Author Archives: helenaworthen

  We’re getting near the end of our semester. We each have one more class. I’m beginning to think in terms of how to best use these last opportunities. It’s time to lay it out there and see if anything hits the fan.   There have been a couple of key moments.   One wasContinue reading “Some Key Moments”

The first stories that come up when a bunch of old labor educators are killing a couple of bottles of wine are health and safety stories, like the generator that exploded and the printing press that blew across Michigan Avenue. Then we start remembering stories told us by other people: Emanuel Blackwell, RIch Egeland, Gary Gaines. Pretty soon we’re talking aboutContinue reading “What stories do we tell?”

The bus leaves at 9 pm from HCMC and gets into Da Lat about 4 am. It’s one of those Korean sleeper buses; two levels of couches where you lie almost prone. In the dark, the bus climbs. I can feel my ears pop. Da Lat is in the Central Highlands, about 5,700 feet. ThatContinue reading “Da Lat: Garden City”

Joe asks his class to discuss in groups, then make a list to answer the question: “What do workers need from a good local grassroots union? What do they need it to do?”   Here are the items from the six lists that the students wrote on the board in Vietnamese, translated by Vinh andContinue reading “Six lists about what workers need from their local union”

Most important, we have an actual date to go and meet with union leaders in Dong Nai. The date is December 21. We will have half a day, to either teach or ask questions, it’s up to us.   Dean Hoa told us this at lunch on Tuesday, after we taught in his class onContinue reading “Some Things Get Straightened Out”

Thi’s little brother On Saturday morning the four of us plus Thi, who is a first-year TDTU student, took a taxi to the bus station and then a 16-person van (110,000 D each) down to Vung Tau. The highway is good and new and every roadside inch along the way is built up with shops,Continue reading “Vung Tau with Thi”

There is nothing like Teacher Day in the US and I wish there was. There is no place to put, collectively, the strong positive feelings that grow between teachers and students, no place to talk publicly about what that relationships is or how important it is, no place to honor it. Instead we get “Teacher ofContinue reading “Teacher Day”

Joe, Leanna, Hollis and I went down to Vung Tau, a seacoast city two hours southeast of HCMC. Our guide was Thi, a 19-year old freshman whose family lives there (see next post).   On Sunday morning the four adults left the hotel and went to find a coffee shop on a street at theContinue reading “Employers have too much freedom in the US”

The Map of Lear’s Kingdom Yesterday (Monday Nov 16) in Joe’s class he used the Xuan-Trang and Binh interviews from Kent Wong and An Le’s book, Organizing on Separate Shores, that Dang (Tony) translated for us, except that at Binh’s request, we cut out the part about his childhood and military experience. The students readContinue reading “King Lear in Vietnam”

Our room is under the bleachers in the soccer stadium, on the right. I threw my back out Thursday morning and have spent a lot of time since then lying on my back so tonight (Saturday) I was watching “Orange is the New Black” on Netflix while Joe and Hollis were in HCMC at Vinh’sContinue reading “Our Stuff”