Articles/News: Leyna Nguyễn: Anchoring herself in the community
Posted by Ricky on Thursday, 10 March 2005 (23:10:59) PST
Contributed by Angie
Story by Denise Nguyen.
Photos by Benjamin Vu.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Leyna Nguyễn: Anchoring herself in the community
GREETINGS: She is used to making public appearances as the popular newscaster fields requests from Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese groups, balancing her workload with cultural activities.
HOLLYWOOD — When Leyna Nguyễn was 7, she loved to watch the news. She would go to bed at 8 p.m., according to house rules, — then wake up two hours later, indulged by her mother who knew her sleepy daughter wanted to see the late broadcast.
“I thought as a reporter you get to know everything,” Nguyễn remembered. “They just seemed so smart. They seemed to provide some kind of community service. If something happens, you turn on the news to find out what’s going on.”
Now at 35, Nguyễn is the newswoman, and viewers of all ages tune in as she ably shares the headlines as weekend anchor and reporter for both KCBS and KCAL-TV in Los Angeles.
 PLEASE SIGN: With a permanent marker, Leyna Nguyễn’s fingers loop her name as she offers one autograph after another to a long line of admirers.
On this particular Saturday, she arrives at the station, dressed in a traditional áo dài, having come straight from hosting a Tết festival at Whittier Narrows Park in El Monte. Coworkers admire her dress, fuchsia with floral sparkles over flowing white pants that had bottoms stained from tramping around the grass, she lamented.
But seeing Nguyễn walking around the historic building in Hollywood in this garb is nothing new to the people around her. She is a highly requested speaker, filling her time in between assignments by making public appearances, shooting newscaster roles in TV shows and films, doing charity work and hosting events for both Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese groups.
She has served as the co-host of the annual Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, a national, 21-hour plus, star-studded variety show benefiting the Muscular Dystrophy Association. She also has served as co-host of the Southern California Special Olympics Summer Games with basketball Hall of Fame member James Worthy.
On this weekend, there’s another community event scheduled for Nguyễn, who rarely has a complete day off. Once her shift ends at 10:30 p.m., she will rush home to her two dogs in the Hollywood Hills and pack before making the early morning trip to Oakland to participate in another Lunar New Year gala.
But for now, with little time to change and a love for but little opportunity to wear an áo dài , Nguyễn simply will slip a black blazer over her gown before she enters the studio to co-anchor the weekend news. Given her load, there are times she doesn’t have a chance to scan the script before she appears on camera in the second-largest television market in the nation.
But as a 12-year veteran of news reporting, Nguyễn surfaces in the studio a few minutes before air time, poised and relaxed, with enough time to touch up her makeup, groom her auburn and blonde highlighted hair, while joking around with the men and women on the set. In the next 90 minutes, she will carry over the self-assurance she exudes off the camera to segments on Condoleeza Rice’s visit to Europe, the Los Angeles mayoral race and the Super Bowl.
“She is very talented and comes across as naturally talented. It’s never faked with her and she truly gets to the bottom of her stories,” said Ed Parker, a director at KCBS and KCAL-TV. “So many other anchors and reporters simply repeat back to the audience the spin each story’s spokespeople have put on it. But you can’t B.S. Leyna. She’s too smart. She has the perfect look, the perfect delivery and she is a real person with whom you can have a real conversation and also a real laugh.”
Nguyễn grew up in a small town called Burnsville, having arrived in the Minneapolis suburb after leaving Việt Nam in 1975. A member of one of the first six families to immigrate to Minnesota, Nguyễn has fond memories of living in the Midwest with her parents and two younger brothers. She was a tomboy, driving her mother crazy playing football with the kids in the white, residential neighborhood while being groomed to speak Midwestern English, the ideal speaking accent for newscasters.
When her desire to become a reporter was evident, her parents encouraged her even though very few Asians, and far fewer Vietnamese, appeared in front of the camera at the time.
“My dad said if you are going to do something, you just don’t do it well. You’ve got to do it very well,” she says of her “ngừơi Huế” parents. “If you are going to do it, be the first Vietnamese girl to do it. Make a name for yourself. Let people know you are Vietnamese and you can do the job too.”
As a double minority, a woman and an Asian, the barriers to her entry into the business were numerous, as told to her repeatedly by industry insiders and college professors. How did she react?
“It didn’t faze me. If anything, it made me feel that I’ve really got to do it. I’ve got to prove them wrong.”
“Her confidence is inspiring to me,” said Dave Clark, an award-winning newsman with more than a quarter-century of broadcasting experience, of his co-anchor. “She is absolutely comfortable with herself and not everyone has that ability. I admire that in Leyna, and I’m certainly not alone.”
Nguyễn said she appreciates all the opportunities she has had, knowing the difficulty of breaking into the industry and given the number of reporters remaining at their jobs while the pool of graduating hopefuls increases every year.
“It’s been wonderful and challenging,” she said. “I worked really hard, too, but I’m sure there are people out there who are just as capable who haven’t had the right opportunities come up. Luck has got to play a part in it. I think so.”
Nguyễn’s break came in 1992 after staying up 48 hours straight to compile a tape for a news director in Augusta, Ga., while she was still a mass communications student at Webster University in St. Louis. After reviewing her submission, he hired her over the phone to be a reporter at CBS-affiliate WRDW-TV, without flying her to the station for an interview.
Following a year’s stint in Georgia, the 110th television market in the country, she landed an anchor and reporter position at KCRA-TV in Sacramento, Calif., where she worked for the NBC affiliate for four years.
