THE MEANINGS OF THE MID-AUTUMN FESTIVAL IN THE BAY AREA

The San Francisco Greater Bay Area, including San Francisco, Oakland, and the Silicon Valley in the Santa Clara County, is a vastly diverse community that has become a home away from home for hundreds of thousands Vietnamese émigrés for the last 20 years. As our young US-born Viet-American children, as well as first generation youths, are growing up in a different environment, they've become increasingly eager to fit in the new society and be an integral part of the community. They are now proud Viet-Americans, and want to contribute in the community as full-fledged members.

Since 1986 the Viet-American Foundation (VAF) has been active as a non-profit organization with the mission of forming the next generation as culturally, socially, economically and politically well-balanced, well-rounded citizens. VAF's belief lies in improving the community at large by shaping young generations to be future leaders with unquestionable values, inspiring attitudes and spreading self-esteem. For that purpose, we need to help children and youngsters grow up knowing who they are, and be proud of their own roots and heritage as they gradually integrate into the mainstream cultural environment. At the same time, we need to enhance the environment in the community with more multi-cultural awareness and cohesiveness, more understanding and communication among diverse ethnic groups, thereby reducing societal and cultural emotional roadblocks on youngsters' path to a normal productive adulthood with upstanding socio-economic positions.

The Mid-Autumn Festival Committee (MAF), as the cultural branch of VAF, started in 1991 to organize the Festival, also known as the "Children's Festival", to carry out that purpose. Our goals are:

- We want to develop youth leadership through voluntarism by recruiting over 200 volunteers each year to help put together and run the Mid-Autumn Festival. They will learn to make decisions on putting together a team of their own and a budget to carry out the chosen activities/functions for the event. The Festival is exclusively organized by volunteers' effort. They ultimately learn about taking charge, being involved in and giving back to the community, about their own culture as they get more familiar with the details of the event and its meanings, about pride and self-esteem that come with solid cultural identity and sense of belonging. (To volunteer, please contact here)

- We want to teach all children from a tender age about diversity in the community and about fellow feeling, brotherly love as a way of life of a better society. The Festival aims at attracting children from all groups in the area with its hands-on arts workshop and computer-based drawing contest. The piece of the resistance will be a Lantern Procession with Lion dance and various cultural dances, aiming at showing children in an entertaining way that diversity can coexist in harmony and that integration is just a matter of symbiotic convergence. Last year's Festival attracted around 22,000 parents and children, with only about 5% non-Vietnamese attendance. With the Light Parade this year, we aim at increasing the number to at least 25,000 and 15% respectively. This is a start of more effort to integrate this event as a recognizable part of the diverse community scene, attended and appreciated by everyone.

- In organizing various contests, we aim at teaching our youth about their cultural heritage, encouraging them to learn and creatively recreate tales and legends through songs, dances and stage plays. We believe the children will grow up well integrated and well adjusted and self-assured when they are secure about who they are, where they come from and where they stand with their adopted American heritage.

This culturally recreational event aims higher and deeper than just a merry good time. This is a lesson about self-esteem for children and youths through leadership and voluntarism. This is an effort in improving the quality of life in the community, starting with its emotional, spiritual and multi-cultural health. This is an example of accepting anybody in the community regardless of ethnicity, because the cultural gap has been bridged with mutual understanding and appreciation. Growing up amid such an environment will give children and youths of minority descent a better chance at becoming invaluable assets and contributors to our community at large.