When Culture is Sadly Overlooked

My newspaper, the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, has written hundreds of stories over the years about a large group of Vietnamese-Americans in San Jose, who lately have been lobbying to name a retail shopping strip area after the former capital of their ancestral homeland.

The raging debate has been whether to name the area "Little Saigon" or the "Saigon Business District."

Starting in late 2007, hundreds of Vietnamese-Americans began pouring into meetings at San Jose City Hall to rally for "Little Saigon," while the city's only Vietnamese council member championed the business district name.

The story first took on overtones of a dispute in November. In all, the paper has published about 50 stories about the community outcry. Here's just one of them: "'Little Saigon' protest set for today, despite holiday."

But the various reporters, columnists, editorial page writers and editors who worked on the story didn't really get to the bottom of why so many Vietnamese-Americans cared so much about the semantics of a name.

Until January. That's when culturally astute reporter Kim Vo, who happens to be Vietnamese-American herself, asked, "What's really going on here?"

She found out that "Little Saigon" holds special meaning for its advocates. She explained why in an article headlined, "For San Jose's 'Little Saigon' backers, anger runs deep."

Perhaps the best line in the story, which tells both insiders and outsiders alike why the seemingly minor difference is a big deal, explains that the protesters found the situation "as unsatisfying as if they had lobbied for the name 'New York' and got handed 'York' instead."

Vo also described why the process of deciding the name meant so much to so many Vietnamese refugees, who fled communism to come to the United States - a land they expected to honor democracy and majority rule. These community members went through the regular City Hall process to lobby for "Little Saigon," and felt betrayed when a council member - a Vietnamese woman they helped put in power - favored naming the area something more neutral.

Vo has been at the Mercury News for about eight years and served as the religion writer for the last two years. This month, she was promoted to editor of the education/science team. Previously, she was a general assignment reporter for many years.

Her family fled communist Vietnam and she was raised in the United States. She speaks Vietnamese, but she conducted all her interviews in English. She told me, however, that it didn't take being Vietnamese to report the story. It took a culturally aware reporter to ask the right questions.

There are two key reporting lessons to learn from this.

One is to ask what is often the most important journalism question: "Why?" Why are the protesters out there in such numbers? Why do they care so much?

The second is that a culturally sensitive reporter needs to listen - and listen carefully - to the answers. Vo told me that when she was interviewing community members, the answers came slowly, in disconnected thoughts and sentences. But she was paying attention to themes. Helped by her knowledge of Vietnamese history, she noticed a pattern of community complaints about unfairness and disappointment with the outcome of a democratic process. Once she identified the theme, she interviewed her sources again, rephrasing and asking more specific questions to elicit fuller explanations.

Lisa Fernandez is a reporter at the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. She covers everything from crime to community, and believes that a person's cultural background is often a key motivating factor, but is sadly overlooked by the mainstream media. She has a degree in anthropology from McGill University in Montreal and a master's degree from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago. Please submit ideas or stories for Lisa to review.