Mental Health in Vietnamese American Resettlement

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Mental Health in Vietnamese American Resettlement

Stressed out Vietnamese falling mentally ill in the millions

Author: Michelle Đặng-Pastore
Grades: 9-12

Suggested Amount of Time: 60 - 90 Minutes
Area of Study: Vietnamese Departures and Transit

Compelling Question

  • How did Vietnamese build communities as they attempted to survive and traverse the hardships of life in transit?

Lesson Questions
  • What are some psychological experiences among Vietnamese refugees and how do those experiences influence their resettlement?
  • What are shared struggles with the immigrant experience in trying to achieve the American dream?
Lesson Objective

Students will be able to analyze and reflect on the psychological experiences of Vietnamese refugees during their resettlement process by interacting with various excerpts from "House of Sticks: A Memoir.” (Simon and Schuster) and creating a medium of choice.

Lesson Background

After the fall of Sài Gòn in 1975, an estimated one million former Vietnamese soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) were imprisoned without formal charges or trials, another one million took part in a mass exodus seeking asylum from the international community, and in the following decades hundreds of thousands resettled in countries around the world. Both soldiers and civilians endured numerous political, socioeconomic, and psychological hardships from the after effect of the war and change in regime. Despite resettling in other parts of the world, the psychological effects remain. Consequently, intergenerational trauma is still prevalent within the Vietnamese American community.

Image Citation: Nga, M. (2019, April 8). Stressed out Vietnamese falling mentally ill in the millions. VnExpress International – Latest News, Business, Travel and Analysis From Vietnam. https://e.vnexpress.net/news/news/stressed-out-vietnamese-falling-mentally-ill-in-the-millions-3904714.html

Ethnic Studies Theme

This lesson connects to the ethnic studies theme of power and oppression from the Asian American Studies Curriculum Framework (Asian American Research Initiative, 2022). Students will consider war, migration and imperialism as contexts shaping citizenship and racialization. Students discuss the impact and intergenerational trauma of the war within the Vietnamese community. Educators may enhance this lesson by discussing mental health but also focusing on healing practices as a response to coping with the trauma.

For additional guidance around ethnic studies implementation, refer to the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (2021)  https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp.

 

Historical Thinking Skills

This lesson will facilitate student proficiency in cause and consequence one of Seixas’ historical thinking skills (Seixas & Morton, 2013). To help students to understand that there are short-term and long-term consequences of events. Students consider how change is driven by multiple causes, and results in multiple consequences. These create a complex web of interrelated short-term and long-term causes and consequences.

Handouts

Students will choose from one of the following assessment options: 

  • Playlist - Students will curate a four to five song playlist that best reflects the shared struggles and psychological experiences of Vietnamese refugees. Songs do not have to be in Vietnamese. Students must identify the song, the artist, and include a three to four sentence explanation of how that song connects to the refugee experiences. The playlist can be created digitally using applications such as YouTube, Spotify, Canva, etc.
  • Social Media Post - Students will create three social media posts in the perspective of a Vietnamese refugee. The social media posts should reflect on the psychological experiences of Vietnamese refugees and include vocabulary terms. Each social media post should include a visual representation, a caption, and relevant hashtags. Remind students to be respectful when choosing language for this task. The posts can be hand drawn or digitally created.
  • Hands, Head, and Heart - Students will draw a generic figure of a (Vietnamese refugee) person. For the hands, they will illustrate what events Vietnamese refugees have gone through. For the head, they will illustrate what emotions and thoughts may cross the minds of Vietnamese refugees; this may be a good part to include mental health. For the heart, students will illustrate Vietnamese refugees' dreams, aspirations, and wants.  Students can use a combination of text and symbols to fill up the figure. This can be hand drawn or digitally created. 
  • Engagement: Consider the following method to support with lesson engagement:
    • Invite personal response, evaluation and self-reflection to content and activities 
    • Design activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is clear to the participants 
  • Representation: Consider the following method to support with multiple means of representation:
    • Use outlines, graphic organizers, unit organizer routines, concept organizer routines, and concept mastery routines to emphasize key ideas and relationships 
  • Action and Expression: Consider the following method to support in presenting their learning in multiple ways:
    • Provide sentence starters or sentence strips 
      • Modify sources to include only the phrase or sentence that relates to a psychology key term. Instead of having students pick between all key terms, narrow down their selection to only two terms.

