Learning About Social Justice Growing Up in Vietnam

PULSE Perspective by Kim Nguyen | Design & Illustration by Sara Roach

Hearing about Vietnam, what would be the first thing that comes to your mind? Let me guess, is it the Vietnam War?

Most people are only familiar with Vietnam through the pages of their high school history books and hundreds of documentaries about its painful past. However, things are no longer the same.

Vietnam has become the country of change and its people are responsible for making that happen. In the past few years, the younger generations in Vietnam have begun taking on the responsibility to fight for social justice. With over a thousand years of tradition engraved in the society, it is going to be a rough battle.

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Bound in Tradition

For you to fully understand my social justice journey, I will introduce a little about myself and my childhood. My name is Kim Nguyen and I spent the first 18 years of my life in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam, in a family with generations of traditional artists.

If you are familiar with ancient stories and plays, they all attempt to teach morals. Therefore, my childhood was all about learning proper etiquette and manners of a good lady and not questioning what I was taught.

Vietnam is a great country, but it is bound by too many ancient traditions. Traditions may hold historical value and can be important to one’s culture, however, they are not always right.

A long time ago, I realized that the legends and stories I grew up with have taught generations of Vietnamese citizens to be silent. Casey Swendig, an American teacher who has spent the past seven years teaching about social justice in Vietnam, shares, “The older generations accept their place in the world and do not ask questions or even desire to talk about social justice.”

If you have seen Mulan, you would remember the part where Mulan stepped out to stop her father from going to war and she was told to be quiet so she would not dishonor her family. That animated scene actually represents a realistic idea in the Vietnamese society where women are still considered the ‘weaker’ gender and they are not given a say in many things.

The lack of equality is not only because of the traditions and old stories, but also can be a result of the education system. Bach Do, a Vietnamese student double majoring in Music and Global Supply Chain Management at the State University of New York-Plattsburgh, says, “Unfortunately, social justice education, in my opinion, was not a topic that was highly demonstrated in our [country’s] education.”

Unlike the traditional childhood, my academic journey has gone a completely different route. Luckily, I went to a private high school and then moved to the United States for university. These opportunities exposed my mind to various other cultures and helped me learn a lot about the country I grew up in.

Vietnam Today

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Silence is a theme at the root of the lack of social justice in Vietnamese society, but the younger generations of Vietnam do not like to be silenced. Vietnam is changing for the better, and for many reasons.

“One of the big reasons is the younger generation, as opposed to the older generation who witnessed the Vietnam War. [They have] technology advantages to interact with the outside world,” says Do. “When they do that, they have a chance to see what other countries’ idea of social justice is and can learn from that.”

Technology is one great reason, but another huge contribution to this change is through education. Do and I have both taken traditional Vietnamese classes as well as international classes with foreign lectures so we agree that foreign educators like Swendig, who are leading the new generations of Vietnam to fight for social justice, are much needed.

Swendig keeps no secret in regard to his teaching methods. “I talk openly about the systemic racism that is inherent in our daily lives and try to actively point it out in all situations, whether we are discussing geopolitics, history, literature or current events,” he shares.

Those methods may be considered difficult for the ordinary teaching style in this country, but they will help build the future of social justice in Vietnam. In a country where speaking up for justice and demanding rights for yourself is considered ‘rebellious’, we need more educators like Swendig to set a new tone for Vietnam.

If learning and fighting for social justice is rebellious, I believe the younger generations in Vietnam should all be taught the ‘rebellious’ way — a method that challenges outdated traditions and prejudices to adapt to a new movement of fighting for social justice.