Monuments in the Vietnamese Diaspora (Elementary)

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Monuments in the Vietnamese Diaspora (Elementary)

The Vietnam War Memorial is located in Westminster, home to the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam as well as South Vietnam's government-in-exile.

Authors: Duyên Tống and Tori Phù
Grades: 3-5

Suggested Amount of Time: 50-60 Minutes
Area of Study: Vietnamese Resettlement and Community Building 

Compelling Question
  • What is Vietnamese America?
Lesson Questions
  • How do Vietnamese refugees build a unique cultural identity in their new community? 
  • How do Vietnamese refugees use monuments to remember that identity?
Lesson Objective

Students will be able to describe the narratives and perspectives constructed from monuments in the Vietnamese community and create a collection of monuments that build up their personal identities.

Lesson Background

The Vietnamese people have created different diasporic communities throughout the United States, with the highest population in southern and northern California. As they built their communities, they aimed to preserve their heritage and unique experiences by building monuments and memorials dedicated to Vietnamese heritage, culture, the country of Vietnam that they knew, and their refugee experiences. The formation of these monuments are often ways of remembering their own community as they are forgotten in official institutions.

Image Citation: Sappho, S. (n.d.). Vietnam War Memorial. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/skinnylawyer/5871538063 

Ethnic Studies Theme

This lesson connects to the ethnic studies theme of reclamation and joy from the Asian American Studies Curriculum Framework (Asian American Research Initiative, 2022). Students explore the ways that communities reclaim histories through art, cultural expression, and counternarratives. Students explore how monumental sites, such as statues, memorials, or buildings, can help preserve and build cultural identities. 

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 historical perspectives, one of Seixas’ historical thinking skills (Seixas & Morton, 2013). To demonstrate the use of evidence to write historical fiction that accurately conveys the beliefs, values, and motivations of historical actors. Students consider how taking the perspective of historical actors means inferring how people felt and thought in the past. It does not mean identifying with those actors. Valid inferences are those based on evidence.

