Vietnamese Portland

Nhan Danh Oral History

Nhan Danh was born and raised in Portland, growing up on the east side of the city. He attended school in the David Douglas School District and went on to earn a business degree from the University of Oregon. After exploring various careers, he found his passion for project management in the semiconductor industry. In 2015, he co-founded White Lotus Lion Dance, which evolved into the White Lotus Foundation in 2021. The White Lotus Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering the Asian, Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander community in Portland.

In this interview, Danh shares his family background, including how his mother’s side arrived in the U.S. from Huế in 1992 and how his father escaped Vietnam on foot before being sponsored to Houston, Texas. He reflects on his experiences with cultural identity, learning Vietnamese from his grandfather, and participating in a Buddhist youth group where he learned lion dancing.

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Transcript

Zoë Maughan: All right, so this is Zoë Maughan. It's February 27th, 2025, and I'm meeting with Nhan Danh via Zoom. Thank you so much for joining me today, Nhan, and I'm wondering if you could start by stating your name and just telling me a little bit about yourself.

Nhan Danh: Yeah, my name is Nhan Danh. [In] Vietnamese, it's Nhan Danh. And just about me, I'm a Portland native. I [was] born and raised in Portland. I grew up on the East side of Portland, primarily the inner Southeast area. I'm 29. I have a younger sister right now who's in Louisiana for PhD school. [ZM: Oh cool]. I'm engaged. [ZM: Congratulations!] Thank you! Yup.

ZM: Alright, great. So we'll start a little bit with your background and a little bit about your family. So I'm wondering if you could, this is very broad, but I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit about your family, and whatever that means to you: parents, siblings, grandparents.

ND: Yeah, so my family: I have a mom, a dad, and a younger sister. And only in Portland, only my mom's side of the family is here. So my dad's side of the family is still in Vietnam, and they don't have any plans on moving to the United States. But my mom's side is here. So my grandma, my grandpa, all my aunts and uncles, all my cousins. Yeah, so we only have my mom's side of the family here. [ZM: Gotcha]. I'm engaged to my fiance. She is Chinese. Her family is in Hawaii. But what's cool is her parents also grew up in like… they can also speak Vietnamese as well, even though, yeah. So yeah, that's kind of just like the very general broad family background.

ZM: That's a great start. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what part of Vietnam your family is from, and, you know, Mom's side, Dad's side.

ND: Yeah, we can start with my mom's side. My mom is from Huế, so the Northern part of Vietnam. And my dad is from Cần Thơ, so more towards the South. I've also never been to Vietnam. We're actually going here in the next couple of months. [ZM: Oh, cool]. So it'll be my first time visiting as an adult, and being able to kind of just visit both my parents' hometowns and where they grew up.

ZM: I’m curious if you could reflect a little bit on growing up with parents that were from the North and South of Vietnam and if that had any implications on your upbringing or, yeah, cultural experience.

ND: Honestly, no. You know, I think culturally, definitely two different regions and backgrounds. And that kind of just for me, it was more so just like the type of food that they introduced to my life. So being that my mom's from Huế, she introduced me to Bún Bò Huế, Bánh Lọc, Bánh Bèo. So I just like really great cuisine. My dad really likes eating fermented food, and so more like mắm (fish sauce). And you know, it's just like in the household that I grew up in with them, it was like there was never anything that was, I would say like, conflicting or had any political views to it or anything like that. I think I was very neutral growing up. They never really pushed the North or the South onto me or anything. It was just like two different regions, two different dialects, and like, just like very different traditions. But it all tied together, and you know, honestly, it never had a negative impact on how I grew up and stuff like that or like my interpretation of, you know, other people from the North and the South. Nothing like that. Yeah, it was very positive. They kept it very fun for me and were able to just, you know, how do I say it, like… They embedded it into me that it didn't matter which part of Vietnam you were from, and it's just that we're all Vietnamese and we should be able to celebrate the heritage from the different parts of Vietnam.

ZM: Yeah, that's great. Thank you for sharing that. I wonder if you could talk, and again, this will apply to both sides of the family. I wonder if you could talk about when your family left Vietnam and what that experience was like for them. And I'd be curious to hear a little bit more about your dad's side to making the decision to stay.

[00:05:00]

ND: Yeah. So on my mom's side, my mom has a very vague memory of this because my grandpa took care of it when they came to the U.S. So on my mom's side, they left Vietnam in 1992. My grandpa in Vietnam, he was a part of the Vietnam Cộng Hoà. And so, like he was like a… the direct translation is like Captain Guard. So he was working and with what he was doing, in his occupation, he had a lot of U.S./American ties. And, there were just people that were able, were very supportive and pretty much helped him and his family safely come to America. And so, like he felt like they told him how to fill out paperwork and he took care of all of it. He took care of the paperwork. Just talking to the organizers on how to properly and safely get the whole family over, and so in 1992, my mom and her siblings and both my grandma and grandpa were able to get on a plane and fly to Portland. Yeah, it's like, unfortunately, like my grandpa already passed away and so a lot of it, like the details, my mom just doesn't recall. I try to have a conversation with my grandma, but it's also a little foggy or like the direct translation doesn't fully completely transfer or translate over it for it to make kind of sense. Because yeah, my mom, in the 90s, she was only about in her early 20s. And so yeah, you know, in Vietnam, it [was] just a lot of it…She couldn't really jog her memory about how the process was like.

ZM: Do you know what brought them to Portland specifically?

ND: So we already had family here. So they already had like neighbors and kind of just friends and neighbors that lived in Huế that were already here and were already established. And so that's what originally drew them here was that they already had people they knew here in Portland, which made the process a little easier for them. Yeah.

ZM: That makes sense.

