SFSU Public Affairs Press Release Published by the Public Affairs Office at San Francisco State University, Diag Center.

#102--April 26, 2000; Media Advisory
Contact: Ted DeAdwyler
phone: 415/338-1665
e-mail: pubcom@sfsu.edu

Two faculty members in the Vietnamese American Studies Program at San Francisco State University can offer expert insight into the 25th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and its impact on the Vietnamese American community, especially in the Bay Area. The two scholars, who still have relatives in Vietnam and return there frequently, teach in SFSU's Asian American Studies Department, part of the College of Ethnic Studies.

Mai Nhung Le, assistant professor of Asian American Studies at SFSU, is an expert in Vietnamese identity in America. Mai Nhung Le, who has a doctorate in community health and science from UC Berkeley, also has studied women's health issues in the Vietnamese American community. And she has done a significant amount of research on the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Vietnam. Mai Nhung Le vividly remembers leaving Vietnam 25 years ago. "My family and I were in Guam preparing to come t o one of the camps in the United States," she recalled. "It was only a few days after the traumatic experience of being flown from my country packed like sardines in a cargo plane with the expectation of never being able to return, and only unknowns ahead."
Mai Nhung Le can be reached at (415) 338-6161 or (415) 255-9993 or by e-mail at mainhung@sfsu.edu

Minh-Hoa Ta, a lecturer in the Asian American Studies Department at SFSU, has studied the contemporary Vietnamese community in the United States, with special emphasis on the Bay Area. Minh-Hoa Ta is completing research on ethnic Chinese Vietnamese and their migration to the U.S., focusing on their migration from China to Vietnam and from Vietnam to the United States. Minh-Hoa Ta was in Vietnam in 1975 and did not come to the United States until 1979. "My students are very glad to see that the U .S. government is attempting to normalize its relationship with Vietnam. Seeing the positive change in Vietnam also will bring peace to Vietnamese Americans because many still have ties back home."
Minh-Hoa Ta can be reached at (415) 239-3846 or (510) 528-2417 or by e-mail at alichavo@sfsu.edu

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Last modified April 24, 2007, by Office of Public Affairs