Supplies
  • Bakery and Vietnamese restaurant on University Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota [Photo]
  • Cultural court in Little Saigon, Westminster, California [Photo]
  • Dragon dance at Tet festival, Garden Grove, California [Photo]
  • "Of Two Lineages" (2017) by James Đinh
  • Vietnam War Memorial
Handouts
  1. Cultural Energizer (5 minutes)
    1. Begin the lesson with one or more of the following prompts:
      1. What statues, buildings, or memorials have you seen that represent something historical or significant?  
      2. Solicit several responses to share with the entire class (i.e: Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, the Colosseum, the Taj Mahal).
  2. Vocabulary Building (10 minutes)
    1. Transition into today’s lesson by letting students know that what they see today as a flourishing community took a long time to form. It takes hard work and dedication to recreate a life that many of these Vietnamese people have lost when they escaped their country after the Fall of Saigon. In these communities, the Vietnamese people have been able to access the food that they grew up eating, attend church or temple, speak their native language, celebrate their successes, mourn their loss, and still fight for freedom and remembrance of what they left behind.
    2. Prior to the activities, it may be helpful for teachers to define these terms with students: monuments, memorials, honor, fall of Saigon. Students have the option of creating a vocabulary matrix for these terms as an additional interactive component.
      1. Monument: a statue, building, or structure built to honor a person or event
      2. Memorial: a structure created to remind people of a person or event
      3. Honor: giving high respect
      4. Fall of Saigon: When the city of Saigon in Vietnam was taken over by a group of people from the northern part of the country. This happened a long time ago, in 1975, and it meant that the war that had been going on in Vietnam was over. After this happened, many people from South Vietnam had to leave their homes and move to other countries.
  3. Interaction with sources: Gallery Walk (20-25 minutes)
    1. Display the following photos and descriptions around the classroom. This can be a physical Gallery Walk display, or set up digitally on a shared slide deck accessible to all students. 
    2. Inform students that they will be moving around the room to view the photos of monuments formed in Little Saigon communities. Encourage students to not take more than five minutes at each source. Teachers can adjust time as they see appropriate. 
    3. Students should take notes as they analyze each photo. Their notetaker should include the suggested prompts:
      1. Name of monument or memorial, two to three bullet points to describe the monument or memorial, one sentence illuminating the significance of the monument or memorial.
    4. Source 1: Bakery in Minnesota https://ucdavis.box.com/s/iqtyzchn6zjn3dv8a4rkj6qlkusjjint (Teacher can model how to interact with this source)
      1. Sourced from: Forming communities all over the US - Frank, A. (2002). Bakery and Vietnamese restaurant on University Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota [Photo]. Calisphere, UCI Southeast Asian Archives. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb8j49p1p2/
    5. Source 2: Cultural Court Statues https://ucdavis.box.com/s/gmte5zh81h4pmrejmzc4ufl70y976v1t 
      1. Sourced from: The Cultural Court Statues in Little Saigon, Westminster are away from the hustle and bustle of Bolsa Avenue. In all, there are seventy-two statues of ancient priests in various poses. These beautiful statues are the last thing you would expect to find squeezed between a grocery store loading dock and a housing tract. Frank, A. (2002). Cultural court in Little Saigon, Westminster, California [Photo]. Calisphere, UCI Southeast Asian Archives. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb6b69p0f1/
    6. Source 3: Dragon Dance Tết Festival  https://ucdavis.box.com/s/7gipbkv9sv12sti28v4djvc66kdqo1al 
      1. Sourced from: Frank, A. (2002). Dragon dance at Tết festival, Garden Grove, California [Photo]. Calisphere, UCI Southeast Asian Archives. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb996nb5wd/
    7. Source 4: James Đinh - Of Two Lineages in Little Saigon, City of Westminster. https://ucdavis.box.com/s/4rfyh5uzorcm88farklrcbgrs8hlf5q3  
      1. The artwork is a contemporary re-telling of the traditional Vietnamese founding legend of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ. It celebrates the immigrant story about a people taking roots in a new land, yet connected to the ancestral land through myth, traditions, and family. Surrounding the central steel sculpture is a powder-coated aluminum mural of 100 portraits of everyday life. It is located at Phước Lộc Thọ (Asian Garden Mall) located in Westminster, CA. (https://www.publicartinpublicplaces.info/of-two-lineages-2017-by-james-dinh)
    8. Source 5: Vietnam War Memorial https://ucdavis.box.com/s/h0hlhx80etel9kpbwakh9gswct8zlppv  
      1. The Vietnam War Memorial in Westminster, California is located in Sid Goldstein Park. It is an 11-foot-tall statue commemorating the fall of Saigon. It features an American Infantry soldier and a soldier from the former republic of South Vietnam standing side by side. The statue, cast in bronze, was sculpted by Vietnamese artist Tuan Nguyen who lived through the fall of Saigon and managed to make it to the United States in 1988. Behind the soldiers are the flags from each of their countries on a marble base. The memorial got underway when, in 1997, City Councilman Frank G. Fry started the process of finding a site and hiring an artist. The statue was completed in 2003 and dedicated on April 27 of that year. 
      2. Sourced from: M, Ben and Hayley Simokat. "Vietnam War Memorial ." Clio: Your Guide to History. May 19, 2015. Accessed July 20, 2022. https://www.theclio.com/entry/14866
      3. Once students are complete, either have a pair-share discussion or whole class discussion. Have students reflect on the photos with these prompts: 
        1. How do Vietnamese refugees build a unique cultural identity in their new community? 
        2. How do Vietnamese refugees use monuments to remember that identity?
  4. Cultural Production: Collage Making (15–20 minutes)
    1. This collage assessment will help students reflect on ideas that they have learned during this lesson and how they can contribute to creating their own community. This is a great way for students to express their ideas in a metaphorical way. They will focus on the important themes learned, ideas, emotions, activities, buildings, monuments, etc. that are important to them. They can draw, cut out pictures, bring their own photographs, or a mix of it to showcase what it means to be a community. 
      1. Alternatively, this can be created on a digital application such as Canva. The final product can be open to a written, visual, or audio narrative. 
    2. Choose a few pictures that represent the big theme of diaspora. Students should define the term diaspora and its significance to Vietnamese refugees before engaging in the collage.
    3. Choose monuments, buildings, areas, that represent them and what they love about it
    4. Choose a symbol, colors, or any type of media that they’d want to incorporate. 
      1. Provide students with samples to draw inspiration from. 
        1. https://ucdavis.box.com/s/yxduer3g5e4sronm3gbdtt49555fk865 
          1. Sourced from: Sunil, K. (2016, November 28). Reading response 5. Calisphere. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/20775/bb2223459z/
        2. https://ucdavis.box.com/s/icabwv91pju9qfpssrnycsltw19m60kg 
          1. Sourced from: Anonymous. (2016, November 28). Reading Response Five. Calisphere. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/20775/bb57047164/
        3. https://ucdavis.box.com/s/cthq6tqaxlrwai9f915cnhgmzsz2lubq
          1. Sourced from: Elkin, K. (2016, November 28). UCSD. Calisphere. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/20775/bb24965061/ 
        4. https://ucdavis.box.com/s/ws2d69xo7u9z5b8b9cemf7juozfk676u
          1. Sourced from: Anonymous. (2016, November 28). UCSD Family. Calisphere. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/20775/bb2325859x/
  5. Critical Circular Exchange (5 minutes)
    1. There will be a discussion to assess what the students created and how they connect their works to the ideas and themes of monuments in the Vietnamese refugee community.
    2. Debrief: You can also use the Gallery Walk to showcase students’ work. Post their work around the room and have students rotate around to each station to look at each other’s work. If time allows, you can give them a sticky note to leave positive feedback for each piece of artwork.

Students will apply their learning by creating a collage of their experiences and what they find valuable and important in their lives and their community. The collage will be assessed by rubric about what the students created and how they connect their works to the ideas and themes of monuments in the Vietnamese refugee community. 

