INTO COMMUNITY (2019)
The Montagnard / Southeast Asian Community Disparities Research Network
Introduction
The Montagnard community, indigenous tribal peoples of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, has a long association with research fellows of the Center for New North Carolinians at University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG) that dates back to the arrival of the first war refugees who formed Montagnard Dega Association (MDA) in 1987. MDA is a unique ethnic organization that continues to respond to community needs and overcome poverty and stereotypes about Asian Americans that have left the community of 10,000+ voiceless. In 2011, community advocate Andrew Young organized a meeting of hitherto unrecognized medical doctors from the Montagnard community and counterparts from the regional hospital system. In 2012, this led to the creation of the Montagnard Health Disparities Research Network (MHDRN) by Prof. Sharon Morrison, later joined by Prof. Sudha Shreeniwas. From 2012 to 2018, MHDRN was the vehicle through which academic-based service learning (SL), community engaged scholarship (CES), and community based participatory research (CBPR) were conducted, pushing resources that allowed training for youth, mothers, grandmothers and health professionals. MHDRN allowed us to organize interdisciplinary expertise of colleagues and students at area colleges and universities, provide outsiders with cultural competency training to participate in ongoing projects, and meet with community to identify issues. Fair, socially just relationships become the natural bridge we could together cross to begin the investigation of long-standing community concerns.
The Role of Service Learning
Five Montagnards from Guilford College’s Bonner Center for Community Service and Learning worked with MHDRN to execute long term, site-based service projects in which they recruited, trained and lead highly diverse teams of minority, first generation, international, refugee and immigrant students from Guilford, UNCG and other campuses to deliver service to the community. It was from these teams, with their multiple language skills and insider knowledge, that we would find students who would become our core research assistants moving forward.
Development of Scholarship and Research
Chronic disease in Montagnards was widely reported but poorly understood. Mutual questions arose about hypertension and its causes. Basic terms to describe hypertension were decided by former doctors, an important achievement for a community that spoke seven languages. But it was Montagnard youth, who could seamlessly move from service and intervention to research and then back again, who had the time and compensation (scholarship funds, service hours, internships, course credits) who instilled new faith in leaders. For five years more than 25 youth became research assistants playing key roles advising and designing focus group, interview and survey instruments, contacting families and arranging home interviews, and directly assisting numerous families in crisis.
Rigor and quality
The Montagnard Hypertension Research Project trained students in Human Subjects Protection, literature searches, and use of appropriate technology in data collection and analysis. They participated in weekly research meetings in order to expose and socialize students to all aspects of the research process: community engagement, cross cultural exposure, multi-disciplinary approaches, basic qualitative and statistical research methods concepts, questionnaire design, IRB training, practical experience with interviews, data analysis, and dissemination. They gathered behavioral data and biological samples from more than 130 individuals while presenting results in co-authored reports and to academic and community audiences, while winning awards at regional conferences. More than 300 families received health screenings and other health and social services information and assistance at community fairs.
Lasting impact
Young Montagnard researchers guided other MHDRN faculty to other significant research. They formed the Montagnard American Organization, the youth branch of MDA, and then negotiated with Smithsonian National Folk Festival officials to organize a special cultural program in 2015. They played key roles in This is My Home Now, aired by PBS in 2015 on the anniversary of the fall of Saigon. As next generation leaders, they formed the Montagnard Population Count Project in 2018 to gather data the Census routinely misses and to use it to make evidence-based policy arguments.
In 2019, we renamed our network The Montagnard / Southeast Asian Community Disparities Research Network and moved to MDA under the direct guidance of its Community Advisory Council, making ourselves truly centered in the community. By adopting the High Impact Practices of service learning, community-engaged research, learning communities and diversity/global learning, with the community we demonstrated the practice of social justice, anti-racism, cultural competency and reflection and the essential role institutions of higher education can play to empower marginalized communities.
