Nghe An PhD in the US creates project to preserve Vietnamese roots

Nguyen Nghia Tai's family in the US. Photo: NVCC

Eight years ago, in a small town in the Northwest of the United States, a Vietnamese father and mother were desperate to find Vietnamese books to read to their children, but they were almost impossible to find; and if they did, they were too expensive. Occasionally, when people returned to Vietnam, they asked someone to bring them books, but some books worked, some did not.

After a while, their family moved to California. In their new home, they made more Vietnamese friends, but one thing that worried them was that many children born here did not know Vietnamese and knew very little about Vietnam even though their parents were Vietnamese. They thought about their family's story, thought about the disconnection of a part of the Vietnamese children living abroad around them; and remembered Andrew Carnegie - who more than 100 years ago spent money to build many free libraries across the United States and around the world. They thought, they had to do something!

Vietnamese children in the US receive books from the Stories of Vietnam project. Photo: NVCC

The Vietnamese father and mother in the story above are husband and wife.Mr. Nguyen Nghia Tai. They nurtured and initiated the idea of ​​creating an invisible connection with their homeland Vietnam through familiar children's stories. Mr. Nguyen Nghia Tai shared: "I believe that parents reading Vietnamese books to young children during the process of learning to speak and read is one of the best ways to develop language skills, while also encouraging children to look back to their roots. The habit of reading books and learning about their roots will help children love Vietnamese culture more, be proud of their origins, and thereby contribute to building a stronger Vietnamese community in the future."

After many years of nurturing and sketching out the model, Mr. Tai shared the idea with a group of parents raising children in the US. Fortunately, the idea received enthusiastic support. Also from that group of parents, he met fellow members to build this meaningful project.

Website interface of the Stories of Vietnam project, with the theme poem expressing the inner feelings of Vietnamese children born and raised abroad. Screenshot

Before launching the project, the project team conducted a small survey with more than 200 parents raising children abroad to find out the problems people encounter in raising multilingual children. And concerns such as "the biggest difficulty is that the older the child gets, the more exposure to American culture, the less interested he or she is in Vietnamese culture and language"; "The difference between Eastern and Western cultures sometimes makes children ask again what is right" ... further motivated the project team to start turning the idea into reality.

The project is namedStories of Vietnam, officially launched in 2021. This is a non-profit project built to support Vietnamese children living in the US to learn about Vietnamese language and culture. Through fundraising activities, the project has the resources to maintain the publication and give away completely free bilingual books to Vietnamese families in the US, with the hope that parents will have more quality, highly educational books to read with their children and learn more about the language and culture of their homeland, thereby connecting with their roots.

The biggest difficulty of the project is raising funds for development, but Mr. Nguyen Nghia Tai shared that he is very fortunate to have many volunteers from all over the world with different expertise joining hands to help, so Stories of Vietnam hopes to soon find a stable and long-term source of funding. The project is also constantly looking for quality and reputable book sources. From the second half of 2021 to the beginning of 2022, Stories of Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding with two organizations specializing in developing reading habits and improving education for children around the world, especially in developing countries.

On the Stories of Vietnam website, many positive responses from families who benefited from the project were recorded. Ms. Lan in New Jersey (USA) sent a message full of gratitude: “I just received the book “Lai May Hong Roi” sent by the Stories of Vietnam project as a gift for my two children. The book is beautifully printed and designed, bilingual, completely free, and the content is carefully compiled. In addition to the main story related to Tet, the compilation team also provided additional information about culture and history for parents and children to read. I am surprised and admire the team that made the project with excellent quality, very dedicated and visionary. Thank you for implementing a very meaningful project to preserve the Vietnamese language and culture for Vietnamese families abroad.”

Positive feedback from families who received books from the Stories of Vietnam project. Screenshot

Looking back to one's homeland and keeping one's roots are not just clichés or slogans, but are truly important factors in a child's development.

“Every time the children receive a book periodically, they receive a lot of care and love, like a small tree that is cared for, the roots will cling tightly and the tree will grow tall. Once the children know where they come from and who they are, they will feel less uncertain when facing two different cultures; they will be more confident when searching for their personal identity” - Mr. Nguyen Nghia Tai shared.

And still with the belief that “Every book is a gift you can open again and again” (Garrison Keillor) and that reading habits are formed and maintained when children are curled up “in their parents’ arms” (Emilie Buchwald), Stories of Vietnam boldly cherishes the idea of ​​giving books to Vietnamese children both in and outside the United States.