Phung Huynh is hopeful for the future.
As an art professor at Los Angeles Valley College, she is constantly inspired by the next generation. “I feel so lucky for that,” she says. “There’s an exciting new group of artists coming up right now.”
As an educator with previous experience at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design and Scripps College in Claremont, Huynh continues to encourage budding talent. “I’m getting older,” she says. “I need to give a platform for younger and emerging artists. I try to do that as best as I can and support others.”
Huynh, who is the first creative strategist for the Office of Immigrant Affairs, often asks herself: How do you teach culture in Southern California?
One way is through language. L’Héritage Français in La Habra, the International School of Orange and The Language Academy at Aronoff Preschool in Irvine, not to mention the Irvine Chinese School and Chinese Cultural Center, are just a few places in our region offering immersive language classes for younger students. Children spend their school days conversing fully in French, Mandarin, Italian and Spanish. Circle time and songs are taught in foreign languages.
At Aronoff, the children are also introduced to Judaic culture in a fun way. Shabbat Star students light candles for the Friday school assembly and prayers are sung like Hebrew nursery rhymes.
Studies have shown that language immersion leads to long-term gains in education. It also gives kids insight into other cultures. The state of California agrees that multilingual academics are important. Recently, the California Department of Education created this goal: “By 2030, half of all kindergarten through grade 12 students will participate in programs leading to proficiency in two or more languages, either through a class, a program, or an experience. By 2040, three out of four students will be proficient in one or more languages, earning them a State Seal of Biliteracy.”
Translation: California’s multilingual education programs will make our children better global citizens.
For older pupils seeking outside-of-school assistance, Language Door in Irvine offers in-person and online classes. Arabic, Armenian, Polish, Russian, German, Dutch, Hindi and Hungarian – more than 40 languages are available.
But speech is only one aspect of culture. What about the customs, traditions and tastes?
At Chinmaya Mission in Tustin, pupils learn Hindu culture taught by swamis. Loosely translated to mean “father” or “pastor,” the swamis lead a series of Nirvana Shatkam guided meditation and Vedanta courses, while an on-site early childhood learning center introduces young learners to Hindu traditions.
This year, other teachers began offering cultural classes online. The pandemic led instructors – including Kat McDowell, who teaches Kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery – to pivot in the way they approach students.
Kintsugi Academy revitalized an ancient Japanese art form after the tsunami that devastated the country in 2011. The idea is to honor our broken bits by repairing cracked cups and bowls. The thought that we celebrate our scars and rebuild, even when you feel shattered, resonated with many people during the lockdown. Isolated teenagers also found solace in McDowell’s classes.
In the spring, she plans to host intimate in-person workshops. But for now, her online sessions and performances – via the live streaming platform Twitch – are the ways she reaches a younger audience. (More than a third of Twitch viewers are 10-19 years old.)
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Culture in Southern California is an amalgam of different countries. We mesh here in ways that shape our region’s art and lingo. It also flavors the food we eat.
The Little Arabia District in West Anaheim offers tastes of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Turkey. In the 1990s, this area began cultivating a thriving Arab-American community centered on the nearby religious centers – mosques, Coptic Orthodox and Christian Arabic churches. Yet, it’s the food that most locals in the area are familiar with. Egyptian-style feasts at El Mahroosa restaurant in Anaheim are tasty ways to introduce children to another country.
Other cities such as Irvine host pop-up experiences. The 43rd annual Saint Paul’s Greek Festival on Oct. 8-10 offers “a taste of the Greek Islands without leaving Southern California.” Festivities include dance, music and Greek food. Each bite is a reference point for understanding another culture.
In a similar vein, the 47th annual Valley Greek Fest will return to Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Northridge on Memorial Day weekend 2022.
For Huynh, food also symbolizes her immigration experience – specifically, doughnuts, as 90 percent of all independent doughnut shops in SoCal are run by Cambodian families.
“As a kid my parents would take us to Ted Ngoy, the Donut King. My father is a survivor of the [Khmer Rouge] genocide in Cambodia. He biked his way to Vietnam to seek asylum. … So I feel like the pink box drawings I do reference food as a culture, and as a way to talk about our assimilation experience.”
Huynh is speaking about her next body of work, called “Donut Hole: Portraits on Pink Donut Boxes of the Second Generation.” It focuses on “The Donut Kids” of Southern California.
“These are kids that grew up in doughnut shops,” she says. “Their parents would take them to the doughnut shop at 3 in the morning, put them on the flour sacks to sleep while their parents made doughnuts, and then get them up to go to school. These kids worked in the doughnut shops, did homework at the doughnut shops, so I’m so excited to honor them.”
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Honoring our past is something that Huynh examines in her public art commissions for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The idea is that through these images, passersby will learn about a neighborhood’s past and absorb some of its cultural heritage.
“Especially for public art, it’s a service for the community,” Huynh says. “It’s important to research history. Not only the written history because a lot of written history is privileged by those who can afford to write it. But the history of working folks who don’t have time to write down their history. For me, it’s important that public art reflects the community … So, I do research and interview people who live there. I try to do that because it gives me the opportunity to learn.”
At a Metro stop in El Monte, Huynh’s “In the Meadow” piece showcases a lion head, a nod to the shuttered Gay’s Lion Farm theme park and the local high school’s mascot – inklings of the city’s past. Who knew that El Monte once had a theme park dedicated to lions? Huynh wants us to remember our past so we can build a better future.
“History is alive,” she insists.
At Laurel Canyon/Valley Village, “Lucky California” features whimsical cherubs playing in blooming California poppies and plump oranges. For the Alhambra Bruscard poster, Huynh dug into the city’s history and painted its innovative iron pipe system, the first of its kind in California.
As an educator, Huynh encourages the next generation of artists to create their own path. Their cultural identity doesn’t have to limit them. She credits her relationship with another Los Angeles-based artist/activist and retired teacher for her passionate ties to history.
“It emanates from Charles Dailey, my mentor,” she says. “There are so many points of healing and connection in that relationship for me. When you’re a Vietnam war refugee [like me], and you’re seeing all these horrible Hollywood films where Asian folks have no speaking roles, women are objectified; and then for Mr. Dailey, my second dad [and an African American Vietnam veteran], calls me his child, and convinces my parents, ‘Let her be an artist’ as opposed to a doctor or a lawyer. ‘She’s going to make it.’ He believed in me. That’s life changing and powerful.”
