Project Title:  The Book of Perceptions
Recipient Organization:  Huong Viet Community Center
Lead Artist: Truong Tran
Genre and Date Awarded:  Literary Arts, January 1998
Premiere Exhibition and Publication Party:  March 6, 1999, Pacific Bridge Gallery, Oakland, California

Poet Truong Tran and photographer Chung Hoang Chuong, both immigrants from Vietnam, worked with other Vietnamese Americans through the Huong Viet Community Center in Oakland, California, and then traveled to Vietnam together, recording their responses in a book and exhibition.  The theme of “perceptions” highlighted how their different ages, experiences, and artistic media shaped their exploration of the material. Tran wrote in his final report, “We wanted to capture the differences in our artistic experiences.”

The Book of Perceptions, published by Kearny Street Workshop, was launched in 1999 at a lively exhibit opening and book party at Pacific Bridge Gallery on March 6; it then traveled to the Oakland Asian Cultural Center for an April exhibition and reading, and to the Chinese Cultural Center in San Francisco in October.  The first two receptions were hosted by youth from the Huong Viet Community Center and the third by Kearny Street Workshop.  The book was selected as a finalist for the prestigious Kiriyama Book Prize; and poems from The Book of Perceptions became part of a later poetry collection by Tran, Dust and Conscience (Apogee Press), which won the 2002 Poetry Center Book Award.  For Huong Viet Community Center, the project reached a new audience of young American-Vietnamese artists and middle class professionals from the Bay Area; and the opening at Pacific Bridge Gallery, drew the largest audience in its history.

The lead artist pointed out that more than 7,000 titles describing the Vietnamese-American conflict had been written by American veterans and journalists; and many United States poets and photographers had created an important body of work on the subject.  However, Tran noted, “While it is a necessary art for the many veterans still trying to recover from this war, it is…an art that speaks to Vietnam War Veterans, and not to Vietnamese immigrants.”

Further, Tran and Chuong were interested in exploring generational differences within the Vietnamese American community.  The artists noted that three distinct generations of Vietnamese Americans were living in the United States—those who left Vietnam as adults, those who fled as children, and those who were born in the United States.  (Chung Hoang Chuong was a student in the United States in the 1960s; and Truong Tran is a member of the “1.5 generation,” who fled as young children.) 

In their collaborative process, Truong Tran and Chung Hoang Chuong became informal artists in residence at Huong Viet Community Center, attending community functions such as the Mid Autumn Moon Festival, the Tet Festival, weekly classes, and other organizational and cultural events. Ultimately the artists were so moved by their experiences in Vietnam that the finished book focused on their research gathered there; but it was shaped by their initial interactions at the Center.

Photographer Chuong Hoang Chuong is the former director of the Vietnamese American Studies Center at San Francisco State University.  For many years his research interests have focused on population movements resulting from forced migration.  In 1982, Chuong became the first instructor to teach a course on Southeast Asian American experience at the University of California, Berkeley.  He also has published numerous articles and a monograph on the adaptation process of Vietnamese Americans.  Chuong’s work as a photographer and videographer has been exhibited at Focus Gallery in San Francisco, the Asian Resource Gallery in Oakland, and the Phoenix Art Gallery in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Truong Tran entered this project with extensive volunteer experience working with young people and recent immigrants.  While an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Cruz, he developed Youth Poetry Connection, which brought together writers from the university into Watsonville High School to conduct workshops.  As a graduate student at San Francisco State University, he volunteered as an instructor in an “English as a Second Language for Newcomers” program. He also worked as a volunteer coordinator for Refugee Transitions.  Tran had secured poetry fellowships from the Arts Council of Santa Clara and the California Arts Council, and a writers’ residency at Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts.  As a graduate student at San Francisco State University he had received the Browning Society Prize for Dramatic Monologue, the Ina Coolbrith Prize in Poetry, and—the highest honor for a student earning a masters degree—was the Honorary Hood Recipient at his M.F.A. graduation.

