Vietnamese Back Clinton, Point to His Stance on Human Rights : Politics: The group’s announcement is significant in that the Southeast Asian community has traditionally supported Republicans.

A group of Vietnamese immigrants in Orange County announced Tuesday the formation of a committee to elect Bill Clinton, the first organized effort by Vietnamese here on behalf of a Democratic presidential candidate.

Committee members, in praising the Arkansas governor’s stated support of human rights in Vietnam, also said they believe his policies on unemployment, welfare and education would benefit Vietnamese refugees and immigrants in the United States.

“Clinton is going to have an aggressive foreign policy, a policy of engagement for democracy,” said Dinh Le, treasurer and secretary-general of the Clinton committee, which has 10 members and about 30 volunteers. “We are in deep trouble if Bush is there. It’s about time Bush must go.”

Le spoke Tuesday morning to about 100 senior citizens at the Vietnamese Community Center, encouraging them to register and vote Democratic in the upcoming presidential election.

Vietnamese-Americans in Orange County have long supported Republican candidates. Since 1984, they have formed Republican organizations during every election, and more than 90% of Vietnamese voters typically support the GOP.

“I think it’s revolutionary,” said Howard Adler, county chairman of the Democratic Party. “It has to be another blow to that Republican lock on Orange County. They’re coming one after another.”

Republicans, however, said the Clinton committee does not represent the majority of the community, which numbers about 140,000 and centers around Little Saigon in Westminster.

Greg Haskins, executive director of the Orange County Republican Party, said the Clinton group would not affect GOP efforts in the community.

“We have a very strong presence in the Vietnamese community as well, and we think we’ll be able to count on them for George Bush,” Haskins said. “I would suspect that the more they learn about Clinton the more they’ll end up liking George Bush in the long run.”

Ky Ngo, co-chairman of Southern California’s Vietnamese Americans for Bush and a delegate to the Republican conventions in 1988 and 1992, said of the new committee: “This is a free country; everyone has a right to support the candidate and the party they want to. I’m happy to see anyone involved in politics, because that’s the way we can raise our voice for freedom.”

Ngo and Henry Le, president of the Vietnamese American Republican Heritage Council, said that most Orange County Vietnamese favor Republicans because of the GOP’s staunch anti-communism and its pursuit of the war in Vietnam.

“We are the victims of the Democrats back in 1974-5,” Henry Le said of his fellow immigrants. “We all know why we’re here. Support from President Bush and the Republican platform is the only way (we) can win over the communists in Vietnam.”

The Clinton committee was formed in response to a letter Clinton wrote after Mai Cong, president of the nonprofit group Vietnamese Community of Orange County, asked his national campaign headquarters where he stood on Vietnam.

“A Clinton Administration will strongly support the aspirations of the Vietnamese people for human rights, and for freedom and democracy in Vietnam,” Clinton wrote to Cong in a letter dated last week. “We will stand up for democracy everywhere around the world. This is an important goal of the Clinton Administration.”

Carole Uhlaner, a UCI professor who specializes in ethnic politics, said the Democratic activity among Vietnamese-Americans can be attributed to the passage of time since the Vietnam War, the end of the Cold War, and the larger movement toward Clinton among traditional Republicans in Orange County.

“This is another version of the theme of people looking at Bush and saying, ‘Bush and Reagan have been in power for 12 years, have we accomplished what we wanted?’ ” Uhlaner said. “For Vietnamese-Americans, the answer is not yet.”

Now, nearly two decades after the fall of Saigon, memories of anti-war Democrats and vigilant Republicans have faded, leaving open the possibility of supporting an anti-communist Democrat such as Clinton, she said. “Maybe the historical moment has changed, and the grounds for evaluating the parties have shifted as well.”