Eight years ago, the founding of the Vietnamese Cultural Centre marked the modest beginnings of an ambitious collective endeavor: to make culture a vehicle for pride, transmission, social cohesion, and active participation in public life.
Today more than ever, in a context where our community remains shaped by ideological tensions inherited from its migratory history, access to culture and education constitutes an essential lever for fostering respectful, open, and unifying dialogue.
It is in this spirit that the work carried out in 2025 by the team of the Vietnamese Cultural Centre and its partners takes on its full meaning.
The year 2025 marked a major milestone: the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War and of the arrival in Canada of the first Vietnamese refugees, a prelude to the welcoming, in the years that followed, of tens of thousands of people from Southeast Asia.
Fifty years later, their voices, stories, and dreams continue to resonate, shaping the social, cultural, and human landscape of this territory.
Under the theme Resonances, the Vietnamese Cultural Weeks highlighted this anniversary in multiple ways: a debate on forced migration, a literary encounter exploring the traces left by the war, a musical cabaret evoking Saigon of the 1960s and 1970s, and a poetry evening during which Aurélie Thuy and Jonathan Nguyen shared their intimate journeys reflecting on their Vietnamese origins, family memory, and the echoes of great History.
This anniversary marks a pivotal moment to affirm our presence on this territory by committing ourselves to building a home — a place where one sets down one’s bags, where families, friends, colleagues, and neighbors are welcomed.
Step by step, we thus seek to inscribe the rooting of the Vietnamese community in Montréal within the continuity of a long-standing tradition of recognition and dialogue that the City has maintained with its cultural communities. Other communities have paved this path before us, finding places in which to anchor themselves, to pass on their heritage, and to keep their culture alive.
Fifty years after our arrival, we hope, in turn, to be able to write this chapter of our history.
The Centre House is envisioned as a living space for transmission, encounter, and creation. It will notably house a library intended to welcome and preserve a remarkable collection of books that the Vietnamese Cultural Centre had the privilege of receiving five years ago as a donation from Mrs. Trần Nguyệt Châu and her husband, Mr. Roderick Cornell.
Comprising approximately 800 older works — sometimes rare and precious — on Vietnamese history, traditional arts, poetry, and novels, this collection constitutes a true treasure of knowledge. It bears witness to the richness and depth of a millennia-old culture and civilization. Failing to provide it with a dedicated space for preservation and presentation would represent a great loss for collective memory.
Passed down within Mrs. Trần Nguyệt Châu’s family, the collection is said to originate from close relatives on her paternal side, among whom was Mr. Trần Kim Phượng, the last ambassador to the United States and representative of the Republic of Vietnam during the negotiations that led to the Paris Peace Accords, signed on January 27, 1973.
On her maternal side, her family history is also rooted in a long scholarly tradition, with figures such as the brothers Dương Khuê and Dương Lâm, learned poets of the late Nguyễn dynasty.
Faithful to this heritage yet resolutely forward-looking, the next edition — the eighth — of the Vietnamese Cultural Weeks will be different. It will need to innovate, surprise, and reach a larger and more diverse audience.
We are ready to take up this challenge.
Accordingly, in 2026, the Vietnamese Cultural Centre will launch a new project on the occasion of Tết, complementing the Vietnamese Cultural Weeks, its flagship annual event.
While the Cultural Weeks highlight professional artists through performances and exhibitions, this new project will adopt a participatory and inclusive approach. Transmission will not take place from the stage, but through cultural mediators who accompany the public in a collective creative process.
Over four weeks of activities and two days of celebration in the boroughs of Côte-des-Neiges and Saint-Michel, participants will be invited to discover Tết traditions through hands-on workshops. Initially intended for two boroughs, the project is ultimately meant to become a metropolitan event.
At the same time, the Vietnamese Community Resources Centre will implement a youth leadership development program aimed at building leadership skills, raising awareness of social responsibility, and encouraging community innovation.
This program is part of a vision of sustainable development and social inclusion, investing in young people as the driving forces of the community. It promotes responsible leadership rooted in listening, solidarity, and concern for our shared future.
Because transmission is not only about preserving what has been, but also about trusting those who will shape tomorrow.
Nguyen Kim Phuong,
Founder and President