ND: So yeah, so I would say like my mom had the nicer end of it, being able to just, my mom's side of the family was just able to fly here comfortably. They didn't have to, you know, kind of endure like any hardship getting over here to the U.S. My dad, however, escaped Vietnam. And so he left Vietnam and when he told me, he's like, most people, you know, they're boat people. So they're on a boat. My dad fled Vietnam on foot. And he first, he stopped, he fled to Cambodia. My dad is also part [of] Cambodian Khmer. And so I think… he just kind of kept it very vague to me. But he fled Vietnam on foot to Cambodia. From Cambodia, he then went to a refugee camp in Thailand. And then at that refugee camp, there was an organization in Houston that he said was called the Ten Thousand Buddhas and they sponsored him to the U.S. So he also got to get on a plane and then fly over, but that was after he was at the refugee camp in Thailand. My dad came to America by himself. Nobody in his family went with him. And the reason why is because my dad is kind of like a very free-spirited person. To him, it was just like, “Oh, everybody else is doing it. I'm going to do it too.” So he kind of just left family and came here on his own free will with really no crazy intention. So he came to the U.S. by himself. That organization sponsored him to Houston. And so when he was in Houston, just after getting here and then finding a place to stay, he told me that he just started learning trade work. So at first it was welding and then it was body collision repair and kind of just side work in between. So he worked at multiple places throughout Houston. But again, like going back to his free spirit, he lived in Houston. He got bored of it, went to Virginia and then Louisiana, and then finally came to Portland. He just wanted to change pace. And he said where like Louisiana, Houston was just too hot for him. He wanted something more cold, closest to the beach. And so he came to Portland. And he came to America in the early eighties.

[00:10:17]

ZM: OK, interesting. Yeah, I was gonna say, I wonder if you know anything about your family's experience, like living, being in Vietnam since they didn't leave, you know, lots of folks left in ‘75. So I'm curious what, if you know anything about their experiences living in Vietnam between, you know, ‘75 and say ‘92 for your mom.

ND: You know, for them with my mom, she said it was pretty normal. She grew up with four other siblings and so for them it was just really working and trying to put food on the table. I think it's just a very common story. My grandpa also spent a period of time in jail. Just cause he was… I'm not sure what, I think it was like… the communist party caught him and his colleagues. And then he was in jail. And so for a period of time, it was just my grandma taking care of her kids. And so the siblings, you know, all they knew was they had to go to work and provide and keep each other alive while my grandpa was caught. And so, you know, and I think that's a very common story. It's just trying to put food on the table, trying to support one another and trying to stay afloat during that period of time. And so I'm like, all the stories that my mom has always told me were just, you know, early mornings, waking up, collecting, going out to collect logs, leaves, and then coming home so that they can, you know, have stuff to cook for the fire. My grandma was always in the city selling food or selling lottery tickets. And yeah, all my mom's siblings were also sort of just always trying to find some sort of, I would say like, hustle to do or find work so that they can just, again, support one another.

ZM: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you know if your grandfather being jailed was at all… did he experience anything with the reeducation camps?

ND: No, yeah. Nothing like that was mentioned to me during my conversation with my mom regarding this.

ZM: Alright, if you're ready, we can move on to the next one. I think we touched on this a little bit. But I wonder if there are specific organizations, family members, or friends that helped your family establish themselves once in the U.S. or in Oregon.

ND: Yeah, just like I said earlier, my dad was supported by an organization back then called the Ten Thousand Buddhas. But again, on my mom's side, because my grandpa did primarily all of the paperwork and the communications, they're not sure what it was called. But my mom called it like Viện Hắc Ồ. It's kind of like, it's the phrase that they use it, that they say. When I tried to Google it and really nothing really came up with the facts, but I can probably send you that verbiage to see if it kind of makes sense. But… I'll send you that just because, yeah, when I asked my mom about it she just like yeah we we went in this group it's called Viện Hắc Ồ so that's what she said and it's like a lot of the people that when they came here to the U.S. that were also from Huế, they also were a part of that Viện Hắc Ồ and so that's how that's how I guess going back to kind of how they got established here in the U.S. One, they already had people from who, so that we had, they had cousins and neighbors that were already in the U.S. already working, starting businesses that they knew that they could come to work for and work with and kind of sort of have a place to, place to call home in this new place in Portland. But then also, my grandpa, because a lot of them were from Huế, it was kind of like, when they came to Portland and they met other people from Huế, it was just like an instant connection. So it was like, you're from Huế, I'm from Huế. Like, “Where did you live? I lived over there, too.” So that kind of story was also what my mom said that like how my grandpa met so many of his friends here in the U.S., and here in Portland was because like they all lived in Huế together and grew up around the area but just didn't know of each other until they came here through the Viện Hắc Ồ.

[00:15:12]

ZM: Yeah, that's really interesting.

ND: But yeah, no, for my mom's side, no major organization was like in the U.S. that, you know, that they came to. It was just, thankfully, that they already had friends here.

ZM: Right, sounds like they had a great community to become a part of.

ND: Yeah. Correct, correct.Yes. Good way to put it.

ZM: So now I think we'll move on to talking about your life a little bit, early life. [ND: Cool]. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what your childhood was like, and where you grew up in Portland, various, different neighborhoods you might have lived in.

ND: Yeah, yeah. So I grew up on Northeast Sandy Boulevard. We lived at an apartment complex across from The Grotto. But my memory does not go that far back to the apartment days. But, however, after when I was about six years old, we moved to our home in Southeast Portland, right off of 112th and Division. [ZM: OK]. So that was where I grew up until I went to college. Yeah. So I'm, that's why I said earlier, I'm like Southeast-East side Portland rooted. I've definitely grown up in, you know, the inner Southeast side of town and saw many of the changes that have happened over the years within our community. But yeah, that's sort of where I grew up.

ZM: And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about your experience going to school if you want to share where you went to school and… or you don't have to. What was that like for you.

ND: So I went to school in the David Douglas school district, K through 12. I was in the district. And… school was… school was fun. I would say that it's funny that now my memory is getting jogged where it's like because of how Vietnamese and how Asian my parents were. I do remember a couple of times in the early elementary school days, just like the type of clothing that they would dress me in. And it wasn't like anything weird. It was just like, I didn't fit in, like with the clothing often that I had. And it was just like their style, right? Like they put me in overalls. They put me in these, you know, funny sandals and like a tank top. And I was just like, oh, like other kids at my school had, like, cartoon character t-shirts on. They had cool jeans. They got, like, cool sneakers, Nike. So I do remember, like, fashion, like I was definitely very, I wasn't very fashionable. And that was just like, you know, throughout, the early days of elementary school. Over time, I would say that because my parents started, you know, they started working more for American companies, slowly, they got up to speed with the trends, like clothing fashion trends. And so my mom, especially. My mom and my aunts, they became very like… fashionistas. And so they love style. And over the years, I was able to, you know, dress better.

