Now there are signs of shifting attitudes in the historically anticommunist community, the largest Vietnamese enclave in the U.S.

Vietnamese Americans are beginning to see opportunity in their home country, and increasingly, people are moving back, expanding their business ties or starting humanitarian organizations to improve the lives of those in Vietnam -- actions barely imaginable a decade ago.

Though the change is subtle and those who associate with Vietnam often keep a low profile, the movement is remarkable in a community where a statue of a South Vietnamese soldier stands near the civic center and noisy street protests against perceived communist sympathizers are still routine.

"There is tension in the community," said Linda Trinh Vo, a UC Irvine professor of Asian American studies. "It shows the complexities of Vietnamese Americans in terms of their feelings against the current Vietnamese government. At the same time, we have to understand the personal experiences of these people and what they have suffered."

Doing business

Bill Pham fled Vietnam on a plane with his family when he was 4. Now 37, he has no memories of his homeland.

He returned to Vietnam for the first time in 2006 and saw hungry children without shoes and mothers peddling bowls of pho. "I kept thinking that could have been my life," he said.

Pham decided to expand his Orange County-based clean-energy business to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam and a name that still smolders among refugees. His manufacturing company there employs 80.

Vietnamese Americans who conduct business in their homeland are viewed with suspicion, seen as traitors who help prop up the Communist regime. Vietnam's human rights record and crackdowns on political and religious freedom remain sore points.

Yet there are signs of change, even in the supermarkets and mom-and-pop stores in Little Saigon, where silks and fabrics, fish sauce, souvenirs, peanut snacks and pop music imported from Vietnam are displayed with growing prominence.

This month, Pham hosted a group of Vietnamese delegates trying to lure high-technology businesses in Orange County and San Jose to Vietnam. The meetings were discreet, by invitation only. Pham and the delegates did not want to risk protests.

"Forget the politics," Pham said. "What do you do to solve problems for people in Vietnam?" Pham sees increased business ties with Vietnam as a path to a better economy for the nation. Human rights, education and political freedoms will follow, he predicts.

As ties between the United States and Vietnam deepen, Vietnamese government officials are reaching out to overseas Vietnamese -- Viet Kieu -- with promises of investment incentives, multi-entry visas and less red tape.

The United States and Vietnam did $12.5 billion in business last year, up nearly 30% from 2006, according to U.S. government officials. Vietnamese Americans also sent an estimated $4 million plus in remittances to relatives in Vietnam last year.

Not forgetting the past

Timothy Thieng Chi Ngo was among the hundreds who protested when Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet visited Dana Point in June.

He takes offense at Vietnamese government officials trying to reel expatriates back and doesn't believe a better economy will bring about democracy.

"I wish the people who rush to do business in Vietnam would have more responsibility," Ngo said. "I feel like they have forgotten the past too soon."