ORANGE COUNTY DELEGATION : Proud Immigrant Stands Out to Stand Up for Free Vietnam : Ky Ngo, the convention’s only Vietnamese delegate, works to make sure his party doesn’t ignore his ex-countrymen’s plight.

Out in the flood of convention delegates on the Astrodome floor, Ky Ngo was doing his best to stand out amid a throng of Texas bubbas in 10-gallon hats and Republican matrons. Outfitted in a traditional silk Vietnamese robe and headdress, the Orange County resident rose to his feet often and long, holding aloft a sign: “Free Democracy, Human Rights For Vietnam.”

It’s a message the 39-year-old immigrant very much wants the White House to see. The lone Vietnamese-American delegate to the GOP National Convention, Ngo is as loyal a Republican as they come, but he’s troubled by the stance his party has adopted on relations with his homeland. As he sees it, the Republican platform approved in Houston fails to take a strong enough stance against the communist government in Vietnam.

“I know President Bush cares about the Vietnamese, but in the platform they only mention us in passing,” said Ngo, who believes relations with Vietnam should not be normalized until democracy and basic human rights are restored. “They forget we have 1 million Vietnamese in America. We can vote. We are Americans now.”

Few of those Southeast-Asian newcomers have toiled as tirelessly as Ngo to get that point across. For nearly a decade, he has worked with immigrants in Orange County’s Little Saigon community, pushed for change in his native land and celebrated the democratic process by volunteering to work with the GOP.

It has earned him trips to the White House, the chance to meet Presidents. In 1988, he became the first Vietnamese-American to serve as a delegate at the GOP convention. He appears regularly on Voice of America, talking in his native tongue to people in his homeland. Ngo is co-chairman of the bipartisan Asian American Voters Coalition, a national network trying to increase the political clout of such immigrants.

But it hasn’t brought him wealth. Ky Ngo (it’s pronounced Key No) lives in a rented room in Garden Grove that serves both as bedroom and office. He sleeps on a couch and says he bathes in a garbage can, pouring water over his head from a pitcher. Ngo said he would never think of seeking government assistance, and his humble existence hasn’t quelled his passion for the United States.

“I feel sorry for my dad,” Ngo said softly Wednesday. “He came to this country a year ago thinking I was some big man because I have talked with Presidents and he heard my voice on the radio when he was in Vietnam. Then he comes over here and finds out I’m poor.”

That was hardly the case back in Vietnam. Ngo’s parents ran a supermarket in Da Nang, and Ky studied law at the University of Saigon. Five days before the communist takeover, Ngo fled to the United States with a sister and brother. His parents chose to stay behind with his three other siblings.

Ngo got a job as a medical technician for an Anaheim laboratory soon after his arrival, and three years later parlayed that into a post as a supervisor with a firm in Switzerland.

Life for his parents in Vietnam, meanwhile, had grown hellish. His father was put in a “re-education” facility, his mother was thrown into a forced-labor camp. By 1980, she was dead. “She was killed by the communists,” Ngo whispered.

He paused, gathering himself. “I feel sorry to leave Vietnam,” he said, his voice cracking. “I love Vietnam. That’s the worst thing for the mom to die and not have her child by her.”

The death played a part in transforming Ngo. “I lost my mother and my country--that’s everything,” he said. “I thought I had to do something different. Something to help my people.”

Although the job in Switzerland paid well, he returned to the United States and threw himself into all manner of causes to help his homeland. Ngo also became a devout soldier of the GOP. He organized voter registration drives in Orange County’s Asian community, helped with various campaigns--most notably that of the anti-communist crusader Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove)--and set up the first Republican Party headquarters in Little Saigon.

Ngo says the GOP message appeals strongly to Vietnamese, who generally gravitate to the party because of its strong stance against communism during the Reagan years. He estimates that nine of every 10 immigrants from Vietnam side with Republicans when they vote. In Orange County, that represents a hefty election bonus for the GOP. Census figures indicate there are 75,000 Vietnamese in the county, although Ngo maintains those figures are skewed and there may be twice that many.

But in many ways, they are invisible--huddled in cramped homes in Westminster or Stanton, congregating in the safe harbor of Little Saigon. Thus came Ky Ngo to the Republican National Convention, bright and blue-garbed, ready for the TV cameras beaming pictures across the country.

“If I wore Western clothes, no one would know I am Vietnamese,” he said. “I want to show the American people that there is a Vietnamese among those 40,000 people in the Astrodome. I want to show we are involved, we have a voice now, we are in politics.”