Another thing is food. So, you know, growing up, I love Asian food, Vietnamese food, you know, rice, fish, pork. I was accustomed to eating all that at home. And, one time I wanted to bring it to school. And they're just like, “No, like you can't bring it to school because all this food you have to microwave.” And so like they couldn't, they packed me lunch one time and it was just very simple. It was just braised pork belly and rice. But I do remember opening that up in school and people were like, “Oh my gosh, what is that? That doesn't look appetizing.” Right. [ZM: Right]. And then, know, you, you do feel like a little bit of an embarrassment. And so I was like, well, I don't know what my mom packed me. And so, you know, I think like those experiences kind of growing up in elementary school, I wouldn't say it had a negative impact on how I grew up during school, but there was just some kind of like, OK, like now I have got to really adjust and adapt to like the Western style.

ZM: That kind of assimilation into…

[00:19:42]

ND: Yeah, you know, I want to be relatable. And it's like, OK, these American kids are eating pizza with ranch. I'm gonna eat pizza with ranch. And, you know, for me, my parents raised me to just… to be very open-minded. And so I never felt that I had to do it to please anybody. It was OK. Like, if this is what they're doing, you should try it too. So that what if one day we don't have rice and pork belly anymore, and we only have pizza and ranch, you should be able to eat that. And so that's kind of like this, like what they instilled in me to just make these, you know, adapt so that you can… so that I can, I can survive. Yeah, but then after that, you know, through middle school and high school, like being Vietnamese American was… it was a breeze. Like I think once I grew up more and I got more confidence in myself, it never was like, it never took a toll on kind of how I grew up, how I went to school, right? I embraced it. And because I embraced it, other people around me that I hung out with, my friends, also embraced their culture. And so I went to school with a very diverse group of people. So I had my best friend was Hispanic, and then like our little posse group, and we had someone from the Bosnian community. We had a Romanian, like Middle Eastern, like I had a very diverse group of friends all throughout middle school and high school. So I would say that just like, I think I embraced being Vietnamese and American. I was proud of my heritage, proud of everything we did and it resonated well with the people around me. And because of that, we were able to have…. I had a lot of Vietnamese friends in school and just got to know more people around the school district and like other schools around Portland.

ZM: Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting to hear you talk about that. I have talked to a lot of folks who I think kind of have a similar experience where maybe earlier in their schooling experience, there are like opportunities to feel othered and maybe they do, but then later as you get older, I see a lot of this reckoning with and embracing and loving your identity as you're like, wait, this is actually, it seems like I hear a lot of folks feeling that in like middle school, high school, all of a sudden it's like, “Hey, this is a really cool identity that I have.”

ND: Yeah, I never felt like I grew up and I had like an identity crisis or like I felt lost. Yeah, it was like I embraced it, my parents helped me embrace it every step of the way. Maybe some of the things they teach like, bringing the food to school. It's just like,”OK, we'll let you do it. But, you know, be prepared that other people around you might not like the smell,” and that's because when my mom started to work for American places, she already went through that, right? She couldn't bring food because… You bring fish and you put it in the microwave, it's going to stink up the break room, and people are going to complain. So you have to be courteous of other people around you. So yeah, just going back, I never… I was always like, I'm proud of my identity and I embraced it and I shared it when I could, where I could throughout school, yeah, throughout elementary school. All the way to high school, I shared it and embraced that as much as best as I could.

ZM: Yeah, that's great. And you were kind of already speaking to my next question, which was just if you could talk a little bit more about the people in your life that encouraged you to learn about Vietnamese culture as a child, which, you know, language, culture, tradition, where those influences came from and what that was like for you.

[00:23:20]

ND: Yeah, so my dad was one of them. At a young age, he loved music. And so he taught me how to sing, like karaoke. So I grew up loving Vietnamese karaoke. And I would know these Vietnamese songs that my parents would listen to, like word by word. There's VHS tapes that my dad used to have of me just like… him recording me singing live karaoke, right? And karaoke is a very big part of Vietnamese culture. Drinking and karaoke-ing now, like, I look back at it like I still do it now, right? And it's just a fun pastime. And it's very fun that, one, you can sing and you know the melody, but two, being able to pronounce and enunciate all of the Vietnamese words. So my dad played a big role of kind of just teaching me fun Asian culture. My mom: food, right? She loved to cook and so she, like any Vietnamese food that she cooked, she made me eat it and that allowed me to just appreciate the different types of food that we had that our culture, that Vietnamese culture had to offer. She made food from Huế. She made food from my dad, from Cần Thơ, and just kind of like other recipes that she was able to find. So that way I was never shy of just trying new food. And then my grandpa was the one that I spent three summers with learning Vietnamese. So I'm fluent in speaking, writing and reading in Vietnamese. Yeah. So it was like, I was probably around 10 when he started teaching me Vietnamese. Him and my grandma owned a little smoke shop in Southeast 82nd. And, you know, in the morning my mom would go to work and instead of dropping me and my sister at my grandparents house, which is like down the block from the house, from the shop, too, my grandpa was like “No, send him out to to the shop in the mornings and I'll teach him Vietnamese.” And by the end of that first summer, I was already able to write like four uncomplete sentences. And then school starts, whatever, every now and then he'll touch base back with me, kind of like random pop quizzes because I spent a lot of my afternoons at my grandpa’s house. And so after school, he was the one that picked me up from school, me and my sister up from school. So a lot of afternoons, I did my homework there, but he'll always be like, “OK, you're doing homework. OK, do this for me, too.” Just to keep it fresh. And it was three summers like that, back to back, I was learning Vietnamese. Each year he'll just take me to the bookstore and we're like, OK, last year you did, you know, first and second grade level, we can skip third. Let's go, let's advance you. And so in three summers, like I was, I mean, in two and a half, I would say like two, yeah, like two summers, I was already fluent in Vietnamese. And by the third summer, it was just like, we're kind of just out there hanging out. Now he's making me write essays and stuff. But because of him, I'm like, of all my cousins and my sister, I'm the most fluent in Vietnamese.

