5 minutes
Dates of Significance Turn dates of significance into a more respectful, usable decision.
What you’ll be able to do Connect place, institutions, and collective memory to the DHS process that is being designed or changed. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What keeps the learning useful instead of turning it into a stereotype? Document a next step for Dates of Significance: Use Dates of Significance as a hypothesis in one live plan; verify the relevant detail with the affected person or a named community partner, then record the change, owner, review date, and report-back. Dates of Significance Tết — Lunar New Year — is the large annual public and family date. Travel, food, elders, red envelopes in some families, closed shops. Schedule around it when you can. It is not a day off the work. Guest if invited. A calendar click is not community engagement.
Calendar 30 April 1975 — the fall of Saigon / the end of the Republic of Vietnam. In many Vietnamese American rooms this is grief and politics, sometimes marked as Black April. It is not a “Fall of Saigon party.” Do not put that phrase on a case note. Do not celebrate reunification at this desk. Listen if they name it.
Giỗ — ancestral death anniversaries — are household dates. They will not be on your state calendar. Ask. Hùng Kings commemoration exists in some community public life. Literacy, not a file.
Do not put “Asian holiday” on a case note.
Put dates of significance to work What you can change You control whether dates of significance is treated as a question to explore or a label placed on someone.
What to watch for A calendar click is literacy. It is not community engagement. Do not put “Fall of Saigon party” on a file.
Your next step Use this evidence as a hypothesis in your next plan, then confirm the relevant detail with the person or the community partner you named.
Practical cards Dates of Significance
Real example: Tết — Lunar New Year — is the large annual public and family date. Travel, food, elders, red envelopes in some families, closed shops. Schedule around it when you can. It is not a day off the work. Guest if…
Leader action: A calendar click is literacy. It is not community engagement. Do not put “Fall of Saigon party” on a file.
I do not need a cultural performance from a professional. I need the process to make room for my name, my people, my questions, and the way I actually need to participate.
Composite public perspective — illustrative · Vietnamese Minnesota · Place, institutions, and memory Carry this forward Dates of Significance provide context to test, not a label to assign.
The person, household, Nation, or named community partner remains the authority on what fits.
A calendar click is literacy. It is not community engagement. Do not put “Fall of Saigon party” on a file.
Completion is shown by a scenario decision, review of a practical artifact, and a saved one-minute commitment.
Use Dates of Significance as a hypothesis in one live plan; verify the relevant detail with the affected person or a named community partner, then record the change, owner, review date, and report-back.
Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.
Reset this lesson
Previous lesson Next lesson Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