Huong Viet Community Center, based in Oakland, California, is a nonprofit service organization dedicated to fostering the development of the Vietnamese American Community and families through educational, social, cultural, and political programs.  In 1987, a group of parents and volunteers came together to address the issues facing Vietnamese families living in America.  They envisioned a center that seeks to involve youth, parents, schools, and other social service providers in working together to solve social problems by building on the strength of the Vietnamese family tradition.  Huong Viet is a reflection of the community-building efforts of those parents and volunteers.  At the Center’s heart is its volunteer corps of 60 members, who range from young urban professionals to grassroots activists.  Since its inception, the organization has served more than 3,000 Vietnamese American youth from and around Alameda County.  Its programs include The Vietnamese Language School, The Mentoring/Role Models Program, an anti-tobacco program, and cultural festivals. 

The completed book, published by Kearny Street Workshop, is available through Small Press Distribution.  One-hundred and fifty copies were made available to Huong Viet Community Center’s curriculum for use by teachers in the classroom and parents at home.  Proceeds from the book’s sales benefit the Center’s youth programming.

Truong Tran

Professional Experience

• Content Director, WHYNOT Creations, Milpitas, California (1997-   )
• Program Associate and Newsletter Editor, Poets & Writers, Berkeley, California (1996-97)
• Volunteer Coordinator, Refugee Transitions, San Francisco, California (1995-96)
• Grant Writer, The Association for Viet Arts, San Jose, California (1992-95)
• Program Coordinator, Poetry Youth Connection, Santa Cruz, California (1991-92)
• Editor, Chinquapin, Santa Cruz, California (1991-92)

Other Relevant Experience

• Teaching Assistant, Creative Writing, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California (1995)
• Guest Lecturer, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California (1995-  )
• Instructor, ESL for Newcomers, San Jose, California (1993-94)
• Workshop Facilitator, New Visions of the South Bay, San Jose, California (1987-88)

Honors

• Pushcart Prize Nominee, Coracle Magazine (1997); Fourteen Hills Review (1995)
• California Arts Council Individual Fellowship in Poetry (1997)
• Arts Council of Santa Clara Fellowship in Poetry (1996)
• Villa Montalvo Center for the Arts Writer’s Residency (1996)
• Yale Series of Younger Poets, Semifinalist (1995)
• Browning Society Dramatic Monologue Prize (1994)
• Ina Coolbrith Prize in Poetry (1992)
• West Valley College Prize for Light Verse (1990)
• Academic Most Distinguished Graduate of San Francisco State University (1995)
• University Hood Recipient (the University’s highest honor for the one Master’s student selected to receive the Hood at commencement on behalf of all graduate students) (1995)
• San Francisco State University Graduate Fellowship (1994)

Publications

Poems in Magazines and Journals

• “The Mistress,” “The Wake,” Coracle, Berkeley, California (19….)
• “4/30/75,” Bakunin, Los Angeles, California (199…)
• “Lessons,” Psalm 151, Brooklyn, New York (Fall 1996)
•  “My Father’s Story,” My Father’s Legacy,” Blue Mesa Review, University of New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico (1995)
• “Recipe #5,” Poetry East, DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois (Fall 1995)
• “Between Thumb and Index Finger,” “Rituals,” “Seeds,” Prairie Schooner, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska (Winter 1995)
• “Tongues,” The American Voice, Louisville, Kentucky (Fall 1995)
• “Lost and Found,” Fourteen Hills, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California (Fall 1995)
• “Placing the Accents,” ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), Chicago, Illinois (Fall 1995)
•  “Dates,” The Berkeley Poetry Review, University of California, Berkeley (1994)
• “Second Religion,” ONTHEBUS, Los Angeles, California (winter, 1994)
• “Scars,” North Dakota Quarterly, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota (Summer 1994)
• “The 100th Day,” Reed Magazine, San Jose State University, San Jose, California (1994)
• “Four Poems,” Zyzzyva, San Francisco, California (1994)
• “The Washing,” “No Pictures No Sins,” “Crazyhorse,” University of Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas (winter 1994)
• “The Rooster,” Across the Sea, University of California, Berkeley (1990)