ZM: That was my next question. Did your siblings have that experience, too? Or…

ND: So my sibling and my cousins, they went to Sunday school and so the Portland had the Viet Ngu Vang Lang and so they had that Vietnamese program that all my cousins went to and my sister went to on Sundays. But even with that, I smoked them in Vietnamese all day.

ZM: Did you participate in the Van Lang at all?

ND: I didn't, but I think this is also part of one of the questions too, like what I was involved in. On Sundays, while my cousins and my sister went to the Vietnamese school, I went to a Buddhist youth group. [ZM: Oh, cool.] Yeah, I went to a Buddhist youth group in Johnson Creek at the Ngọc Sơn temple. Yep. And that was, and since I was 13, all the way until I was 18, I was there every single Sunday from like 10 to 4. And just how like people go to Catholic school, Sunday school, I went to this Buddhist youth group and it was kind of just like, you can kind of say it was almost like scouts. So we had morning prayers and then we had Dharma teaching and then we also had Vietnamese class. And then the rest of the day was learning how to tie knots, learning how to cook, start a fire, stuff like that. And then just like fun games and that. Yeah, so it was kind of like, it was a very fun part of my life growing up. And I did it, I did it year round, five years straight, up until I was 18.

ZM: Yeah, that was again, you knew that was a question on here. Yeah, you're prepared. Any other religious or community organizations that you participated in as a kid? I think we covered a lot of ground, so.

ND: No, no, yeah, I think the youth group was my biggest one. That was one of the biggest impacts growing up.

ZM: This often happens when I just have a good conversation, but this is a question we've probably already talked a little bit about, but I'll ask it again in case you want to speak more on it. I wonder if growing up in Portland, could you talk a little bit about the connection that you felt to the Vietnamese American community? If you felt like you were part of that.

ND: I would say growing up, like in my teenage years, because I was involved in the Buddhist youth group, we were… There [were] a lot of events that we were a part of in the community, the Vietnamese community. Tết was a really big one growing up, hosted at the Convention Center. So I remember those programs, like it was an all-day event, right? Almost like ten hours. There was entertainment. There was live raffles. There was… because my role with the organization that we did the lion dancing, so we were there lion dancing.

ZM: You are just anticipating all my questions of how you got into lion dancing.

[00:29:56]

ND: But like with the youth group, because we were a Vietnamese Buddhist youth group, we were everywhere during that period of time. And so I would say that during my teenage years, from 13 to 18, I felt connected where there were just a lot of events happening throughout the city. And we were there at all the events. There was a lot of entertainment. Like the Sunday school that I was mentioning about. They also ran extracurriculars and so there were music classes of playing the traditional Vietnamese instruments. There were dance classes. There was acting, skits. And so, going to all these different events and celebrations, we would see them all. And then I was like, “That's so cool.” I saw that group there just like a couple of weeks ago, and now we're seeing them again. And so it was very packed with… The community was very packed and close-knitted in those years that I was a part of the youth group.

ZM: Yeah, for sure. So I think we'll kind of move on to about your life now, talking about your career. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about if you went to college and how you decided where to go, what you studied, if applicable.

ND: I went to the University of Oregon. Since the second grade, my second grade teacher was a huge Duck fan and because of that I was a huge Duck fan. I just liked the colors. And so just if anybody ever asked where I wanted to go to school, I would be like I want to go to Oregon Ducks, like U of O. And so senior year, I applied to University of Oregon. Well I applied to a couple other schools too, but U of O was my top [choice]. And I went to the University of Oregon. I studied business, and so that was also primarily why I chose to go to that school. They have a really good business program. It's just overall like a business-oriented school. And yeah, I have a bachelor's degree in, it's like a general business studies. Yeah. I spent four years down there. So that's kind of, that's why I chose to go. And you know, I love the Ducks. The school is just great. Yeah. Knight in town, Phil Knight, all good stuff.

ZM: Yeah, for sure. I wonder if you can talk just a little bit about your professional trajectory and what has led you to what you're working on today.

ND: Yeah, so my professional career, it wasn't until college where I learned that there was just so [many] different sides of business. I thought that I could just go to school for business and then have a degree and then just do business. It was very, very broad. And then, you know, you learn about the different realms of business: marketing, advertising, finance, and none of that really intrigued me. Like I didn't have interest in that. I really wanted to like… I wanted to make profit. So I wanted to just make money. So it was like more so on the entrepreneur side of things. Entrepreneur side, salesy, right? And so after college, I was recruited and I worked for Louis Vuitton. And I was just like, cool, what a cool opportunity. And you know, how I understood it, was, it was very sales, very busy. So like I did business, I conducted business, but it was like salesy. And I didn't really have a lot of experience. This was like my first sort of like big boy job, right out of college too and I felt so cool because I was recruited. That was, I thought that was like the direction of business I wanted to go on. So it's just like do business, like a lot of sales, a lot of good commission, but then you know it’s just very, it wasn't very promising. Like I couldn't see myself in this field of work for a long period of time, and so it took a couple of years to really discover what I wanted to do in business. I was always working, but it was in different fields. So retail with Louis Vuitton was like number one, right? So I did retail. I didn't like it. And then I worked for a start-up, in logistics. That was cool. But it was also like, I'm working logistics in a warehouse. I don't like this. This is just… kind of, it was a lot of hard work and I was just managing this warehouse. It just didn't make sense. And it was for a start-up. So I was like, you never knew what today could hold or tomorrow could hold. And so to that point, the start-up did not do so well. And so I left the start-up, and then I did health administration, also sort of on the business side, so insurance doing admin work, but kind of just telling people… trying to sell people more stuff that the health care had. I think that was a little bit unethical because I was trying to upsell health. I was just like, “No,” because I've seen my parents in this situation. I've seen people, like… this is not ethical. And so then I completely stopped working. And for a small period of time, it was about a year, I was just doing entrepreneur stuff. So just all like buying and selling products online, on eBay and on Amazon. And I was like, “OK, I really need to hone in on what I want to do career-wise.” So after that, my mom was like, “Hey, you're 26. You're about to be cut off of my insurance benefits. Let's really try to hone in on what you're trying to do, right? You're making a lot of money, but money is not always the solution, right? Benefits, 401k, all that good stuff, right?” So I went on LinkedIn. I tailored my resume. I fixed everything up. I got some professional headshots, and I was like, “OK, let's really focus on what I'm good at.” And I talked to just my friends, my community partners. And I was like, “Hey, I really need to find a career that I want to be invested in and what I'm good at. So what is it that you guys think I'm good at?” And a lot of questions, a lot of just going through different options. So now in my professional career that I've been at for almost three years, and I love it. I'm a project manager in the semiconductor industry. So my company is a German manufacturing company. We make lasers for Intel. [ZM: Wow, cool.] So yeah, very, very far off of what I was doing before, but it really honed in on the type of skills that I've developed over the years, that my personality and just how I communicate, how I interact with other people. Thanks to just, you know, the manager believing in me, giving me the opportunity, and then just being in the industry now and just being in this role for over two years, it's definitely something that I see myself doing for a long time, and has resonated really well with myself.

