Vietnamese “boat people” who found safety in Colorado in the 1970s and ’80s are working to help struggling people stay afloat in their southwest Denver neighborhood.
About 250 people chowed down on a traditional turkey-and-stuffing Thanksgiving dinner that former Vietnamese refugees provided for impoverished and homeless people on Saturday afternoon at the Knights of Columbus building near Federal Boulevard and East Mississippi Avenue.
The meal, the first of its kind, was funded by donations from individual members of the American Vietnamese Community. The group formed 38 years ago but has grown in number and visibility since hosting its first big event in years, a cultural festival, in August. The group is composed primarily of Vietnamese-Americans who fled their homeland after the communist takeover.
“At that time, the U.S. opened their arms and welcomed us,” said Joseph Dang, who left Vietnam with his family in 1986. “Now there are about 40,000 in Colorado.”
Dang said the group is beginning to realize the countless opportunities to help others in the portion of southwest Denver where thousands of Vietnamese have come to call home.
“This particular neighborhood has a lot of low-income families,” said Joseph Nguyen, a member of the Knights of Columbus and the American Vietnamese Community. “They need assistance.”
Denver Police Cmdr. Bill Nagle and his fellow District 4 officers passed out fliers advertising the dinner as they walked their beats this past week.
“I think we have more than our fair share of homeless people,” Nagle said of the area near Federal Boulevard. “They’re a difficult demographic to reach.”
Nagle said the group’s first dinner event was a success: At one point, the line of those waiting to eat stretched onto the Mississippi Avenue sidewalk.
“The Vietnamese community is really stepping up as a positive force in the community,” Nagle said.
Next, the American Vietnamese Community plans to hold a fundraiser for Filipinos affected by Typhoon Haiyan this month.
After his own escape from Vietnam on a rickety boat, Dang said, he lived in a refugee camp in the Philippines from 1986-89.
He said the place is special to him and other Vietnamese-Americans.
Long term, the community aspires to designate the stretch of Federal Boulevard between Mississippi and Alameda avenues “Little Saigon,” after the former capital of South Vietnam that fell in 1975 and was renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