  • Engagement: Consider the following method to support with lesson engagement:
    • Design activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is clear to the participants
    • Provide tasks that allow for active participation, exploration and experimentation
    • Invite personal response, evaluation and self-reflection to content and activities 
  • Representation: Consider the following method to support with multiple means of representation:
    • Provide descriptions (text or spoken) for all images, graphics, video, or animations 
  • Action and Expression: Consider the following method to support in presenting their learning in multiple ways:
    • Provide response starts for collaborative discussions for students to exchange ideas and opinions: 
      • What do you think of the..?
      • What is one way to ask ___ to give reasons for an opinion?
      • What part of the text supports your opinion that…?
      • What other ideas do you have about __ to add to what __ said?

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:
    • Reading: Pair students to read one text together 
      • Students turn to their designated partners to discuss prompts posed by the teacher. Partnerships are organized in teams of two. 
      • Students listen to a content-rich text read aloud, take notes, collaborate with a partner and rebuild (as precisely as possible) the original text.
  • Expanding: Consider the following method to support with expanding students:
    • Reading: Provide a content vocabulary word bank with non-linguistic representations 
      • Students use a Frayer graphic organizer to support understanding of a keyword or concept. Place the target word in the center amid four surrounding quadrants to support different facets of word meaning.
  • Bridging: Consider the following method to support with bridging students:
    • Reading: Use focused questions to guide reading
      • Students use inquiry posing their own questions and wonderings to guide shared research experiences. 

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

  1. Foil and Figurines - Teacher to provide each student with a specific amount of foil. (If foil is not accessible, students can also do this with recycled paper, cardboard, clay, or equivalent). With the materials, prompt students to manipulate the foil to create a figurine or structure that is symbolic of themselves or a vital moment in their lives. Once students have successfully molded the foil (or equivalent material) to their choice, allow them to prepare to share their thinking and reasoning behind the monument. Students can do a show and tell through a gallery walk activity, whole class or mini group discussion, or other. 
  2. Exploration of other monuments - Students can do similar activities with other monuments around the state, including:
  3. Students can also branch off from monuments belonging to the Vietnamese American community and instead find one that represents their cultural community and/or a monument that is local to their area of residency. 

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

M, B. & Simokat, H. 2015. Vietnam War Memorial. Clio: Your Guide to History. Accessed July 20, 2022.  https://www.theclio.com/entry/14866

Đinh, J. 2017, May. Of Two Lineages [Monument]. Public Art in Public Places.  https://www.publicartinpublicplaces.info/of-two-lineages-2017-by-james-dinh 

Frank, A. 2002. Bakery and Vietnamese restaurant on University Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota [Photo]. Calisphere, UCI Southeast Asian Archives. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb8j49p1p2/

Frank, A. 2002. Cultural court in Little Saigon, Westminster, California [Photo]. Calisphere, UCI Southeast Asian Archives. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb6b69p0f1/ 

Frank, A. (2002). Dragon dance at Tet festival, Garden Grove, California [Photo]. Calisphere, UCI Southeast Asian Archives. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/hb996nb5wd/ 

Public Art in Public Places - “Of Two Lineages” (2017) by James Đinh. (n.d.). Www.publicartinpublicplaces.info. Retrieved October 13, 2023. https://www.publicartinpublicplaces.info/of-two-lineages-2017-by-james-dinh

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.

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

Supplementary Sources

American Legion. (n.d.). Vietnamese American Monument. American Legion. https://www.legion.org/memorials/240022/vietnamese-american-monument

Anonymous. 2016, November 28. Reading Response Five. Calisphere.  https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/20775/bb57047164/ 

Anonymous. 2016, November 28. UCSD Family. Calisphere. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/20775/bb2325859x/ 

CBS Bay Area. 2021, November 13. San Jose Monument Dedicated to South Vietnamese Who Fought at Quang Tri [Video and text]. CBS Bay Area. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-jose-monument-dedicated-to-south-vietnamese-who-fought-at-quang-tri/

Elkin, K. 2016, November 28. UCSD. Calisphere. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/20775/bb24965061/ 

Gobetz, W. 2018, June 5. Houston - Alief: Vietnamese Refugee Memorial [Photos]. Flickr.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/42521320322

Knapp, G. 2018, July. The Story Behind Asiatown’s Vietnam War Memorial. Houstonia Magazine.  https://www.houstoniamag.com/news-and-city-life/2018/06/vietnam-war-memorial-houston

lost-at-sea-memorials.com. (n.d.). Vietnamese Boat People Monument – Westminster, California. lost-at-sea-memorials.com. https://lost-at-sea-memorials.com/?p=1006

Sunil, K. 2016, November 28. Reading response 5. Calisphere. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/20775/bb2223459z/ 

Model Curriculum

Vietnamese American Experiences

Standard(s)

HSS 3.3 HSS 4.1 RI.4.7 W.4.8

Grade(s)

Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5