1991: Senate Hearing that pinpoints fear of southeast asian refugee gangs. 
      •  At a separate Senate hearing in 1986, national anxieties over Asian gangs prompted Congress to begin thinking about how to use immigration law as a way to complement criminal law, fearing that it had become too easy for undesirables to become US citizens.
      • “Chinese and Vietnamese crime members are often naturalized US citizens, and we may need to look at the immigration laws to determine if we need to bolster them in order to deport those few among them engaged in violent crime.” (Cacho, 2012)
  • Experiences of being shaped by one’s environment:
    • Socioeconomic context behind their arrival and resettlement (in the hood)
      • Sociocultural contexts
        • Relationships with refugee parents and academic expectations
        • Social/cultural capital (of parents and children) and adaptation to American society while maintaining ethnic community
        • Cultural difference in values between 1.5/second generation youth and their parents regarding academic achievement, dependence on children as cultural brokers/translators (Flipped sense of authority & familial roles)
        • Racialization, Racial discrimination/prejudice experienced in “ghettos/hyperghettos”
        • Gang involvement as a means to collectively address racial slurs and (micro)aggressions experienced by refugee newcomers in adolescence
        • Collective strategy influenced by necessity to survive (survival mentality/mindset)
        • Case study: Eastside San Jose and embeddedness in multiracial community influenced by racially diverse, working-class, lower-income neighborhoods
  • Relationship to Racialized Places and Spaces in Little Saigon
    • Survival Mentality 
      • Considering the racial and ethnic makeup of low-income and violent communities that host bad refugees
      • “The early 2000s “Import Model” and “Hyphy” makeup trends used by Asian Americans to appear tough and arguably differentiate them from their Asian international counterparts continue with the contemporary generation of “ABGs” or “Asian Baby Gangsters”/“Asian Baby Girls.” The Hyphy movement started in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1990s when the late Mac Dre spearheaded a style of Bay Area hip-hop music and dance that continued through the early 2000s by way of other rappers of color. The movement garnered a specific Bay Area style that included sporting streetwear, filled-in high arched eyebrows, and large hoop earrings. Today’s Asian Baby Girl wears false eyelashes, contoured face makeup, ombre-dyed blonde hair, and low-cut, cleavage-baring attire. San José ABG’s express both a look and the lifestyle which largely includes raving at EDM festivals, drinking boba at Pekoe, and vaping (Trazo, 2020).

4. Interaction with sources (20–25 minutes)

• Preface students with lesson activity objective: Taking the lessons learned from the stories of Vietnamese American Original, or OGs from the past that you have been introduced to, consider the circumstances and factors that have influenced your own sense of belonging (or exclusion) in a community or society. Assume and reflect upon your role as a future OG in your own right: What lessons from your life would you want to pass on (or khuyên, in Vietnamese) to the next generation? How would you express this in a personal narrative, free-flowing spoken word piece, song or rap?
  • To prepare for this personal narrative of free verse, offer the following sources for students to explore and gather inspiration from. It is suggested that students choose at least three sources and narratives to explore to provide a variety of context and models for their own personal stories to write. 
    • Teacher to decide if students should choose half textual sources and half video media sources
  • As students explore the sources, it is suggested that they track findings and notes to the following ideas: 
    • Source Name/Author/Origin/Identity/Background
    • What Vietnamese American stereotypes were prevalent in the story or subject’s experiences?
      • Social cultural origins and prevalence of these stereotypes in society
      • How did this impact (positive and negative) their identity and life experiences? 
    • How were the experiences of Vietnamese American youth in the 1.5 and second generation shaped by gang culture and how did youth negotiate their racialized identities and sense of belonging against systemic oppression?
    • Theme or lesson takeaway from subjects experiences
    • Aha! Moments or connections that can be made to student’s personal life and experiences
  • List of sources that are to be made available to students. Teachers can also allow for students to look up other influential community members in the Vietnamese American community that have been impacted by typical stereotypes.
    • Mainstream and Independent Representations of Vietnamese American Original Gangsters (OGs) from the early 2000’s
      • In the mainstream - Clip of Johnny from Dust of Life (2006) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckHlU8x5Zmc) 
      • Clip of Johnny from The Fast and the Furious (2001) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hxOoM0-NJI) 
    • In the undercurrents (subculture/emergent culture)
      • Music Video: "Vietnamese Gang" by Thai VG ft Khanh Nho (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTWt0pxAgiw)
    • Short History of ABG Aesthetic 
      •  “It was a cultural reset: a short history of the ABG aesthetic” https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/g5p44x/it-was-a-cultural-reset-a-short-history-of-the-abg-aesthetic   
      • “What the “ABG” identity says about ESEA femininity” (see: https://www.michigandaily.com/michigan-in-color/what-the-abg-identity-says-about-ese-femininity/) 
    • “Kevin Nguyens” Lifestyle (see: https://www.bigstrawmagazine.com/home/hwbo7fods0wglfs9tjbd201d0zqapo)
    • Northern California: Eastside San Jose (Let’s get hyphy — the hyphy movement) (see “Exclusive Interview with Rap Artist Thai of 454 Life” for more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrg2jPEjJSY)
    • Southern California: Orange County, Westminster, Garden Grove (Let’s race/ride — import cars and models) (See "Locked Up Vietnamese California" Interview with Tin Nguyen” for more information https://boomcalifornia.org/2018/04/11/locked-up-vietnamese-california/)

5. Cultural Production (15-30 minutes)

• Now that students have gone through the available resources, they are to draw inspiration and ideas from the stories and experiences, and create their own writing piece.
• Prompt: Taking the lessons learned from the stories of Vietnamese American OGs from the past that you have been introduced to, consider the circumstances and factors that have influenced your own sense of belonging (or exclusion) in a community or society. Assume and reflect upon your role as a future OG in your own right: what lessons from your life would you want to pass on (or khuyên, in Vietnamese) to the next generation? What identity pieces do you possess that have been influenced by societal, cultural, environmental factors? Students are to express this in a personal narrative, free flowing spoken word piece, song or rap. 
  • Students can draw inspiration from this spoken word poem “Bảo Phí's "You Bring Out the Vietnamese in Me" (Spoken Word Poem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnpFoAwYgO0 
  • Teachers should allow time for students to brainstorm ideas as well, independently or with a peer.
  • Emphasize to students that this is a creative writing task that reflects personal experiences and stories. The final product can be open to a written, visual, or audio narrative. 
    • Open dialogue with students about their own upbringings and sociocultural environments with an emphasis on refugee and immigrant families, cultural practices, experiences with racial discrimination, longing for a sense of community and belonging.
    • Awareness that some students may have experiences with siblings, family members, or friends who were involved in gangs and incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, emphasizing seriousness and stigma around incarceration and systems of oppression towards humanization and transformative/restorative justice.
      • Emphasis on not being defined by the mistakes you made.

6. Reflection (10–20 minutes)

• Allow for students to share their written piece:
  • Opportunities for sharing: Performance or Read aloud to class, print and present, video record and show to class, etc.
• While students are sharing, open up discussion for peers to provide feedback and insights into what they learned about that student through their written piece.