[00:37:19]

ZM: That's great. It's wonderful to hear that you've found something that.

ND: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like my success story. Like I had a lot of… I wouldn't say I had a lot of down, it was just like really trying to discover what I wanted to do over the years, and kind of was able to just put it all together and hone, zone in on this.

ZM: Yeah, that makes sense. Shifting a little bit, I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about the White Lotus Foundation for someone who's listening who might not know what it is, and kind of the origin story there.

ND: Yes. So the White Lotus Foundation started in 2021. It was started by myself. And so we started when I was in the Buddhist youth group, I was a part of the lion dance team, and rebranded the lion dance team to be called White Lotus. In Buddhist culture, Lotus is a big, you know, it is a big, very symbolic flower in the culture. Just signifies purity, beauty, and so we called the lion dance team White Lotus Lion Dance. And when I started the foundation, it was because we were very successful with the White Lotus Lion Dance years prior to that because the White Lotus started in 2015 while I was in college as well. So I started the White Lotus Lion Dance. I co-founded the team with other partners, and we started a lion dance team. And over the years, it became very successful. We were gaining a lot of attention, gaining a lot of traction, performed at a lot of different events and celebrations other than just the Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn. And because of that, we just had this traction, this wave of popularity, like everybody, we were in demand. Everybody wanted Lion Dancing. And I started the Foundation because I wanted to have an entity that we could grow that could, you know, benefit [from] that traction that we were gaining. And how can I start an organization that can now give back to the community? Over the years, the community gave the White Lotus Lion Dance so much opportunity to perform lion dancing, to spread our culture, spread the art. And we raised all this money. How can we now return the favor to the community? And that is why in 2021, with the current, with the members that I had then that were, you know, that also felt the same way, that also had the same mission, we started the White Lotus Foundation in 2021 with the mission to empower individuals in the Asian, American, and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander community in Portland.

[00:40:19]

ZM: That's great. Thank you for sharing about that. I wonder also if you could share if there are any other kind of additional projects or things that you're working on now or in the past that you'd want to share about.

ND: Yeah. So the White Lotus Foundation, how we like to explain it, it's the umbrella. The White Lotus Foundation houses the different programs that we are currently doing. One of them [is] Lion Dancing, very popular. The other two are… one of them is the White Lotus Market. And so we noticed that after COVID, there was a very big gap in just events and people, events for people to go to. Like, you know, right after the pandemic, there was no celebration. People were still kind of just weary, scared of going out or just no one… like everything sort of was on pause. And so, no one was starting up anything anymore. And we noticed that there was a demand. And so we took the leap of faith and we started our first market. And that has been one of the projects that we've done under the White Lotus Foundation now, for going on now three years. So the White Lotus Market is one of our successful and ongoing projects that we're looking to continue and grow every year with the different markets that we do throughout Portland.

And then the other program that we do is our Junior Executive Program. So, sort of like a big brother, big sister mentoring program. We just wanted to be able to provide a space for high schoolers in the community to just kind of see a different side of our operation, of what they're used to. So like at school, you can join sports and clubs, and you know, it's very by the books. How about you join the White Lotus Junior Exec Program and we show you how we throw on these events, how we do budgeting, how we're… inside view, more like real-world experience I would say and it's just more on a very like toned-down style so we're very relaxed, very chill. And it's just a space for them to very… be themselves, voice their opinions, voice their creativity and based off the network and the tools that we have how, can we support your ideas and your voice and you know your contribution to the team. So those are the three programs that White Lotus is currently focused on right now.

ZM: Yeah, that's such amazing work that you all do. I wonder if you could share a little bit more, just for Tết that just happened, you know, at various events. I saw y'all perform, or I see on your social media, you had so many performances. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the different groups you work with or the venues you perform at, just kind of what that really busy schedule looks like.

ND: I mean this year was a little slower because it was just you know we came out of the year of the dragon, and year of the dragon, everybody wants to celebrate right? We did a little over 125 shows within six weeks in Portland, and it was amazing it was fun. This year, we did a little over a hundred, like a little under 110 shows, so it wasn't as busy. It wasn't as hectic, but honestly like it's just, it's a really good feeling that the Portland community at large is recognizing lion dancing at their celebrations. And so we're seeing a popularity and performing more on the corporate side. So being at Nike World headquarters, being at the Trailblazers, being at Adidas, being at Moss Adams, like all these different firms, all these different agencies in the Portland area, is slowly recognizing just overall Asian American culture. And so it's honestly, you know, that's… I love what we do because, know, in 2015 when I started White Lotus, it was just like a dream to, oh, we were one day we're going to perform for Nike. And now this year we performed twice for Nike and the Trailblazers, and we're doing all these small events, small community events as well. It's amazing. With what White Lotus has created here for the Vietnamese community, it definitely filled in a void, a gap, right? And it's actually something that we try to educate as we go as well. So Vietnamese people, and just I’m talking just about lion dancing, like yeah they never saw lion dancing outside of Tết, outside of Lunar New Year and Mid-Autumn, Tết Trung Thu. But we were able to show them that lion dancing is to scare away evil spirits, is to bring luck and prosperity and spread joy. You can have it at your grand openings. You can have it at your birthdays. You can have it at weddings. And so throughout the years of the establishment of White Lotus Lion Dance, we've helped the Vietnamese community celebrate all of their celebrations. So, you know, it's becoming like a norm. So, you know, and it's good. It's a very positive impact because we're just donating our time. We never charge. We don't charge like community events or anything like that. If it's for the community, if it's for families, it's all donation. So we just ask them to give us a red envelope and feed the lions for good luck. But in return, you know, we're meeting and we're celebrating with everyone, that like, “Hey, you can have a lion dance at your 50th birthday.” It's totally perfect, you know? And so with lion dancing, it's always going to be busy. It's always going to be in demand. And it's just, I would say that it's… over the years, we thank the Portland community at large for recognizing this type of performance. And because of that, Vietnamese people have seen the progression of it and they've been able to recognize that and feed off of that too, which then brings our performance to their celebrations as well. So now, like during Tết, we probably performed for 30 to 40 different Vietnamese celebrations at their restaurants, at their home, at the schools, everywhere.

