QUOTE(MyManD @ May 4 2006, 12:08 AM) [snapback]1816691[/snapback]
Not sure if I have too much Viet pride. The Viets I've known since childhood have either become - drug addicts, teenage mothers, dropped out of school, are retarded, in jail, or all of the above. With people like that representing my race, it's hard to be proud being one. I can actually say that beyond my immediate family (and those in Vietnam I met when I went last year), I have not bothered to hang out with another Viet in over 2 years. Now the Chinese and Arabs, those guys know how to have a good time, while not being terrible human beings in the process.
Just my two cents.
Real pride begins with an acknowledgement of reality. In your case, your reality is not at all flattering but Vietnamese history has had its ups and downs, too - It's not all glory and victories and happy days forever. We were b!tch slapped and we had have bad breaks, too, but we came back from that every time. Acknowledging reality is only the first, although the most important step. And you have accomplished that step.
The next step is to change the reality in which you live for yourself. I take it that you are still in school, so soak up as much knowledge as you can, and push those grades up - If you need help, don't be too proud to ask, beg, whine or scream for help. Don't do anything that other clueless Viets have done, think twice before you make a stupid decision, and if you realize that you have made a stupid decision, back out of it immediately regardless of how bad or stupid you look if you back out.
Acknowledge the world around you, and then change it. But if the only thing you can change is yourself and you are changing yourself, then you are already changing your own world. If every Vietnamese changed himself or herself, Vietnam's world would be very different. Most Vietnamese refugees started with almost nothing but the clothes on their backs, but by changing just themselves, they are changing the world. Sure, it takes time, but when you are busy, time flies believe it or not.
If you do not know something today that you did not know yesterday, if you are not trying to do something today that you would not dare to do yesterday because you didn't think you could do it, then you are not pushing yourself. Go at your own pace, but keep pushing against your limitations. Otherwise, nothing happens, nothing changes.
. Being viet roxX. Even tho i am a halfie viet, i feel like all the viets i kno, treat me the same and as their own. I dont ever feel left out whenever im with my viet community. I found that the viets are great pple who struggle through alots, whether is a drunken dad who talk about nothing but about the vietnam war and how he felt bad about killing so many pple. Maybe even a nagging mother who complains about her life and how she could of been better not moving to a diff. country cuz pple treat her like crap here. We stick together. Even tho pple call me a racist for having viet pride, i dont care. I rather be a racist then to lose my viet side.<---iono why im a racist for having viet pride. 
