In the wake of the Vietnam War, after the fall of Saigon, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees were welcomed into the United States. A large portion of the Catholic population moved into New Orleans East, invited by Archbishop Hannan.
Into the present day, the Vietnamese population in New Orleans continued to grow in size and influence, observable in everything from the number of Vietnamese restaurants to public signage in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.
Centered around oral testimonies recorded for the Viet Chronicle project and supported by photography by Mark J. Sindler, the exhibit is an emotional homage to the resilience of the Vietnamese community.
“Making It Home” puts visitors in a reconstruction of a Vietnamese home. The exhibit begins during the Vietnam War, highlighting immigrants to New Orleans who served with uniformed mannequins lined against the wall. On the television in the living room, footage of Vietnamese immigrants on boats in the open ocean plays against bright yellow walls with framed pictures of a family.
Catholicism is one of the main reasons so many Vietnamese people settled in New Orleans in the first place. A large portion of the exhibit space is dedicated to the impact of the Catholic Church on the Vietnamese New Orleans community, particularly Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, with a small home altar hanging on the wall against a wallpaper depicting a sea of Vietnamese worshippers.
At the end of a hallway, áo dài — a traditional form of dress — are displayed in both celebratory and mourning fashions. Around the dining room table, visitors can listen to seven oral histories. A kitchen window projects a picture of an urban garden, which looks strikingly like Vietnam’s tropical farmlands, in the New Orleans East Versailles Arms Apartment residential community, where many Vietnamese immigrants resettled in the 1970s. This photo solidifies the dual meaning of the exhibit’s title — the Vietnamese immigrants were simultaneously trying to make the journey to their new home and make this new place as familiar as possible.
The stories include those told by a former deputy chief of staff for operations for the South Vietnamese army, a local Vietnamese politician and an author who writes about growing up Asian in New Orleans. Even though the combined Asian population of New Orleans is only 2.8%, Vietnamese New Orleanians have been influential in several ways. By highlighting the varied lives that people in the community lead, the exhibit can serve as a touchpoint for young Vietnamese people who might feel restricted by societal expectations and representations of themselves.
The last corner displays traditional lion dance costumes with pictures of Vietnamese Mardi Gras celebrations and other examples of cultural synthesis with local customs, an indication that the Vietnamese population has successfully made New Orleans their home and forged a place for themselves in the city.
After Hurricane Katrina, the Vietnamese population returned, rebuilt and continued to flourish. The exhibit concludes by discussing the Vietnamese community in New Orleans in the post-Katrina era and hopes for the future.
As an Asian-American raised Catholic myself, “Making It Home” is one of the only representations I’ve seen of life experiences similar to mine. Growing up participating in many of the same traditions in their Chinese versions — lion dances are borrowed from Chinese culture, Lunar New Year celebrations are very similar and masses in Chinese were given at my church — I understand how important it is to see your own history somewhere accessible, in a way that celebrates it rather than putting it down or exoticizing it.
Because it focuses on testimonies of community members speaking about their individual experiences, the exhibit was incredibly intimate and deeply moving. With “Making It Home,” the Historic New Orleans Collection successfully brings personal histories into public memory, shedding light on a small but important New Orleans community.