[00:46:59]

ZM: Yeah, I was keeping an eye on your social media.

ND: Yeah. We're very busy. And it's a great thing. It's very great. Yeah, I'm very happy that we've had that support.

ZM: Yeah, it's great to hear about the ongoing success of the organization. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how your, and we've talked about this a bit already, as I've mentioned, but how your work in community organizing has helped you connect to various different groups throughout Portland.

ND: Can you repeat the first part again?

ZM: Yeah, just how has your work in community organizing, your role kind of being in that realm, how has that helped you connect with different communities throughout Portland?

ND: I would say it's just all networking. It's created a good platform to network. Right? So, because of our community events, it's just opened the doors for other ethnicities and other organizations to want to partner and work with us. And I think that's the goal for us. That's why the White Lotus Foundation is not just a Vietnamese nonprofit organization. It's to empower everyone in the Asian American Native Pacific Islander community. And so that's our goal, and so by doing these events, by doing these celebrations, and by very pushing our program, it's connected us with the Southeast Community, so the Thai, Laos, Cambodian community. We've done a lot of work with the Chinese community. And now we've even branched off to working with the Ukrainian community, the Latino community. And we also perform and work with the African American community. There’s an event called My People's Market that we perform at. It’s very fun to be able to offer our culture with theirs. So it's been successful. It's been very impactful. I cherish all of the community partners and organizations that have supported us and have been open to working with us. I would say that we're bridging all the gaps amongst us and the other communities around Portland.

ZM: Yeah, that's such important work. I wonder if you could share a little bit about what's next for you or what are some of your goals for the future? And that could be personally or for the White Lotus Foundation. You know, whatever.

[00:49:45]

ND: Yeah, you know, personally, I would love to leave the industry that I'm in, just like my professional career and be able to take on like White Lotus full time and really try to make a big difference in terms of more events that I can just go around and host multiple events at the same time. Because I have a problem where someone asked me to do something. And like, hey, we want you to help us with this, and I just want to say yes. But it's just not in my team and my bandwidth to do because we have our nine to five that we have to do. And so getting us into a position where we can benefit a little bit off of the work that we do and be supported. Like, if I can leave this income and I can just get paid to work to run White Lotus full time and really grow it, that's my ultimate goal. I love what I do. I love doing the lion dancing, teaching youth, connecting with schools. I love the markets. I love being able to help these small businesses grow and share their work with the community. That's like a personal goal. If I can get White Lotus Foundation to a position where, you know, we're thriving financially and that I can pay myself a salary to keep on running the organization and supporting everyone else, that's my ultimate goal.

As far as the White Lotus Foundation, our goal is to also get into a more comfortable financial situation where we have more funding, we have more budget. Because our goal is to always offer everything we do free or at very low cost. So lion dancing, we don't charge any of the members to participate. It's all volunteer, it's all free work and we want to continue to do that. We want to offer this program into more schools within the area. We don't charge for community performances. We want to keep it like that. Schools, we want to help the schools. So just like on the lion dance side. For the markets, the same thing, like we don't want to charge crazy vendor fees. We want to help your business grow. So we had more money, we had more support. We'll just keep these vendor costs very low, very minimal, just to cover our expenses.

But the overall goal for White Lotus is we actually want to be able to own a Cultural Center. We want to have a White Lotus Cultural Center in Southeast, like right here in Southeast 82nd. And it's kind of more on the athletic side, open gym side of things, right? We want to use it for lion dancing. We want to use it for lion dancing, but we also wanted to use it as a place for the Portland Arts and Cultural Center to teach their fan dances. We want VDLI to have a place to come teach their program as well. We want to host pickleball and ping pong tournaments for the elders. Like the elders love playing ping pong. We want to be able to do that. We want it a safe space for, like my mom is kind of like getting into Pilates. Like, wouldn't it be cool to have a space where women, like Asian women can come and do Pilates with their friends? So the big goal for us is to be able to acquire a cultural center, cultural athletic center so that we can open it free of charge to different people in our community to come use, so that we can support their vision and dreams. So, yeah, so those, are the two, the two goals that I have, for myself and White Lotus. It's tied into each other, but that's just kind of like, that's just where the passion lies and you know. I hope that we, I can do that for myself and the big bonus is also to do that with our team. Yeah.

ZM: That's great. I wonder if you could share a little bit, and I know this could vary so much, but you can interpret it how you like. I wonder what does a day in the life look like for you?

ND: I'm very lucky that I get to work hybrid and so I'm up at 6 a.m. Monday through Fridays. Sometimes Monday through Fridays I'm up at 6 a.m. I have my work calls because our counterparts are on German time. So I'm doing… Yep… I'm doing my reporting like afternoon, end of day for Germany. Right. And so, you know, from six to about 10 o'clock, I am working just locked in doing my actual, coordinating my project management job. And then midday is kind of a little bit more free so that's kind of when it opens my schedule up to do more of networking with the White Lotus. So I do find like, I respond to email inquiries for lion dancing or partnerships that people want to partner with us for the summer markets or the Mid-Autumn festival. So kind of midday because I'm more free, I focus a lot of my attention on White Lotus stuff. During that time too, again, I love business still, and I love making money. So I'm always… I do a lot of wholesaling and so we buy electronics, we wholesale them. That's just kind of like a side gig as a hobby, keeps it going. I love credit, love like turning credit card points, earning cash back and like I just do that too. I find a spot in the day to do that between all of my work.