Poems in Anthologies

• “Placing the Accents,” “Lost and Found,” Asian American Writers Workshop, Rutgers University (date?)
• “Scars,” “Between Thumb and Index Finger,” From Both Sides Now:  Poems of the Vietnam War, Scribner (date?)
• “The Crossing,” Not a War, Yale University (Spring 1997)
• “What Remains, 1-5,” “She Tells Me Corn Is Sweetest in the Spring,” “Vinyl,” Once Upon A Dream—An Anthology of the Vietnamese American Experience, Andrews and McMeel Publishers (Fall 1995)

Selected Readings

• The Arts Council of Santa Clara Fellowship Reading, sponsored by the Triton Museum of Art of Santa Clara (1996)
• “The Language of Exile—a Reading and Discussion” with essayist Nguyen Qui Duc and James Freeman, sponsored by the San Jose Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Traveling Gallery (June 1996)
• “Uong Tu Tu (Drink it Slowly)—Vietnamese American Voices and Writing,” a reading and discussion with journalist and short story writer Andrew Lam, sponsored by Portland State University and VietMagnet Magazine (June 1996)
•  “Untitled—A Reading of Encompassing Voices” with poets Rodrigo Toscano, Catalina Cariaga, and Jack Hirschman (April 1996)
•  “In the Mix—Race and Writing in the 20th Century,” a reading and discussion with poets Michelle Cliff and Juan Felipe Herrera, sponsored by the San Francisco State University Poetry Center (October 1995)

Panels/Boards/Committees

• Founding Board Member, Youth Speaks (1996-97)
• Panel Judge for San Jose Museum of Art Teen Poetry Competition (1996)
• Screening Judge for the Writers Exchange Competition, Poets & Writers, Inc. (1996)
• Screening Judge for the San Francisco State University Poetry Center Book Award (1995)
• Steering Committee Member, Southeast Asian Task Force, The San Francisco Foundation (August 1995-May 1996)

Chung Hoang Chuong

RESUME HIGHLIGHTS

Teaching Experience

• Director, Vietnamese American Studies Center, San Francisco State University (1996-present)
• Associate Professor, Asian American Studies Department, San Francisco State University (1993-present)
• Assistant Professor, Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University (1991-93)
• Lecturer, Asian American Studies, San Francisco State University (1988-91)
• Visiting Lecturer, Asian American Studies, University of California, Berkeley (1982-91)
• Visiting Lecturer, Asian American Studies, San Jose State University (1987-88)
• Program Specialist, Multifunctional Resource Center/Northern California (1986-88)
• Educational Consultant, Oakland Unified School District and Franklin McKinley Unified School District (San Jose) for staff training and curriculum development (1984-86)
• Program Resource Teacher, Bilingual Education Department, San Francisco Unified School District (1982-84)
• Instructor, Indochinese Teacher Training Program, San Jose State University (Summer 1984)
• Head Teacher,/Coordinator, Summer Vocational Youth Program for Southeast Asian newcomer students, John O’Connell Technical High School, San Francisco Unified School District (Summer 1983)
• Teacher, Galileo High School, San Francisco Unified School District (1981-82)

Media Works

• “Viet Nam:  The Land and the People,” two person photography show with Eric Crystal, Oakland Resource Art Gallery (Fall 1996)
• “Reconnecting with Viet Nam,” one person show, San Francisco State University Faculty Club Gallery (October 1995)
• “The Magic Crossbow,” A traditional Vietnamese Folktale, Multicultural Curriculum, Voices of Liberty (1990)
• “Farewell to Smoking,” Script writer, Educational Television, produced by University of California, San Francisco (January 1990)
• “The Vietnamese Americans of the East Bay:  A Photographic Essay,” photography exhibition at the Asian Resource Gallery, Oakland (1987)
• “Survival Needs,” “Social Services,” “Employment, Training, and Education,” “Health Care,” Education and Orientation programs produced in Southeast Asian language soundtracks
• “The Price You Pay,” Consultant and Voice-over, KQED-TV, Channel 9
• “Monterey Boat People,” Consultant and Voice-over, shown on KQED-TV, Channel 9
• “Crosscurrents,” radio segment aired on KQED-FM