Popular Vietnam Singer Wants to Remain in U.S.

One of Vietnam’s most popular singers, whose appearance in Orange County this month provoked strong criticism, announced Thursday on a live radio program that she wants to remain in the United States.

Thanh Lan said in a brief, tearful interview on Saigon Radio in San Jose that she is in this country on a three-month cultural visa arranged by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) and that the visa specifically forbids extensions.

She said she wanted to stay, but did not use the word asylum.

Lan, 45, could not be reached for comment later.

Kathleen Hollingsworth, Rohrabacher’s district director in Huntington Beach, said she handled Lan’s visa as a “routine matter,” based on a request from a constituent to help Lan appear at a Little Saigon movie premiere.

Under the provisions of the visa, Hollingsworth said, Lan promised not to ask to stay in the United States after the 90-day visa expired. If Lan stays longer than 90 days, Hollingsworth said, the case would have to be handled by the Immigration and Naturalization Service before Rohrabacher could intervene.

But Congressman Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) said his office is willing “to start the long, laborious process” of helping Lan apply for political asylum.

“I have a tape of some of her songs and she is a beautiful singer,” he said.

Dornan emphasized that Lan is not a special case. “We try to help every Vietnamese family who asks us to intervene,” he said.

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Lan, who also is a well-known movie actress, “loves to be here because it’s a free country,” said Louie Do, a news producer at Saigon Radio and Vien Thal TV in San Jose, who was present at the interview. “She would like to stay in the United States to pursue her acting career.”

The five-minute interview was simulcast in Orange County on Little Saigon Radio at 2:15 p.m.

Dr. Co D.L. Pham, president of the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce in Garden Grove, said he was not surprised when he heard Lan’s announcement on the radio.

“All Vietnamese want to be in the U.S., in a free country,” he said.

But Pham suggested than Lan’s announcement could have been prompted by other motives. “Maybe she was scared because extremists were threatening her,” he said. “She is alone here, with no protection.”

When Lan visited Orange County in early January to promote her new film, “Tinh Nguoi” (Human Emotion), she was criticized by local Vietnamese newspapers who called her a Communist tool.

Lan, a popular entertainer in Saigon during the Vietnam War, denied that she was a supporter of the Communist government and said that she repeatedly tried to escape after the war.

While in Orange County, Lan stopped by Rohrabacher’s office to thank him for his assistance, and to discuss the artistic constraints placed on artists in authoritarian regimes.

At the film’s premiere, Lan told angry questioners that she did not intend to live in the United States, because she could live very well in Vietnam on what she earned. She did not discuss reports that she is now married to a government official.

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“It’s very unfair to dub her as Communist sympathizer,” said a prominent member of the Little Saigon community, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I’m embarrassed. It’s ridiculous, but typical of some elements of the community. They want to turn the clock back 30 years. . . . I feel so sorry. . . . She has a lots of fans here, she’s very popular, she’s educated . . . comes from a good family.”

There was a small protest at the Vietnamese-language theater where the film opened, but the turnout for the opening was light and the run was short.

The film’s plot touched a nerve in Little Saigon, according to interviews with community leaders. It told the story of a wealthy Vietnamese American physician who is betrayed by his materialistic wife. In despair, he returns to Vietnam to work in a hospital, where he meets and falls in love with a doctor who has returned from exile in France. In one scene, the partially clad couple make love on the bed of the last emperor of Vietnam, Bao Dai, who is still revered by many Vietnamese expatriates.

“Her agenda is playing that role,” said Louie Do, the San Jose news producer. “She had nothing to do with the Communist agenda at all.”

At the time, Lan also claimed that, as a result of the controversy over the film, local nightclub owners in Little Saigon refused to let her perform.

Her radio interview Thursday was to promote a concert tonight at the San Jose Convention Center. That appearance has been equally controversial, provoking a march and protest by 500 people in San Jose last weekend.

Do said there also have been death threats, which brought FBI agents and plainclothes San Jose police officers to the radio station.

Times staff writer Leslie Berkman contributed to this report.