Father David Phan, OFM, sees himself as a missionary, traversing the cities, small towns and rural villages of South Carolina, serving small parish communities around the state. Each year, his Toyota goes through more than 50,000 miles. It’s a practical vehicle.
As he celebrates Mass, preaches and leads devotionals, he does so with an advantage other missionaries who come from afar often don’t have. He’s no foreigner. Rather he’s among his people, Vietnamese Catholics who have held to the faith through persecutions and thousands of miles.
Fr. David sees his missionary model as a way to share the gifts of Vietnamese Catholics with the wider Church community.
Their faith reflects the culture.
“In Vietnam, if a parent tells you to do something, you do it,” he said. Vietnamese Catholics rarely debate or question Church doctrines, he said. It is a faith forged with Asiatic values on family. Vietnamese immigrants have been in South Carolina forming communities for more than 50 years. Generations have passed through American life. The temptation to become another cog in secular culture remains, but the faith carries on.
Fr. David was born in Vietnam and came to the United States in 1985 as a 15-year-old. He was a boat person, on a shaky voyage on a ship with dozens of others fleeing persecution and lack of opportunity in their home country. For the young David, that persecution included the long imprisonment of his father by Communist authorities. He is the second of 10 children in a devout Catholic family, which includes two sisters who entered religious life and a brother who is a Franciscan Friar ministering in California.
The young David Phan put his dreams of priesthood on hold after he arrived in the U.S. He had a different kind of work to do.
There was a need to support his family back home, and so he worked in varied parts of the country, from the East Coast to Oregon.
His family later joined him and, after they became established, he returned to his calling when he was 30.
He found himself attracted to the Franciscan vision of religious life, and, after some searching, contacted the friars in New York at what was then the Holy Name Province.
“I love religious life,” he said. “You can do a lot of good. It’s very diverse. There’s social work, parish life, teaching.” As a Franciscan, Fr. David is a part of a community known for its pastoral closeness to the people.
“We are with the people. We know where they are at,” he said, a trait he brings to his parish work.
But most of all he admired how Franciscans live in community and share a spiritual life. Franciscans emphasize collaboration in ministry. In South Carolina, Fr. David lives with another Franciscan, Fr. John Tran Nguyen, OFM, who serves as pastor of Our Lady of La Vang parish in Greer, a Vietnamese ethnic parish. There are an estimated 300,000 Vietnamese Catholics in the United States, and in South Carolina there are some 4,000.
Fr. David found his niche in the mission land of the Palmetto State, sharing the Gospel and the insights of Vietnamese culture, with parishes serving communities of 200 or fewer in places such as Myrtle Beach, Rock Hill, and Columbia. He’s been there for more than 15 years, ministering to varied parishes wherever there are substantial numbers of Vietnamese.
The community of Vietnamese Catholics throughout the state lives the fruits of the liturgy in their own language, incorporated into their customs, many of which focus on particular devotion to ancestors and elders. There is diversity within. There have been waves of Vietnamese immigration: the early diaspora of those who fled after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and now are community elders; those, like Fr. David, who during the 1980s fled Communist rule, and now there are newcomers, many of whom come to the U.S. on student visas.
In South Carolina many of the Vietnamese work in manufacturing or run their own small businesses, such as laundromats and small retail shops.
Vietnam has changed considerably, from the rigid ideology of the Communist Party which conquered Saigon, to a government that, while retaining its authoritarian character, encourages capitalism. The church in Vietnam – where the faith was first brought by Spanish missionaries in the 1500s and developed during a near century of French colonialism – has been allowed more freedom to operate.
Vietnamese Catholics in South Carolina can find themselves between two worlds. Many younger Vietnamese never experienced life in their homeland. They have become a part of American life. Still, they return to the rituals and festivals of their churches, even after English has become a primary language for the newer generations.
Parish charity is undertaken in an informal manner. It is a community that has learned to take care of its own. The parishes Fr. David ministers to don’t have food pantries. But when a struggling newcomer arrives, he is quickly directed to the factories in the area where jobs can be found. “They help others to get their feet on the ground,” he said.
Fr. David is among those who returned to Vietnam for a short visit. Yet while there, he was clearly identifiable as a foreigner, after decades of life in the United States. Still, back in South Carolina, he maintains that it is vital to keep Vietnamese Catholic faith and culture alive.
As his parishioners of varied generations do, he is navigating that space between the land of his heritage and life in the modern United States. The best approach, he said, is to embrace what it means to be a Vietnamese American, being proud of his heritage while forging a life in the United States.
“If we don’t know who we are, people don’t respect you. If you know who you are, you walk straight,” he said. “I know who I am. I am Vietnamese American.”