The rest of the day up until about four o'clock goes back to work. I just focus on my end of my daily reporting, just daily project management job, helping the engineers with the rest of my work. And then the evening time, just really depending on which day, a lot of it we have our board meetings that we do on a weekly basis. We have lion dance practice that we do on a weekly basis. I have dinner with my parents multiple times a week. And then the rest of the day is just kind of just, I kind of just free fall. So I just, I try to keep myself busy, honestly, Monday through Fridays, as busy as I can and try to just always have something to do, have someone to talk to, cooking up ideas, whatever it is. During the weekends, most of my weekends are consumed by lion dancing. So I work… when I'm on a project, it's a six day workday. So I do work Saturdays too, but I do, I work it completely remote. And then, Saturdays and Sundays are usually when lion dancing happens as well. So most of my weekends are consumed by lion dancing as well. So yeah, I'm very busy year round. If it's not lion dancing, it's the market [that] happened during the weekend. So then, during the summer, it's doing the markets, doing the lion dancing, having work regularly as well. So just being able to just multitask and do everything. But I would say that for the most part, I'm a pretty busy guy. [ZM: Yeah, sounds like it.] And it's just like, it's just the entrepreneur spirit inside of me. I love staying busy. I love just meeting people, kind of dabbling into things that can benefit me financially, but also benefit other people, and just how to uplift the organization, the White Lotus Organization. Yeah, everybody else is glued to their nine to five, like they work in the office. One of my guys is in med school, so it's like I'm the only one that can kind of piece everything together for them and then like hi guys Monday's meeting, I have all this, I gotta tell you guys like. Let's take it out.

[00:57:42]

ZM: Yeah, that's really interesting. So I've got one last section for you. And I think it's basically community. And we've talked a lot about it. So we may have already covered some of these bases. But I wonder if you could talk a little bit… you kind of referenced this earlier, but kind of how you've seen the Vietnamese community here in Portland change over time. I know that's a big ask, too.

ND: Yeah, no. I would say so like earlier I emphasized a lot… I emphasized during my teenage years when we were at these community celebrations like Tết. It was very fun. There was a lot of entertainment. A lot of different groups performing together to celebrate our culture and our heritage. I would say that, in my early adult years, so like in my earlier 20s, I noticed a decline in that. Less organizations in the community wanted to step forward to host these events. People weren't very fond of teaching the dances. Kind of just keeping that cycle going. And I also noticed a disconnect in the demographics. The kids weren't very interested anymore in participating in these events or that. I think there was a very big disconnect, in my early 20s, I noticed, amongst my peers. Because at the U of O, I was involved in the Vietnamese Student Association. And even then, I was very like, you know, kind of just hearing everybody's story growing up. I was like, “Dang, you guys never grew up, like, eating dinner with your family.” Like, I did that every day, you know? And so there was a very, I felt like there was a big cultural gap and disconnect in my early 20s that I noticed. And it didn't help that no one in the community was trying to start it up again, like start this fire again.

And so for a while, it did feel like everything in the Vietnamese community was very stagnant. That, and I would also like to say that there was a lot of very strong, like a lot of the politics, and so I think the focus switched into like, you know, like very… I think the biggest thing I saw the Vietnamese community do is like they put a lot of effort and energy into taking down the Northern flag and putting up the yellow flag, the Vietnam Cộng Hoà flag and so I saw and it's a positive change. But I do feel that it kind of took away from just the inclusivity of all Vietnamese Americans, right? Because I went to school with kids that were from Vietnam and it's like they grew up only knowing about the red flag with the yellow star. You know, so I think the groups that were doing that did it in a positive... Like I don't think they meant any harm, they were just, you know, that's what they believed in but I think because… It was just, I just felt like in my early 20s, those like four or five years during college and after college, that's all that I saw on social media was, we were here at City Hall. We had a meeting with them. We need to take down this flag. We were at OSU. We saw that flag setting up. We need to take it down. And so that's kind of sort of the stuff that I noticed that changed, that, you know, growing up, it was super fun going to these events. And now I go to the same events and it's just all talking about politics, social justice, the war, and it really takes away the… It didn't include any entertainment aspect that draws the younger generation. So yeah, so that's, what I would say the sort of changes I noticed that it's just a different pace than what I grew up, you know, recognizing. And so part of the reason why, you know, we do what we do is that we want to bring that entertainment aspect back to the community, right?

Let's put all of our opinions aside, let's put history aside, and let's just focus on the fun part of things. So let's get the families out, let's get the kids out, let's throw events and let's do things that are impactful on more of the entertainment side of things. So that's kind of what we're trying to revitalize here within the community.

[01:02:16]

ZM: I wonder if you could share more broadly how you've kind of seen Portland change over your lifetime.

ND: I love the way Portland used to look. I love the old buildings. I love how the streets… It's overall like, I would say that Portland has changed over the years in many different positive and negative ways. But I think the city is very vibrant and it recognizes diversity and culture. That's one thing that I definitely can say that at a very young age up until now, that's one thing that Portland never took away from our community is the diversity and the cultural aspect. Yeah, you have gentrification, buildings going up, buildings going down, you have, you know, political movements and stuff like that, but it's… It's changed and I was gonna say like changes are good, changes happen because you know we want something new, something fresh for the community and for the city. And so it's been good. I love Portland. This is home for me. Everything I do revolves around the Portland and Pacific Northwest community so I think that the changes made and are decided amongst our leaders, they all have a purpose, and they'll have a meaning to it. And like I said earlier, my parents at a very young age taught me to just adapt and be able to recognize and embrace all the changes and the differences. And so that instilled me to like, OK, well, if this changes, how are we going to adapt to it? How can we make it a part of our everyday interaction instead of just trying to see a negative or positive side to it. So I try to stay neutral about everything. But I think Portland has changed over the years, definitely. But the root of it all is the culture and the diversity is still here and it's instilled in the Portland culture.

ZM: Yeah, I wonder if there are any places in particular in Portland that are especially meaningful to you.

