Vietnamese American artwork protest
Hai Vu leads a chant in Santa Ana protesting against an exhibit that displayed artwork featuring symbols of Communist Vietnam. The protest came the day after one of the works was defaced with red paint and the owners of the building ordered the exhibit closed, saying the organizers lacked the proper business license. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)
A woman at the protest covers herself with the flag of South Vietnam. Curators of the exhibit, commissioned by the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Assn., said they meant to launch a discussion about freedom of expression in the Vietnamese community. But protesters said it mocked their painful experiences as political refugees. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)
Santa Ana police officers detain a man who had unfurled and waved a flag of communist Vietnam among the anti-communist protestors who then surrounded him, shouting, Communist! and Go back to Vietnam! in the Vietnamese community, talk of communism is a taboo. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)
Yelling, I have rights. I have rights, the counter-protester was arrested on suspicion of fighting in public. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)
But Vo of Los Angeles is one of hundreds protesting the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Assn. exhibit. A demonstration organizer said that for many people upset by the exhibit, the Vietnam War never ended. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)
