Many young Montagnards — an umbrella term for more than 30 tribes that originally inhabited what is today Vietnam — living in the U.S. feel a sense of urgency to ensuring their heritage is passed on. So they’re using art and social media to keep it alive.
Link copiedAfter immigrating to the U.S. at age 9, Hthu Nie spent years denying who she was. Nie, who is Montagnard, an ethnic minority indigenous to Vietnam’s central highlands, told her classmates she was Vietnamese, not trusting they’d grasp the nuances between the two. “I was like, ‘I’m in America now,’” she said. “I didn’t think it was such a big deal.” It was only when she entered college that she began to question why she was “erasing [her] own culture.
Since the first refugees arrived in 1986, North Carolina became home to the largest number of Montagnards outside Southeast Asia, with a population that has swelled to over 12,000, most living in the Piedmont Triad area. After the U.S. pulled out of the war, the Montagnards were targeted as “traitors” and put in re-education camps as the Communist Party sought revenge. Large numbers fled to the U.S. and Cambodia and, as has been documented by human right organizations, the 1 million that remain in Vietnam continue to be subjected to abuses that include religious persecution, land seizure, imprisonment and forced assimilation.
According to her, language is integral to any cultural preservation effort. “Without language, without being able to speak, it is hard to find out who we are and then to learn about ourselves.” The key to cultural preservation for the Montagnards may come down to recognizing older traditions giving way to modern forms.