ND: Multnomah Falls. I love Multnomah Falls. A lot of hikes there. It's just a staple, right? That is just like, when people talk about Multnomah Falls, or like Portland, what do you guys have? I got a waterfall. My friends now that I tell them to like, they live in like Texas and stuff, they're like, you guys have waterfalls? Like legit? I was like,”What you mean we got waterfalls? Yeah, we have a waterfall.” [ZM: We’ve got plenty!] So I love it. I love Multnomah Falls. I love the Rose Garden, right? Portland, City of Roses. That's always a staple to me. The Rose Quarter will always be the Rose Quarter. It's not going to be the Moda Center. I love the Rose, the Rose Garden. Yeah, those are my two big artifacts here.

[01:05:27]

ZM: Yeah, that’s great. Shifting gears a little bit, I wonder if there are any experiences of racism or discrimination that you've experienced that you want to share about in this interview.

ND: Yeah, growing up, I never experienced racism. Yeah, I think I hung out with a very good group of friends, just around good people, my parents as well. I've never experienced prejudice or anything like that. I felt like I was treated very fairly anywhere I went.

ZM: Sounds like you've always been part of a really supportive community, which is really great.

ND: Yeah, definitely. So like that's why yeah, like during like the whole Stop Asian Hate like I definitely felt triggered by that, too. And it's like how can we help? Yeah, but you know, I think like personally, luckily too, I, you know, my family, myself, we never experienced that, so it's very good.

ZM: Yeah. OK, I've just got two more questions.

ND: No worries. Lob them my way.

ZM: So in your mind, what role does being Vietnamese American play in your life? And I know again, that's a big question.

ND: What role?

ZM: Yeah.

ND: I'm kind of having a little trouble trying to understand that question.

ZM: Yeah, no, that's totally fair. I feel like, you know, just like how does it inform your daily life? And that's OK. We can skip it, too.

ND: I think it's the hard work that Vietnamese people have. The resilience, the never give up mentality and just keep pushing it. That's the big role. I mean, as I've told you, I'm a busy guy and I keep myself busy with everything that I do, with all my new ideas and everything. And that's because the Vietnamese inside of me is like, you can't give up. You shouldn't give up, right? Give it your all. Push it to the limit, like you need to get your A's in everything that you do, right? So yeah, like that's just kind of like how I do it, right? If I'm gonna do something, I want to get an A in it. Like my mom always yelled at me during studies, like, you know, make sure to get your grades up, make sure to study hard. Like I think those same skills are applied to right now, right? When I'm doing everything, it's like, I have got to do my research, I have got to make sure everything's good so that when we execute the plan, the idea, it's positive, it gets the A. And that's the Vietnamese inside me, just teaching us never to give up, resilience, and to keep it pushing.

ZM: Yeah, that's great. So the last question I have for you, and again, it's something we've spoken about a little bit already, but I wonder if you could share a little bit about what differences or similarities you see between older and younger generations of Vietnamese Americans.

ND: Yeah, I would say that the older generation, so more so like my mom and dad's parents, like my grandma and grandpa and their friends, they definitely see everything more politically. So it's always political, it's always very traditional, not accustomed to new ideas and new changes that are just happening in the Vietnamese culture. Some examples are just like, you know, how Vietnamese, how like, Ao Dai are being worn now, right? Like traditionally they're very covered up. It's, very proper, but modern, it's very fun. It's different. There's a lot of different patterns on it. So, just the older generation definitely are more into their traditional ways, very traditional, very… I would say kind of like close-minded too. You know, not very understanding of how today's society works. So these very stuck in their old ways. So that's kind of how I see a lot of the gap, like old generations of Vietnamese people.

[01:09:47]

New generations, they're just… they don't talk about the war. They don't talk about politics. They embrace Vietnam to its purest form as it is right now. So the good food, the vibrance, the clothes, the music, it's very Americanized now. So I love Vietnamese music. Vietnamese pop music now is very catchy. It has very good melodies. The production is so, it's just like watching something out of MTV or BET. It's great, right? And a lot of the Vietnamese people, the new generation of Vietnamese people I meet that are my age, they recognize… They embrace Vietnamese culture, but now it's just a modern way. It's more fun. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I don't think there's a right or wrong way. Everybody's going to be subject to their own opinion, to their own styles, their own ways. But I think overall, like as long as we keep our tradition and our heritage authentic, we can, we can twist it up anyway. So, you know, yeah, wear your Ao Dai, the new way or the old way doesn't matter, but as long as we're respectful about it and we're keeping it appropriate, then I think it's fine. You know, same with food. There's so much Asian food and there's so much Asian fusion food now. As long as we keep it core and proper, then I think it's totally fine. And, you know, that's kind of how I see the difference between the old generation and the new generation.

ZM: Yeah, that makes sense. So is there anything else that we haven't talked about yet that you would like to discuss before we wrap up?

ND: I felt like we talked about a lot. [ZM: I think we did cover a lot.] Yeah, I mean, I would just like to say, last thing: that the direction right now, because of my involvement within the community, I definitely am seeing a shift in the Vietnamese community positively. So with more political officials, more representation, like in office now, like down in Salem at the Capitol. I think they are definitely highlighting and voicing the concerns and the wants and needs of our community. There's organizations like HPH (Hội Phụ Huynh) and OVACC (Oregon Vietnamese American Cultural Center) that are coming up that have really big plans and or already having plans to bring up the Vietnamese culture and make it more fun. And so I would say right now I can see like in the next five years, three to five years that it's gonna be how I remembered it when I was a kid. With all these partnerships and all these collaborations that groups are trying to do with each other and with us, it's just gonna be a step in the right direction for the Vietnamese community. And I'm excited to see that sprout within the next couple of years. Yeah, and that's it. [ZM: Yeah, that's great.] That's all I wanted to share.

ZM: I will wrap us up. So again, this has been Zoë Maughan talking with Nhan Danh. It's February 27th, 2025, and we are meeting over Zoom.

[01:13:02]

Additional Information

Date: 2025-02-27
Interviewer(s): Zoë Maughan
Interviewee: Nhan Danh
Location: Portland, Oregon (virtual)
Subject: Portland (Or.); Community organizing
Creator: Danh, Nhan, Lewis & Clark College Special Collections
Format: mp3
Duration: 01:13:02
Language: English
Rights: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

For questions about rights statements, or access to the original document please contact Lewis & Clark College Special Collections and Archives http://specialcollections.lclark.edu