Meet diverse immigrants in the Pacific Region and follow an immigrant Vietnamese family in California
Meet diverse immigrants in the Pacific Region and follow an immigrant Vietnamese family in California
People come from all over the United States and all over the world to live in the Pacific Region of the U.S.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
Transcript
CHILD: Hi. I'm Steven. I live in L.A., and I like it because you can skateboard all day, and it's not too hot and it's not too cold.
MAN: I'm from Canfield, Ohio.
WOMAN: I'm from Chicago, Illinois.
MAN: I'm originally from Kansas City.
MAN: I am originally from Vietnam.
WOMAN: And I came out west because the weather is completely swell, no miserable winters.
MAN: The people are very cool.
MAN: To get away from the congestion.
MAN: I moved to California because the weather here is very similar to our country.
MAN: It's beautiful.
WOMAN: And I really like the kind of people that live here.
CHILD: My name is Ricardo Duarte, and I live in L.A. It's a place where people can have fun.
[Music]
NARRATOR: People have different reasons for moving to the Pacific region, and that's the way it's always been.
Today, the largest population of any state is in California.
People move to the Pacific region from all over the world. More than half of the country's Mexican Americans live in California.
Japanese Americans in Los Angeles outnumber those in any other United States' city.
The Chinese community in San Francisco is the nation's largest.
And people continue to migrate.
VIETNAMESE CHILD: My name is Binh Xuan Thi Hoang. My first name is Hoang. I'm 12 years old. My family came here from Vietnam in 1985. And now I live here and go to school in San Rafael, California.
I didn't know any English when I came here. My mother gave me a picture dictionary to study. I also watch cartoons every day. So I learn English from the TV. My sister's name is Ngoc. Sometime I think she is just a cry baby because she always has to get her way. But she's funny, too, and she makes us laugh a lot.
I go to Davidson Middle School. In this class none of us students were born in the United States. The students are from all over the world. Most of them are from Mexico and El Salvador, and one-fourth of them are from Southeast Asia.
My country, Vietnam, is a small country. It is much smaller than the United States. We don't have many cars, TVs, or other things that we have a lot of in the United States.
My father works in San Francisco. He's a job counselor. He helps people find jobs who have moved here from other countries. Because he went through some of the same things--a new country, a new language--he knows how to help them.
My mother worked in a bank in Vietnam. And now she's working at a T-shirt factory. She's just learning English, and sometime I help her.
We eat egg rolls and chow mein. It's sort of half-Vietnamese and half-Chinese food. Sometime we have American food, too, like spaghetti.
We speak Vietnamese at home so that we can remember our country.
[Music in]
My family came to the United States because there was a war in Vietnam. I was born just after the war. But it wasn't safe for us to stay there.
If I could, I would go back to Vietnam. My grandmother is there. My uncles and aunts, my cousins, and friends all have to stay in Vietnam. So, if I could, I would want to go there to see them again.
[Music out]
MAN: I'm from Canfield, Ohio.
WOMAN: I'm from Chicago, Illinois.
MAN: I'm originally from Kansas City.
MAN: I am originally from Vietnam.
WOMAN: And I came out west because the weather is completely swell, no miserable winters.
MAN: The people are very cool.
MAN: To get away from the congestion.
MAN: I moved to California because the weather here is very similar to our country.
MAN: It's beautiful.
WOMAN: And I really like the kind of people that live here.
CHILD: My name is Ricardo Duarte, and I live in L.A. It's a place where people can have fun.
[Music]
NARRATOR: People have different reasons for moving to the Pacific region, and that's the way it's always been.
Today, the largest population of any state is in California.
People move to the Pacific region from all over the world. More than half of the country's Mexican Americans live in California.
Japanese Americans in Los Angeles outnumber those in any other United States' city.
The Chinese community in San Francisco is the nation's largest.
And people continue to migrate.
VIETNAMESE CHILD: My name is Binh Xuan Thi Hoang. My first name is Hoang. I'm 12 years old. My family came here from Vietnam in 1985. And now I live here and go to school in San Rafael, California.
I didn't know any English when I came here. My mother gave me a picture dictionary to study. I also watch cartoons every day. So I learn English from the TV. My sister's name is Ngoc. Sometime I think she is just a cry baby because she always has to get her way. But she's funny, too, and she makes us laugh a lot.
I go to Davidson Middle School. In this class none of us students were born in the United States. The students are from all over the world. Most of them are from Mexico and El Salvador, and one-fourth of them are from Southeast Asia.
My country, Vietnam, is a small country. It is much smaller than the United States. We don't have many cars, TVs, or other things that we have a lot of in the United States.
My father works in San Francisco. He's a job counselor. He helps people find jobs who have moved here from other countries. Because he went through some of the same things--a new country, a new language--he knows how to help them.
My mother worked in a bank in Vietnam. And now she's working at a T-shirt factory. She's just learning English, and sometime I help her.
We eat egg rolls and chow mein. It's sort of half-Vietnamese and half-Chinese food. Sometime we have American food, too, like spaghetti.
We speak Vietnamese at home so that we can remember our country.
[Music in]
My family came to the United States because there was a war in Vietnam. I was born just after the war. But it wasn't safe for us to stay there.
If I could, I would go back to Vietnam. My grandmother is there. My uncles and aunts, my cousins, and friends all have to stay in Vietnam. So, if I could, I would want to go there to see them again.
[Music out]