Center producer Ashley Day (second from right) joins students from New Orleans' Bauduit Elementary School at the Civil Rights Memorial. Day and the students conducted an online chat about how to fight intolerance in their community. (Valerie Downes)

So when a Vietnamese shop owner in her predominately black neighborhood was murdered, she was prompted to use her knowledge to help the children understand issues of race and violence.

Several students at Bauduit Elementary knew the victim, and one child was related to the perpetrator, making it even more important to address the incident.

To educate her students on the Vietnamese culture and racial conflict, Nance invited a Vietnamese immigrant to speak to her class. Cyndi Nguyen, an activist among a contingent of community leaders who spoke out about the grocer's murder, shared memories with the students about the day she and her family fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon 29 years ago.

She told them about her family's struggles to make a better life in America, navigating new customs and a new language. And she shared pictures, food and examples of traditional Vietnamese clothing.

Although there was no mention of the murder during Nguygen's visit, Nance said students benefited from the opportunity to learn about people from different lands and cultures.

"The kids were mesmerized," Nance said. "I had never seen these kids so attentive."

Nance also spent time teaching about the Center's work to fight hate and promote tolerance — focusing particularly on the Center's 1981 lawsuit against the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, who terrorized peaceful Vietnamese fishermen on the Texas coast.

Nance also made contact with Ashley Day, senior producer for the Center's activist website, Tolerance.org. They set up an online chat room, where the children could ask Day questions about what they can do to fight hate and intolerance in their school and community.

"One of the most rewarding things about working with the Center's tolerance projects is interacting with people in communities across the country who work every day to make the world a better place," Day said. "The kids were just amazing."

Nance and her students met with Day and other Center staff members on May 27. They were able to secure a small grant from the New Orleans chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women to pay for a bus trip to the Center, where they presented staff a Declaration of Tolerance, signed by more than 200 students, teachers and community members.

While at the Center's office, students and staffers listened to songs and worked on activities from the Teaching Tolerance songbook kit, "I Will Be Your Friend: Songs and Activities for Young Peacemakers."

Nance and other teachers from Bauduit Elementary were presented with complete sets of the Center's curriculum kits, including the Academy Award-nominated documentary Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks.

Nance has already seen the positive effects of her work.

"Slowly the consciousness is starting to seep in," she said. "If somebody starts to put someone down, they now say 'Is that promoting tolerance?'"

Nance plans to continue the diversity programs when the children return to school in the fall, making tolerance education and conflict resolution a permanent part of her curriculum.

SPLC Report
June 2004