For additional ideas to support your students, check out the UDL Guidelines at CAST 2018 http://udlguidelines.cast.org.

  • Emerging: Consider the following method to support with emerging students:
    • Writing: Require vocabulary notebooks with non-linguistic representations or L1 translations 
      • During integrated ELD, teachers may sometimes offer strategic primary language support for EL students who are newcomers or at the earliest level of Emerging proficiency.
  • Expanding: Consider the following method to support with expanding students:
    • Writing: Teach signal words (comparison, chronology, cause effect, listing) for academic writing 
  • Bridging: Consider the following method to support with bridging students:
    • Writing: Require academic writing and the use of target academic vocabulary 
      • Apply domain­-specific vocabulary and general Academic vocabulary in open sentence frames to perform functions, like describing or explaining, that target specific grammatical structures.

 

For additional guidance around scaffolding for multilingual learners, please consult the following resources:

  1. Interview - Students can interview someone who had similar immigrant struggles or conduct research on a current displaced group in the US.
  2. Self Care Strategies - Students can look up the top five mental health problems that plague the Vietnamese American community today. From that list, students can create a collage or infographic of suggested solutions and self care strategies that can combat or lessen the impacts of those mental health problems. 
  3. Self Care Sessions - Teachers can lead and facilitate a moment of self care for students to participate in: meditation, yoga, stretching, walks, visualizing, and so much more. Teachers can also encourage students to lead the activities for the class and build it into a classroom routine practice. 
  4. Recovery and Treatment - Students can look into local agencies that support in recovery, therapy, and treatment to support people’s mental health. They can collect all of the centers into a brochure or infographic and make that accessible to families at their school.

American Initiative. 2022. Asian American Studies K-12 Framework.  https://asianamericanresearchinitiative.org/asian-american-studies-curriculum-framework/ 

Britt, K. 2020, May 11. English learner toolkit of strategies. California County Superintendents. https://cacountysupts.org/english-learner-toolkit-of-strategies/

California Department of Education. 2021. Ethnic studies model curriculum.  https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp 

California Department of Education & English Learner Support Division. 2012. California English Language Development standards (Electronic Edition) kindergarten through grade 12 (F. Ong & J. McLean, Eds.). California Department of Education.  https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/documents/eldstndspublication14.pdf

California Educators Together. (n.d.). ELA / ELD framework.  https://www.caeducatorstogether.org/resources/6537/ela-eld-framework

CAST. 2018. The UDL guidelines. http://udlguidelines.cast.org

Nguyễn, A. 2021, March 4. Mind vs. Soul: Finding Fulfillment as a Second-Generation Vietnamese-American. Vietnamese Boat People.  https://www.vietnameseboatpeople.org/post/mind-vs-soul-finding-fulfillment-as-a-second-generation-vietnamese-american 

Quoc khanh, Dan Nguyen - paroles de Nho Me | Musixmatch. (n.d.).  https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Quoc-khanh-feat-Dan-Nguyen/Nho-Me 

San Diego County Office of Education. (n.d.). Providing appropriate scaffolding. https://www.sdcoe.net/educators/multilingual-education-and-global-achievement/oracy-toolkit/providing-appropriate-scaffolding#scaffolding

Sexias, P. & Morton, T. 2013. The big six: Historical thinking concepts. Nelson Education.

Trần, L. 2021. House of Sticks: A Memoir. Simon and Schuster.

TRÚC HỒ MUSIC. 2022, March 21. Nhớ Mẹ | Trình bày: Lâm Nhật Tiến | Tác giả: Lê Minh Đảo & Đỗ Trọng Huề | Hoà âm: Trúc Hồ [Video]. YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejn0BgNDJr8

Tulare County Office of Education. (n.d.). Strategies for ELD.  https://commoncore.tcoe.org/Content/Public/doc/Alpha-CollectionofELDStrategies.pdf 

Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project (VAOHP). 2019, February 23. Oral history of Tú Nguyễn. UCI Southeast Asian Archive.  https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d8g267/  

Model Curriculum

Vietnamese American Experiences

Standard(s)

HSS 10.9 HSS 11.9 RL.9-10.2 RL.11-12.3

Grade(s)

Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11 Grade 12