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Vietnamese community marks Asian Heritage Month - Parade ends at site of future museum
By Kathryn May, The Ottawa CitizenMay 30, 2010
Tran Thien, President of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Ontario, helps a fellow veteran adjust his uniform before the parade. The Vietnamese Canadian Federation, in collaboration with the Vietnamese organizations in Ottawa and other cities, held a community parade Sunday afternoon in celebration of the Asian Heritage Month and the 35th anniversary of the arrival of Vietnamese refugees in Canada.
Photograph by: David Kawai , The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA-A small parade for Asian Heritage month made its way down Somerset Street on Sunday to a vacant site where hopes are pinned to build the world’s first museum dedicated to the mass exodus of Vietnamese “boat people” 35 years ago.
The Vietnamese Canadian Federation launched the museum project nearly five years ago to tell the story of the two million Vietnamese refugees who fled after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the contributions they’ve made to the countries where they settled.
They were called “boat people” because most fled in small, makeshift boats in an exodus that peaked between 1978 and 1982.
Canada accepted the second-largest number of refugees after the U.S. and the Ottawa-based federation chose the capital as home for the museum — considered the first of its kind in the world. So far, organizers have raised or had commitments for $750,000, which includes the sale of the federation’s Rochester Street headquarters — to buy a lot at Somerset and Preston streets to build the museum.
The project failed to get federal stimulus funding, which has left organizers looking for donors to help raise the rest of the $4.3 million needed to build the museum, said the museum’s project leader Can D. Le.
Many had hoped the museum’s strong support from all provinces and territories — including signed letters from most premiers — as well as other politicians would have helped land federal money, but the project wasn’t going to be completed by the the Conservatives’ March 2011 deadline for stimulus projects.
“The first hurdle was the land, and once we finalize the payment of the land, we can then focus on raising funds to build the museum,” said Le.
Le said organizers are beginning work to assemble collections, gathering artifacts, photographs and other research for the museum, which he hopes will be built by 2012 or 2013.
Canada received several waves of Vietnamese refugees. A large number made their way to Ottawa between 1979 and 1982 with then mayor Marion Dewar’s Project 4000.
Thiep Nguyen came in that wave, alone and barely 17 years old. He finished high school, went to the University of Ottawa and today the father of four is working in high-technology. He agreed the museum was important to chronicle the trials and success of Vietnamese refugees.
In 1988, the federation began a drive to sponsor another 1,000 refugees who faced forced repatriation.
Then came the federation’s Project Freedom At Last in 2007 to bring to Canada 276 “stateless” Vietnamese stranded in the Philippines for 20 years. The United Nations had originally set up refugee camps for fleeing Vietnamese in the Philippines and other neighbouring countries to help process the boat people, but those who were screened out ended up stranded.
After much lobbying, the Harper government allowed those remaining in Philippines to immigrate under compassionate and humanitarian provisions as long as the federation handled and funded their resettlement. Eight community groups brought 56 of them to Ottawa.
Phat Nguyen was one of them. She lived in the Philippines refugee camp until it was closed in 1997. As a “stateless person” she couldn’t work and, like most, got by at whatever she could sell or work at unnoticed by authorities.
Two years ago, her sponsors brought her to Ottawa and gave her three months of accommodation. With that start, she now has a job at an embassy, her own home, owns a car and is a tireless community volunteer.
“I thank the Canadian government and Vietnamese community every day for helping me to come here,” she said, “I now have the best life I have ever had. I have freedom. It’s something I never had and I escaped from my country to look for freedom.”
© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen
Source: http://www.lyhuong.net/viet/index.php?option=com_content&view= article&id=2599:2599&catid=39:sinhhoatcongdong&Itemid=58
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Việt Cộng đối ngoại thì nhu nhược, bán nước,
đối nội thì tàn ác và hà khắc với nhân dân.
Những hình ảnh đẹp của Cộng Đồng Việt Nam Bắc California
Lá cờ vàng Việt Nam được chính quyền địa phương vinh danh và luôn được đồng bào trân trọng trong mọi lễ hội
Lá cờ vàng Việt Nam được chính quyền địa phương vinh danh và luôn được đồng bào trân trọng trong mọi lễ hội
