Catherine Le Carries U.S. Congress Creed To Vietnamese Community

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Catherine Le, an energetic and eager University of Saigon Law School graduate, is Congressman Al Green’s (D-TX) Constituent Services Representative. Le sees her mission as tieing Vietnamese Americans to the politics and policies around them while bringing Green to the Vietnamese American Community as she did at his recent office opening across from Hong Kong Mall.

Le is frustrated more Vietnamese Americans do not vote to voice input in the politics around them in the country they chose for their families’ future. Her past includes her parents fleeing North Vietnam to escape its collapse to Communism in 1954 and her father serving in the South Vietnamese Consulate in Laos and Thailand before he pressed her and her siblings on one of the final helicopters out of Saigon before its 1975 collapse to Communism.

Q. How does your Vietnamese family history impact your work as the only Vietnamese American aide to Texas’ only African American Congressman?

A. My parents were pledged to patriotism for their country, public service for people without regard to ethnicity and freedom for their family’s future. My brother worked in Congressman Green’s election campaign and following his election I applied for the job because I knew his district features Texas’ highest Asian American, is where my daughter and I live and most of Houston’s Vietnamese businesses and culture centers are concentrated.

Q. What career path led you from hiding under bunkers at Saigon Airport to sitting in the conference room on staff to a Congressman?

A. The runways at Saigon Airport were too torn apart from enemy rockets for us to leave by plane, but U.S. Army Chinook helicopters rescued us. The first two helicopters were shot down but we made it to a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, to Subic Bay, Guam and Fort Chafee, Arkansas. I knew French growing up in Vietnam and therefore thought Louisiana might be better for my siblings and I but we were lonely there and followed a cousin to Texas.

I studied engineering and completed my computer science degree at the University of Houston. I earned certification to teach, worked for a NASA contractor and always thought the goal in working was to earn a lot of money, but public service is my priority. I even was tempted to run for Channelview City Council 26 years ago in 1980 but my husband at the time made me choose between politics and him. I may have made the wrong choice.

Q. As a Vietnamese-American woman what are your priorities in U.S. Rep. Green‘s office?

A. I speak Vietnamese, French and English. My priority is being here for issues regarding immigration and federal programs that are available for our people that need to know about them. I help Vietnamese Americans and others with concerns military academy nominations, health care and welfare, business with the government, consumer problems, employment, grant information, immigration and naturalization, the Internal Revenue Service, internships, pensions, student loans, Social Security and Medicare and Veterans benefits.

Q. As so few Vietnamese Americans do, what motivates you most to work for the government?

A. Since my first interest in running for city council I have been interested in bridging the gap between those who pay taxes and those who provide the services. I’ve helped in fundraising for the Republican Party and work for a Democratic Congressman. I am Vietnamese American and work for an African American because to me it is all about public service in the country I choose to live in. We have paperback books of the U.S. Constitution here at this office. I want Vietnamese Americans to know their rights and benefits as Americans.

Vietnamese Americans struggled so much to come to America, become citizens, excel in education, professions and free enterprise but when we do not register and do not vote, do not know our legislators and other law makers, to have our voices not heard it is sad for all of us.

Q What do you enjoy most about the work you with Congressman Green?

A. My background and what I studied in Vietnam was accounting first and then the law. I love that I work for a lawmaker who spent more than 26 years as one of the most fair and respected judges in Harris County. Congressman Green is a former NAACP President and a devout Christian but he is very fair with all that are Buddhist like me, Moslems, Jews and Hindus. I’ve volunteered with him in front of minority groups of all backgrounds and what I want is for more Vietnamese Americans to interact with other minorities and not just themselves, as far too often is all that happens in our Vietnamese American community.

Q. How does your office interact with the Vietnamese American Community?

A. We print our flyers at tax payers expense in Vietnamese but I wish more Vietnamese Americans would participate in the events those flyers promote. We have organized breakfast town hall meetings and I work to break through from our office to the Homeland Security Department, the State Department and other federal agencies for Vietnamese Americans.

Q) As a Vietnamese American single mother what is your most important mission in this office?

My daughter is 10. I appreciate the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion and enterprise she has in this country where she was born. My most important mission is working for a better Houston, Texas and America for her so that she can do more in the political arena that I can do.