European Central: Vietnamese Community Stands Strong In The Czech Republic
Vietinfo
When people think of Vietnamese migration to Europe, many may think of France. This is a result of France’s colonization of Vietnam which resulted in it then being the home to the largest Vietnamese community in Europe. There has however been migration to Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic. Vietnamese now make up one percent of the population in the Czech Republic and are the third-largest minority in the country after Slovaks and Ukrainians. The Vietnamese surname Nguyen is also currently the eighth most common surname in the Czech Republic. The recent pandemic and invasion of Ukraine have helped highlight the Vietnamese community in the nation and their process of integrating into the Czech society.
The Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic can trace back its origins back to the time the country was part of Czechoslovakia. Vietnam sent workers to Czechoslovakia for training or to study, but many of these migrants chose to stay in the Czech Republic after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The first generation of Vietnamese workers in the Czech Republic kept to themselves due to their lack of knowledge of the Czech language, but this is changing with Vietnamese kids who grew up in the Czech Republic. 70-80 percent of the first generation of migrants own businesses including food stances and esthetician centers. Younger members of the community who have grown up within the Czech Republic and are determined to venture into other occupations.
Integrating into a country has challenges but Vietnamese migrants found their chance when they played a significant country during the Covid-19 pandemic. Lam Cha Me is an NGO that was created by Vietnamese women living in the Czech Republic in 2017 to assist Vietnamese migrants trying to navigate bureaucracy and gain legal status in the country. The NGO found another calling during the pandemic and helped organize the production of face masks. Lam Cha Me recruited people online with the ability to sew and was able to produce and sell face masks for hospitals, retirement homes, and city councils. This allowed the need for face masks to be met while workers who were temporarily out of work due to Covid-19 measures implemented by the government found another source of income.
Van Sang, a social media star in the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic used his popularity to start a campaign suggested to him by his followers; offering refreshments free of charge to first responders. In order to help indicate Vietnamese businesses offering free refreshments to first responders, flyers were printed with red hearts. Antonin Nevole asked Van Sang for permission and began spreading the flyers amongst Czech businesses in order to provide more support for first responders. While the pandemic has been a difficult period for people, it helped create bonds between the Vietnamese community and the Czechs. While the two groups may be ethnically different, they still both desire to help the Czech Republic make it through the pandemic. Comments from social media indicate that the perception of the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic is changing in a positive direction and the community is increasingly viewed as integrated into the country. The Vietnamese were more prepared to tackle the Covid-9 pandemic than the Czechs due to hearing news from relatives still leaving in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese community has found another important cause, supporting the Vietnamese forced to flee the war in Ukraine. Similar to the Vietnamese already in the Czech Republic, Vietnamese who lived in Ukraine will need help learning the language. Fortunately, volunteers are already helping set up new arrivals with language classes and food and supplies to help get them on their feet in the Czech Republic. Lam Cha Me, the same NGO which helped organize face mask production has already started teaching Czech to Vietnamese children. The last estimate was that 300 Vietnamese citizens originally living in Ukraine had moved to the Czech Republic. Many Vietnamese living in Ukraine returned home to Vietnam with the help of the Vietnamese national government or fled to Poland or Romania. Thai Xuan Dung, the Vietnamese Ambassador to Prague collected 20,000 euros with his staff and sent half of the money to help Vietnamese migrants who fled to Poland and Romania. Dung donated the rest of the money to Prague’s Fire department which has been assisting refugees in general fleeing Ukraine.
The road to acceptance in the Czech Republic has been long for the Vietnamese community which can be seen by how long recognition took for the community to be considered a national ethnic minority. In 2004, the Vietnamese were denied the right of being recognized as an ethnic minority group due to not being an indigenous ethnic group in the Czech Republic. In 2013, the Czech Republic decided to expand the Council of Ethnic Minorities and included representatives from the Vietnamese and Belarussian communities. The two criteria to be recognized as an ethnic minority in the Czech Republic are the requirement of a historic presence and a significant number belonging to the ethnic group. Due to the vague language, this helped these two groups which may not necessarily be indigenous minorities still gain recognition. As a result of being recognized the Vietnamese community receives state funds to support the language and culture of the group. Vietnamese who remained in Slovakia after the division of Czechoslovakia still lack recognition as a minority group and are currently working on obtaining recognition, inspired by the success of the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic.
While the Vietnamese community originally struggled to integrate into the Czech Republic the pandemic and invasion of Ukraine have quickly changed this. As the economies of newer EU member states continue to improve it should be expected that third-country nationals will want to migrate to these member states and not just those in Western Europe. The slow but steady success of the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic proves that there are opportunities throughout Europe if migrants can overcome the initial challenges and help the countries they move to.