On her big leap to market 19, Nguyễn said, “I was hoping to make it to market 70. I was setting those kinds of goals for myself because those are normally the jumps you make.”
In 1997, she joined KCAL-TV in Los Angeles and then became the first newscaster to anchor the broadcast on two stations in the same market with the Viacom-owned duo of KCBS and KCAL-TV. Along the way, her dedication garnered her prestigious accolades, including three local Emmy nominations.
“I expect to see Leyna as a network national correspondent or anchor within a very short period of time. I know they know of her in New York at all the network headquarters,” Parker said.
Nguyễn said she’s passed on New York offers that came up because she’s too happy with her life now.
“In college, I used to think that was the ultimate goal, ‘to go network,’ ” she said. “But my mind changes often. At some point, it doesn’t matter how many people know you or know about you. It doesn’t matter how successful other people consider you. What matters is what you really have — loved ones around you, quality time, good friends, a family. Although sometimes, if you don’t jump on a career opportunity, you may never get it again. But you might. Whereas you can only pass up on happiness, pass up on starting a family so many times before you will certainly never have the opportunity again.”
Nguyễn, who reports her share of difficult stories, likens her job to that of a police officer or firefighter — where, in order to avoid becoming depressed — a journalist must not get too connected covering bad news. However, she’s cried once, touched while interviewing a Vietnamese mother in Sacramento after her husband — a newspaper carrier and father of three — was robbed and killed. Talking to people who have just suffered, losing relatives, is one aspect of her work she does not enjoy.
“What I really hate doing is knocking at a door and asking a mother if she can talk to me. ‘I know you’ve just lost your son or daughter but will you talk to me?’
“I hate, hate doing it. I get sent to do those a lot. It’s amazing people say yes to me,” Nguyễn said.
Even though the assignments are few, she does get to cover fun stories, and she especially likes those about animals. Such experiences have allowed Nguyễn to fly a plane, paraglide and drive a race car. And although she lives in Hollywood, Nguyễn said she would be a horrible entertainment reporter due to her inability to remember celebrity names.
“I just like to do a story that you can be creative with or a story in which I feel it’s actually going to make a difference,” she said. “So even if it’s a story where the family lost everything. Sometimes you do those stories and people call in wanting to help. If I feel like I can accomplish something, then it’s a good story.”
One thing is clear in speaking with Nguyễn. She likes working with young people.
While in college, she was a substitute teacher, reveling in her second love, a career she would have considered if she weren’t reporting and if teachers were as respected here as they are in Việt Nam.
After a trip to her homeland, Nguyễn, who shares from her desk the photograph taken with her maternal grandmother there, founded a nonprofit foundation, Love Across the Ocean. The group, incorporated in 1997, assists underprivileged children, builds schools and provides emergency relief in the country.
Lately, though, she’s been helping locally by visiting nursing homes and battered women’s shelters. However, she wants this interest to push a bigger project, hoping Vietnamese youths will join her and volunteer to spend time with those who no longer have familial or societal support.
“I recently heard of a saying, that the money you give to the poor is what you take with you when you die,” said Nguyễn, who believes in karma. “I think that is so perfect. Then you take it a step further. It’s not only that. It’s the money you give to the poor, the love you give to people. That’s the only thing you can take with you when you die.”
This desire to motivate youngsters influenced her decision to host the popular musical production, Asia 43’s “Voice of the Heart.” Initially, she didn’t know if she should participate, unsure if she could commit the time and speak formal Vietnamese as opposed to her usual, English-inserted Vietnamese.
But because the show aimed to showcase young, successful Vietnamese, a cause she felt needed to be done, Nguyễn agreed, bringing her “tiếng Việt Kiều” to the event. The DVD resulting from the live event was a big hit, giving Nguyễn recognition not only in the United States but in Việt Nam.
“She thinks she’s not that good in Vietnamese but she’s phenomenal,” said Trúc Hồ, president of Asia Entertainment, the production company. “She can speak both languages. The younger generation can watch and understand with the older generation. A lot of people have requested her to host again. They all love her.”
Nguyễn also said she believes strongly in encouraging children, often reminding parents she meets not to tease their kids when their Vietnamese is flawed.
“The best way to teach a kid is not to shame them like Asian parents do. My parents did it. That’s the one thing I’m going to change when I become a parent, is to give more encouragement.
“Shaming your kids into doing better doesn’t always work,” stressed Nguyễn whose current, short-term goal is to settle down and start a family.
And she has some advice for people who turn their back on their culture. Nguyeãn believes at some point in some-one’s life or their children’s, these young adults will want to go back to Việt Nam. You can be a richer person for embracing your heritage, she says.
How can it make you any less to find out where you came from?
Nguyễn is considered a role model in the Vietnamese community.
“She shows the importance of going back to your roots and to know who you are in order to succeed. And she is a successful woman,” said Donny Trương, a Website designer at Vassar College who manages the popular site for young Vietnamese Americans, www.visualgui.com, where visitors have posted 100 comments on Nguyễn and Asia 43. “Not too many Vietnamese people make it to the mainstream media, and she did.”
“I’m always very flattered but yet almost embarrassed when people thank me,” Leyna Nguyễn said. “I don’t think I’ve really done that much for the community. Sometimes it makes me feel uneasy, that I don’t deserve all those pats on the back because to me, it’s my job.” News reporting, “it’s what I do.”
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