Teaches computer skills to Asian immigrants
Photograph By William Mercer McLeod

The war was going on most of the time during my childhood. We had a house, in Bienhoa, Vietnam, but had to move around a lot in the 1970s as the Communists got closer. One of my brothers, a radio engineer, had to go to reeducation school--really, it was a prison camp. That was a tough time. Learning to follow a new political regime was hard.

But the Vietnamese culture stayed the same, and doing things for others, unrelated to income and business, was part of the culture. My family is still there. My father worked for the Voice of America radio program, and volunteered his time with the church. We never spoke about volunteer philosophy or volunteer spirit: it was just understood, more like neighbors helping out neighbors. I remember there was a fire in three houses, including mine, and all my family and neighbors helped to rebuild our house. We didn't have much money. All we could provide for them was food. My sisters prepared big meals. We had that house built in a month.

That's how I grew up. The community would come together to help people out when they were in need. Everyone knows their neighbor's specialty, how each person can help.. We knew who were the masons, and carpenters, and so on. And we didn't have to ask. They came and offered help as soon as they found out. You were looked down upon if you had skills and didn't offer them to help.

I started volunteering here in 1991, in Pittsburgh, when I worked for Westinghouse, a big engineering company. They had a Junior Achievement program set up. I was teaching high school kids about business management, and I learned a lot, too. In college, I was a peer counselor. I think whenever I have a chance to volunteer versus do something else, I'll go for the volunteering every time.

This computer class I teach through United Way came about by accident. I happened to stop by the Chinese Mutual Aid Association of Chicago to take a class in Chinese. The teacher said if I teach an English class, I could take the Chinese class for free. I saw a bunch of computers sitting around and asked about them. They were donated from a bank and no one knew if any worked. They weren't hardware people. I just set them up installed all the software, and connected the network and printers for them. They said I could teach computers and take Chinese for free, but now I don't have time to take the Chinese class. They tell me they're glad I came around.

I have eight students, one in his sixties. It's all new to them. I'm teaching them how to use Microsoft Word. They're all at the intermediate English level, so it's not easy. I speak Vietnamese, no Chinese. It's amazing how much they want to learn and how much they catch on.

I went through the same thing when I was sixteen and came to the United States. I spoke very little English. I learned a little English in a refugee camp in Malaysia: I was there a year and a half. But I went straight into the tenth grade, taking biology and all.

Sometimes the students have blank stares. I know they have questions so I ask what their needs are. Maybe someone will keep advancing and get a computer job somewhere. I didn't speak English, and now I'm working for a good company so I'm not going to rule out any possibility.

It's rewarding to use your knowledge to help others' skills develop. I have a dream to go back to Vietnam and do something in my old community there. They're not as high-tech over there. The education system is pretty good, but there's no hardware available. I think volunteering is not only for me to help the center here: it's also a way for me to learn how to help in general. In Vietnam, they'll have all the same questions my students have now. It's exciting, because I know I could get something like this set up, easy. Equipment in Vietnam is cheap.

My wife is from the Czech Republic and does volunteer work for hospices. She doesn't care if she gets paid for work she loves. I admire that, and it helps us in our marriage. I see her personality through the things she does, how she helps people unconditionally.

I got to this country through volunteer work. My foster family here volunteered their home and time for me. Whatever I do now, I can't forget where I came from.

If you're not sure if volunteering helps people, take a look at your own life, from childhood to where you are now. You'll probably come up with a scenario where someone helped you--someone gave to you expecting nothing in return. It's helped everybody.

© INDEPENDENT SECTOR from the book Voices from the Heart  - In Celebration of America's Volunteers, a volunteer project of Jossey-Bass Publishers and Chronicle Books.