Little Saigon Subdued After Embargo Ends

When the news finally came to Little Saigon in Orange County and the end was clear, so many people had braced themselves for the lifting of the 19-year U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam that, apart from a general sense of sadness, the deepest emotions most could muster were regret, resignation and bewilderment.

Orange County is home to the nation’s largest Vietnamese community, 70,572 people according to the latest Census.

But on Thursday, it was just another gray, subdued business day on the Bolsa Avenue strip of shops and pho restaurants in Westminster’s Little Saigon--the cultural capital of the 300,000 or so Vietnamese immigrants living in Southern California.

As President Clinton delivered his announcement live from Washington, rows of flickering television sets at the Ultimate Electronics International Appliance Store in the Asian Garden Mall were tuned to another program: “Woody Woodpecker.” Two toddlers watched with keen interest.

“Everything is quiet. The reaction of the community seems fairly low. So I think it’s a good thing for the President,” said Co Pham, head of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce who just a few months ago donned a bullet-proof vest and hired bodyguards because his vociferous support for normalization of relations between the two nations aroused such heated reactions.

For days, news of the President’s expected decision had circulated widely in the Vietnamese community. When it was finally official, the only surprise was that the announcement was not made on Friday, as had been expected.

“Not Friday?” asked Huu Dinh Vo, a Pomona physician who is co-chairman of the Vietnamese American Community in the USA. “Guessing when it will happen is one thing, but to actually hear about it is something else.

“I feel a bit disappointed,” said Vo, a staunch opponent of trade with Vietnam. “I think American business will have a chance to make a profit in Vietnam. At the same time, the Communists will have the propaganda to say the embargo is lifted. They will care less about human rights. The more money they have, the more they can cling to power.”

Vo and other allies scrambled to organize a Saturday demonstration on Bolsa Avenue to oppose the President’s action. Other major community groups--such as the Vietnamese Community of Southern California, which already had big plans to inaugurate its president this weekend--offered moral support for the effort, but not much more.

Diem Do, a member of the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam and host of a cable television show called “Youth and Tomorrow,” said his group was preparing to stage a weekend demonstration in Westminster.

“We want to point out to the Vietnamese community that no matter what happens, we’re going to struggle for human rights in Vietnam,” Do said. “We don’t want the community to feel down or depressed.”

There was anger and dismay among those who argued the lifting of the trade embargo eased the pressure on Vietnam to provide information about American service personnel who were prisoners of war or who are missing in action.

Barbara Lowerison, a San Diegan whose brother, Air Force Col. Joseph Scharf, was shot down near Hanoi in 1965, said she was infuriated by Clinton’s decision. “I hope to God I’m wrong, but I think the Vietnamese might just go ahead and murder our Americans (POWS) because they’ve outlived their usefulness,” Lowerison said. “We’ve lost our bargaining power with the Vietnamese. Vietnam has won the war totally now.”

Lowerison, a longtime activist among POW-MIA families, had asked Clinton about her brother in a televised Town Hall meeting in San Diego in May. She believes that her brother is still being held prisoner. After the release of American POWs in 1973, the Pentagon listed Scharf as dead, but Lowerison maintains that the military is withholding vital records that might prove that he and others are still captives.

Vietnamese officials today welcomed the American action, calling it a logical development whose time had come.

“It’s an important event for Vietnam,” said Do Cong Minh, the director of the government’s Foreign Press Center. “Certainly it creates more favorable conditions for relations between the two countries.”

“This is something we’ve been waiting for,” said Vu Binh, a government official. “It comes as the result of a logical development. The Vietnamese public has been prepared for this. On the American side, the President has the momentum and political support that he lacked before.”

Meantime, for the Vietnamese who fled their homeland and now live in Orange County, Thursday brought no tears, just the chill numbness of depression. Missing were the charged arguments against normalization that have erupted into fist fights in Little Saigon. Gone was the passion.

At St. Boniface Church in Anaheim, the Rev. Joseph Son Nguyen shook his head as he listened to the President’s announcement. “He was talking about Vietnam, and I felt so left out,” Nguyen said. “Vietnamese Americans were not once mentioned. A very important constituency of this country was left out. I am an American citizen, and, in listening to the President talk about why he’s doing this, I felt that the government didn’t care.”

Trang Nguyen was on her way back to Orange County from a Burbank meeting when she heard the news crackle on her car radio. “He lifted the embargo without any conditions, and I’m so disappointed,” Nguyen said. “Why did we go to war? For democracy, for freedom. Now, none of those goals are achieved, and we’re trading with our enemies.”

For years, opposition to the end of the trade embargo had been a test for every local Vietnamese leader. Supporters were probed for softness on communism; some were found lacking. It was difficult to find anyone favoring normalization to debate the issue on Little Saigon television shows.

But the embargo’s end opened the way for many younger Vietnamese to speak freely about the future.

Dustin Nguyen, 31, is an actor who has appeared on television shows such as “21 Jump Street” and the movie “Heaven and Earth.”

“There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t hope the embargo would be lifted,” he said. “It’s not a panacea, but it’s definitely a step.

“Eventually, we have to transcend the political barrier for the country to heal,” Nguyen said. “Vietnamese-Americans who oppose (normalization) may have to re-examine themselves and their feelings and ask themselves whether their problems are personal issues.”

This weekend, when the Union of Vietnamese Students Assn. of Southern California hosts a two-day Tet festival in Huntington Beach, there will be students manning an information booth with petitions calling for free elections in Vietnam. They are ready, they say, to move on.

Chung Nguyen, who has ambitions to one day run for Congress, will be there with the younger generation. “Back in the ‘60s, Americans came to Vietnam for freedom and now they have the chance to attain the same goal with a peaceful means,” he said. “We should not betray the Americans who died for political freedom.”

Times staff writer Anthony Perry in San Diego contributed to this report.