“My Story, My Homeland”

Cati Mayer

Members of the Vietnamese Student Association perform a traditional Vietnamese group dance in the Visual and Performing Arts Center.

Cati Mayer, Staff Writer
May 10, 2014

The De Anza College Vietnamese Student Association celebrated their home country with a presentation of “My Story, My Homeland” at the Visual and Performing Arts Center.

The two hour long show consisted of 12 segments in which the students honored Vietnam, including short plays, songs and dances.

The show started off with a traditional play, followed by traditional songs and dances.

Tan Trat, 21, sings and Duy Vo, 21, performs on the guitar for the event.
Tan Trat, 21, sings and Duy Vo, 21, performs on the guitar for the event.

Later, the students presented modern plays in musical style and serended the audience with acoustic performances from Tam Huyen Nguyen, Thao Nguyen and Deneo Vo.

A traditional Vietnamese fashion show crowned the end of the event.

Former De Anza students such as Leo Nguyen, 26, came to visit De Anza for the event. “I went to the show last year and really liked it,” Nguyen said.

The show was mainly held in Vietnamese, making it difficult for the non-Vietnamese speaking audience members to understand the content.

Despite this, the performances had strong musical and visual elements that seemed to  entertain the entire audience.

“The performers did great. I really enjoyed the show,” said Duc Nguyen, 23, business major, an international student from Vietnam. “It brings back memories.”

The event was previously held in the Flint Center, but booking the facility became increasingly expensive.

“The event has been an annual tradition for 30 years until we had to stop it in 2007,” VSA advisor K.D. Le said.

“Due to a lack of funding, the association wasn’t able to continue their annual celebration until the Visual and Performing Arts Center was built,” Le said.

Using the facilities of the Visual and Performing Arts Center is almost 10 times cheaper than using the Flint Center.

Last year, the association was able to revive their tradition.

“I’m happy that the students have a chance to celebrate their culture again,” Le said.

The association president Phoebe Luong, 21, who organized the event, said she is proud of all the performers, who worked on their performances for almost five months.

“We all had to practice and study at the same time, which was difficult sometimes,” Luong said. “But it was worth it.”