'Home' has new meaning

Hurricane Katrina redefined the word home for innumerable evacuees, and it's a concept in flux for many displaced residents. Even in another language.

"Before Katrina, when we said homeland, we meant Vietnam," said the Rev. Nguyen The Vien, pastor of Mary Queen of Vietnam. "When my people say homeland now, they mean New Orleans. It's a radical shift in the people's mentality. It's a very pervasive sense."

Parishioners have been contacting Vien and asking when they can come home to eastern New Orleans. His large church on Dwyer Boulevard, which has a congregation of about 6,000, is trying to reconstitute a community of mostly immigrants who have dispersed to far-flung cities such as Boston, Atlanta and Houston.

The church is urging them to return, and it is serving as a base of operations for recovery in the surrounding neighborhood. It has held Mass twice without electricity or water, drawing several hundred each time, and Archbishop Alfred Hughes will be the celebrant Sunday.

 

Trailers on the way

The church has been serving hot meals and distributing aid daily. Crews gather there and assist residents in salvaging and rebuilding their homes. Generators power fans and a freezer at night, and two 800-gallon tanks connected to toilets help make them operable.

Vien also negotiated with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to bring 8-by-32- foot trailers onto the church's 26-acre lot across the street. FEMA officials say more than 100 trailers should be set up there in about two weeks to provide temporary housing.

"We will go ahead and roll trailers out there as a little community for him," said Stephen DeBlasio, chief of FEMA's direct housing operation in Louisiana. "We're moving forward. We're in the assessment phase right now."

DeBlasio said he was concerned about making the trailers available without other services, but he has been impressed with the Vietnamese community's ability to care for itself. "They sure want to pick themselves up by their bootstraps," he said. "There's no doubt about that."

Residents are returning to the surrounding community to clean up their moldy, flood-damaged houses, salvage items and rebuild. They are inspired by the church's example, and many are optimistic about the resilience of their tight-knit community. But some are skeptical it will be able to rebuild soon.

"I'd love to rebuild, but if you don't have the resources . . ." Kim Nguyen said through a mask outside her ruined home on Dwyer, about a block from the church. "Everybody wants to come back," she said. "But this mess. What about their children? How is their health going to be?"

She and her husband, Tuan Nguyen, were busy cleaning out their house Friday. They had evacuated to Tallahassee, Fla., then stayed in northern Louisiana with her brother. They are now living in Baton Rouge, where their three children are enrolled in school. "We really miss this community," she said.

 

Saying goodbye

But the Nguyens said they believe some rebuilding would be faster with a fresh start. "If they bulldozed, they would rebuild everything new," she said.

Dat Dinh, a 31-year-old Xavier University student, returned about 10 days ago to his house on Willowbrook Drive. His parents live next door. Neither of their houses flooded, and he considers himself lucky.

But his four siblings have decided to stay in Houston, he said, and he doesn't plan on living in New Orleans long. "After school's done, I might not stick around," he said. "I don't have a neighborhood to come home to."

Lang Le is living in Houston with her husband, their two sons and daughter. She is looking forward to attending Sunday Mass at Mary Queen of Vietnam. "It's like a reunion," she said. "After a month in Houston, we missed New Orleans. That is our real home."

Houston has a lot to offer, she said, but it lacks "the community life." Still, she is not ready to live in eastern New Orleans. "I don't think we can stay there yet," she said. "But definitely we will be back to rebuild."

Like many of her neighbors, Men Tong, 73, fled communist Vietnam in 1975. She has lived in her home on Dwyer for 30 years, and she isn't ready to abandon it. On Friday, she mopped the floor and wiped moldy walls behind her treasured antique furniture.

"My mother has been through more wars than anybody," said her daughter, Yasmeen Tran, who lives in Slidell. "This is not hard times compared to war.

"All you have to do is just get up and do it and be part of the rebuilding. . . . This is just a great country to rebuild."

 

Waiting for a plan

She has been driving her mother daily to eastern New Orleans. "We see more people coming home every day," she said, and her mother's elderly neighbors are eager to return. "They say, 'I'm going back to New Orleans with my friends,' " Tran said.

But they want reassurance from city officials, she said. "We're waiting to see if the city is going to use this area for something else," she said. "We don't want to rebuild and then a year later they say, 'never mind.' If we knew what the city's plan is, we'd be good."

But for many of Vien's parishioners, home is where their church is.

"If the church goes, I go," said Bac Nguyen, 45. "If the church stays open, I stay." Nguyen owns BAC of New Orleans, an auto sales and body shop on Chef Menteur Highway. His wife and three children are staying in South Carolina, but he wants to bring them back as soon as possible, he said.

"We're going to build this community back," said Quang Nguyen, 27. "We're doing our best. I hope everything goes back to normal." Born at Charity Hospital in 1978, Nguyen lives on Tudo Drive near the church; his home had less than a foot of flooding. Before the hurricane, he helped his father run O'Bayou, a seafood restaurant on Chef Menteur.

Nguyen sums up his faith and the church simply: "We believe in God, and we try to help everybody."

Flags with primary colors swayed around Mary Queen of Vietnam on Friday, and Vietnamese music echoed from loudspeakers behind it. On an elevated stage beside the parking lot, several men and women ate bowls of spicy vegetables and chicken just before noon.

Vien, 43, arrived in a Mazda pickup, carrying two cell phones. He chatted with parishioners, traded jokes with Buddhist monks visiting from Houston, then fielded calls from U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office, from which he had requested National Guard troops.

He said 300 people attended Mass on Oct. 9, 800 attended Oct. 16 and he expects 1,500 or more Sunday. He calls it a "resurrection Mass for New Orleans East."

 

Riding out the storm

His community had been a burgeoning one before Katrina. According to the census, 5,978 Asians lived in eastern New Orleans in 2000. Although they made up only 6 percent of the area's population, the Asian community grew more than 35 percent between 1990 and 2000, and it continued growing. Vien estimates he had 9,000 Vietnamese before Katrina in his parish, which includes Slidell and Covington.

During the hurricane, he remained in his rectory with about 10 parishioners. Another 100 were in the school behind it. The rectory and the school received minor damage. The church lost a section of roof. "None of my people were terrified," he said. "They have been through years of wars."

He remained in the area until Sept. 2, helping hundreds of residents evacuate. Then he traveled to Lafayette, Houston, San Antonio and Fort Chaffee, Ark., shepherding his flock and helping them settle elsewhere. He celebrated two Masses in Houston before his return. He believes 95 percent of his congregation will return "if I'm pessimistic."

Vien, 43, also came to the United States in 1975. A product of O. Perry Walker High School in Algiers, he received a master's of divinity from Notre Dame University and a licentiate of canon law from Catholic University in Washington. He took over as pastor of Mary Queen of Vietnam in 2003.

His faith in the community's resilience is grounded in its culture. "Vietnamese are very agricultural people," he said. "In that sense we are rooted to the land, rooted to each other. New Orleans is a very unique Vietnamese community. In many ways, this is where they find their home."

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Bruce Hamilton can be reached at (504) 826-3378 or bhamilton@timespicayune.com