Writer T he prayer is hypnotizing. Part song, part chant, it pulses through the sanctuary like a heartbeat. The congregants slowly fill the church, each adding his or her voice to the invocation.
Men sit to the right of the nave and women to the left.
An overflow crowd of worshippers has gathered for the 10 a.m. Mass at Christ the King, a Vietnamese Catholic church in the Riverside neighborhood. On the side streets surrounding the church, parking is scarce. For three years, this church has been the cultural nucleus of the Vietnamese community in northeast Fort Worth, which found its footing in the Riverside area in 1975. Asian population of the 76111 ZIP code, which encompasses Riverside, grew slightly to 8.8 percent in 1998 from 6.7 percent in 1990. Ta estimates that a couple of hundred Vietnamese families live throughout the neighborhoods of Sylvan Heights West, Scenic Bluffs, Carter-Riverside and Bonnie Brae.