The Vietnamese community’s Seafair float for this year will feature Lac Viet, a native bird, to symbolize Vietnamese migration to the U.S. It will also pay homage to the emperor who united Vietnam.
Emperor Dinh Bo Linh, who is credited with being the first emperor in Vietnamese history to establish a nation independent of China, believed in the concept of “bringing people together,” according to Dr. Kiet Ly of Tet in Seattle.
With that in mind, the Vietnamese-American Seafair Coalition has gathered volunteers and will finish assembling its massive, community hand-built float for the 2010 Torchlight Parade this weekend.
Last year, the Vietnamese community’s “Legends of the Sea” float won first place in the Alaska Sweepstakes for “Best Use of Parade Theme.” The community has now formed a Seafair coalition of five different Vietnamese organizations, according to VASC Co-Chairman Trong Pham.
Now five organizations – the Vietnamese Community of Seattle & Vicinity, the Washington Vietnamese-American Chamber of Commerce, the Vietnamese-American Bar Association of Washington, Tet in Seattle, and the Vietnamese Heritage Association — are working “across the boundaries” to develop a closer Vietnamese community, Pham said.
Tet in Seattle was in charge of designing the parade float and presented possible themes. This year’s theme focuses on Emperor Dinh Bo Linh when he was young, set in the Vietnamese “country-buffalo farmer” culture in the 10th century, Pham said.
The float chassis is constructed of steel and plywood. Decorations will include silk lotus flowers and a real 8-foot bamboo plant. Up until 2010, Ly had been the executive director of Tet for over eight years. This year, he is the Tet liaison for the Vietnamese Seafair Coalition. In this position, he attends meetings for potential projects and reports back to Tet, he said.
When Ly attended the pitch meeting for forming the VASC, he said it was “an easy sell” for him as he very much liked the idea.
“They’re doing what we’ve been doing for years. … We have been trying to get volunteers to appreciate the value of collaboration in our community,” he said. VABAW – the Bar Association — handles the legal aspects of Seafair for the Vietnamese community. According to the organization’s website, its overall mission is “to provide mutual support for attorneys in advancement of their careers, be a trusted guide and resource for students who aspire towards the legal profession, (and) serve as a voice for the local Vietnamese-American community.”
In the past, the Vietnamese community did not have solid legal representation to address matters, so VABAW stepped in to handle this area of concern, Ly explained.
Construction of the float has been hindered by problems trying to transfer the massive chassis to the desired setup site. This led the coalition to seek financial support. They made heritage cards featuring the native Vietnam chim Lac bird on them; local Vietnamese businesses have made the cards available for supportive donations, usually $1.
“The float was massive, we couldn’t haul it to Seattle and have the community help finish the design on site like we wanted to … to get them to participate,” Ly said.
Nonetheless, volunteers ranging from their late-teens to mid-30s have formed task groups assigned to decorate and finalize a portion of the float. Once done, the task groups will bring the parts together for final assembly. We want the community to be involved in building this float. … We want them to have ownership of (it),” said Ly.
Both Ly and Pham agree that the goal is to bring their community together, especially by developing leadership within its membership.
“We are developing a procedure — a process of working together,” Pham said. “This is the first time we’ve ever done this. We want this to become a tradition.” Pham is also the president of the Vietnamese-American Chamber of Commerce.
Last year Denny Dang, a consultant for the Vietnamese Heritage Association and project leader for Vietnamese Seafair, called on community members to participation in a “share the work” environment. “Ownership can be shared by team members. … It would make the project successful,” he said. “There are different groups and different agendas. … It’s about what we have in common,” he added. All five groups have “youngsters brought up in the U.S. with a Vietnamese background” for whom the coalition theme is designed to provide insight about community leadership values.
Ly explained that when the young emperor realized that his views of “how we should work together” differed from the mainstream ideas that had once controlled 12 separate tribes of people at that time, “Dinh dreamt of being emperor and uniting the country together.
“There’s no reason why you can’t dream big dreams and become something to help your community,” he said.
Story by AMIRA ROBINSON-LEWIS, a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.
