GOP Officials Court Vietnamese Community

With an eye on the 1994 state elections, several Orange County Republican politicians gathered with members of the Vietnamese community Thursday, hoping to increase their party’s support in the nation’s largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam.

“The party’s doors are open today wider than ever, but the initiative is yours,” Dr. Tirso del Junco, chairman of the California Republican Party, told about 75 community leaders and business people. “You’ve got to volunteer. You’ve got to walk precincts. . . . Give of yourself because without that, we can’t win.”

The chairman was joined by Reps. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) and Jay C. Kim (R-Diamond Bar), and state Assemblymen Gil Ferguson (R-Newport Beach) and Mickey Conroy (R-Orange) for breakfast at the Center Club.

Del Junco, a Pasadena surgeon, was born in Cuba. He said that the Republican Party should be the logical choice for new refugees and immigrants escaping political persecution because it is the party of freedom.

“For me, who had seen what a dictatorial government represented, it was obvious that any party . . . that believed in free enterprise and the goals to attain a life of opportunity for all of us was the place for me,” he said. “It’s not just enough to say I am a Republican and I want freedom and I want opportunity. You must participate in every aspect of our party.”

The audience warmly applauded his remarks. Lan Ngoc Pham, 46, vice president of the Vietnamese-American Republican Club, said he worked hard to help elect Westminster Councilman Tony Lam to office and will step up his efforts to register new Republicans. The Republican Party has long courted Orange County’s Vietnamese community, which represents an important source of support for GOP candidates. Top Republican dignitaries, including former President George Bush, then-Vice President Dan Quayle, and Gov. Pete Wilson, have walked the streets of Little Saigon.

Rohrabacher, who has been at the forefront of the campaign against illegal immigration, was quick to distinguish illegal immigration from legal immigration.

“The battle against illegal immigration has nothing to do with” legal immigrants, he said, referring to the Vietnamese community. “As Republicans we believe that legal immigration has been very positive.”