By Sarah Whites-Koditschek
At the boat dock in Bayou La Batre Alabama, shrimp boat Captain Truc Le unties a thick mooring line attached to his blue and white vessel with the name “Lucky Kim” painted on the side.
Le and his wife and son are at the dock to restock the ice that cools their shrimp catch. Le has continued fishing throughout the pandemic.
He wasn’t too nervous about COVID-19, but his family members were, so he got a vaccine, he said. “They’re worried that if they don’t vaccinate, they will easily catch the virus,” Le, who does not speak English, said in Vietnamese.
Alabama has the second-to-lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates in the nation. Le’s small Vietnamese immigrant community on the Gulf has taken a different approach. Community leaders estimate almost every eligible person, upwards of 90 percent of eligible Vietnamese Americans in Alabama, have gotten the shot. That’s compared to just 34 percent of all Alabamians.
Le’s son, who works on the boat with his father, said he is planning to get the vaccine, mostly because his family wanted him to. Le’s wife, Phuong Thi Nguyen, loaded ice into coolers near an industrial ice machine at the dock. She said her daughter helped her get an appointment for a vaccine in Mobile because she does not speak English.
“People around us, most of them got vaccinated,” she said in Vietnamese, through a translator. “They told me if I get vaccinated, the percentage (chance) of getting COVID-19 is low.”
There are about 4,000 Vietnamese people in this region of Alabama and roughly 900 in Bayou La Batre, community leaders estimate. Nguyen says she sees other members of the local Vietnamese community at holidays, like New Years, at the local Vietnamese community center, and in their homes, especially when family visits and friends come by.
She says her lack of English is the most challenging part of living in the U.S.
In south Alabama, many Vietnamese, like Le and Nguyen, work in the fishing industry. They immigrated to the Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama Gulf during a wave of migration in the 1980’s when the U.S. allowed refugees to immigrate here following the Vietnam War.
Daniel Le, director of the Gulf chapter of Boat People S.O.S., a national group that assists Vietnamese immigrants in the United States, said many Vietnamese in this part of the country take COVID-19 seriously. They’ve observed the restrictions and they listen to scientists.
“Culturally, in general, Vietnamese believe in healthcare providers,” said Le. “They know the health[1]care provider knows what’s best for them.” Early adopters in Bayou la Batre
At Bayou Pharmacy, across town from the docks, Vietnamese customers typically make up a minority of shoppers at the store, about 15 percent, but they became the majority when vaccines arrived, said Pharmacy tech Courtney Moore.
“In the beginning of the vaccine, we would have days of like 80 people, and 70 would be Vietnamese,” she said.
It was Moore’s job to call through the waitlist in early 2021, back when vaccines were in high demand.
“We have one of the only pharmacies with a Vietnamese speaking person; now we have two,” said Moore, whose mother is Vietnamese. “People are more comfortable with the language barrier.”
The pharmacy organized vaccinations over the phone and by paper, helping ease the language and digital access barriers that would have existed with online scheduling.
Pharmacist Rubesh Patel said Vietnamese in Bayou la Batre are more willing to get all kinds of vaccinations.
“A lot of them are patients here anyway, so they tell their family members, I get my medicine there, ‘I trust them’,” he said.
At Accordia Health, a local health clinic, about 35 percent of Dr. Rajesh Gujjula’s patients are Vietnamese.
Many of his non-Vietnamese patients have waited to get a shot, he said. Mobile County statistics are slightly lower the state’s with about 30 percent of the overall population vaccinated.
His Vietnamese patients mostly got vaccinated on their own initiative.
“Their friends got it, that’s the pretty standard answer you get,” he said. “Or it’s their family that made them get the vaccine.”