Quyen Di Chuc Bui, who leads the Vietnamese language program at UCLA, has been awarded the 2016 Asian Heritage Award for Innovation for his tireless work in teaching Vietnamese to both college students and volunteer community teachers.

UCLA International Institute, March 7, 2016 — Quyen Di Chuc Bui, a lecturer in Vietnamese in the UCLA Asian Languages and Cultures Department at UCLA, has received the 2016 Asian Heritage Award for Innovation. The honor is conferred by the Asian Heritage Society, which annually recognizes the achievements of Asian Americans living in California and their contributions to their communities.

A dinner and awards ceremony will be held on Saturday, April 23, 2016, at the Joan B. Kroc Institute of Peace and Justice of the University of San Diego. This year's celebration marks the Fourteenth Annual Asian Heritage Awards, which are dedicated to Vietnamese Americans. 

Quyen Di is one of a number of impressive awardees who will be honored in April, a roster that includes family medical practitioner Dr. Danh Truong, celebrated author Nha Ca (Tran Thi Thu Van) and San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn.

In addition to teaching Vietnamese at UCLA and California State University Long Beach, as well as a summer intensive course in Vietnam, Quyen Di trains local immigrant volunteers how to teach Vietnamese. He co-leads an annual workshop in this specialized pedagogy every summer for The Association of the Vietnamese Language and Culture Schools (TAVIET-LCS), and offers similar workshops in numerous cities across the United States each year.

The talented Vietnamese language and literature teacher has also written a set of textbooks for Vietnamese-American students that have been published by Tuoihoa Publishing of Garden Grove, California.

The UCLA Center for Southeast Asian studies congratulates Quyen Di on his Innovation Award and wishes him continued success in helping students achieve fluency in Vietnamese.