After 1975, there have been large waves of Vietnamese refugees escaping from Vietnam to the United States, Canada, and other western countries. Since then, the Vietnamese-American population has grown tremendously and contributed a great deal to the adopted homeland. With a population of more than one million, the Vietnamese-American communities in the United States have started building their lives and contributed to the society in all different fields. The second and third generations of Vietnamese-American have increased in population and comprised a major part of these communities.

In 1997, The Vietnamese Culture and Science Association organized the first Vietnamese-American Youth Recognition Luncheon to recognize the academic achievement of 13 Vietnamese-American students who graduated from more than 40 local high schools in Houston as Valedictorians or Salutatorians. Mayor Lee Brown was the Keynote Speaker for this event. The event has been very well received by the community and had a very positive impacts on the Asian youth in general and the Vietnamese-American youths in particular. The event emphasized the importance of education and encouraged the youth to excel in the academic field. In 1998 and 1999, we continued this program in an Annual event of our organization. The event recognized excellent academic achievements of Vietnamese-American students from local high schools.