THE TIMES POLL : Little Saigon Is Big in Hearts of Vietnamese : The Westminster enclave has become a cultural center for thousands who fled their war-torn nation to settle in Southern California. It now has more than 1,600 Asian-run businesses.

Every Saturday is market day for Thanh Tran.

The term loses some of its meaning when translated from Vietnamese, because the 65-year-old Anaheim woman does more than merely shop for groceries on this designated day.

Her routine starts at a food stand for an early morning breakfast of sweet, sticky rice and jasmine tea. It ends in the evening with dinner at a storefront restaurant that specializes in pho , the rice noodle soup that is as popular among Vietnamese as hamburgers are among Americans.

Between breakfast and dinner, Tran idles away the hours browsing through shops specializing in Chinese teas and herbs, bakeries, fabric marts and, yes, supermarkets on the stretch of Bolsa Avenue that is Little Saigon.

“I don’t come to buy things,” Tran said one Saturday afternoon, standing in front of a pastry shop, sipping iced sugar cane juice. “I come to see people, strangers mostly, who come . . . to do ordinary, everyday things, but in an environment where, because of the familiarity of faces and language, we never feel out of place.”

For Tran, as for the vast majority of Vietnamese living in Southern California, the Little Saigon area of Westminster has become a cultural magnet--a place for all things Vietnamese, from the food they eat to the sundries they need, to simply mingling with people who speak their language.

A Los Angeles Times poll found that almost half the Vietnamese in Southern California--47%--consider Little Saigon their community’s “most important” business, cultural and social center, while another 23% rated it “important.”

The Times poll of 861 Vietnamese residents, conducted from March 28 through April 19 in Southern California, has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The Times Poll is directed by John Brennan.

Of the people surveyed, 5% said it was not important at all, and only 2% said they had never heard of Little Saigon.

“And I’m surprised that those 2% even exist,” said a 39-year-old Fullerton poll respondent who asked that his name not be used. “If Vietnamese from as far away as Vietnam, France and Australia know about this section (of Westminster), how could the ones here not know? Little Saigon is a big chunk of the history of Vietnamese in America.”

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It is a history that is still recounted with pride, and more than a little incredulity, by city officials and ad-hoc planners responsible for Little Saigon’s unambitious beginning.

It originated in the late 1970s in a blue-collar section of Westminster, where scattered bottling plants and flower warehouses, half-empty shopping centers and expansive bean and strawberry fields covered most of the landscape. Only four Vietnamese-run businesses--a grocery store carrying mostly Asian food, an insurance office, a pharmacy and a restaurant--dotted the area.

An astute businessman, Harry Wu, sold an idea to developer Frank Jao, who rounded up investors to buy up some relatively inexpensive Westminster property that would house businesses catering to the newly arriving Southeast Asian refugees, who were journeying 40 miles north to Los Angeles’ Chinatown for ethnic groceries and food.

Khu Bon Sa, or Bolsa district as local Vietnamese called it, became almost immediately a hub for the refugees who would eventually number 70,500 in Orange County, making it the largest concentration of Vietnamese outside Vietnam. (Local Vietnamese leaders maintain that the actual population, with new and undeclared immigrants, is double the 70,572 counted by the 1990 U.S. Census.)

Here, the smoke-filled coffeehouses, bakeries, boutiques and restaurants--all reminiscent of the fallen capital of the former South Vietnam--beckoned to the expatriates who, in their hearts, still yearned for the tastes and textures of their homeland.

Khu Bon Sa eventually came to be known as “Little Saigon” as more than 700 predominantly Vietnamese businesses sprouted in the area. In 1988, the quotation marks disappeared and the designation became official when the Westminster City Council proclaimed the district a social and cultural center for Vietnamese Americans.

“I definitely knew Little Saigon would one day be an ethnic center for Southeast Asians,” said developer Jao, who was and still is one of the main architects of the area. Jao’s Asian Village and Asian Garden Mall have anchored the business district of mostly strip malls and family-owned operations for years.

“I just didn’t have the imagination to believe that it would be as big as it has become,” he said.

Little Saigon may look 99% business. But for the older Vietnamese immigrants, it is 100% cultural and social. While members of other ethnic communities in the United States can freely make return visits to their homelands without fear of persecution, the Vietnamese here, most of whom had ties to the Saigon regime, believe they cannot do the same.

For them, Little Saigon is their only reminder of, if not their only link to, the hometowns of their past, however Americanized it may be.

Today, Little Saigon has between 1,600 and 2,000 Asian-run businesses, and has come to symbolize an immigrant success story. Its fame has also reached its homeland.

Dr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, president of the Committee for Vietnamese Residents Abroad in Ho Chi Minh City, the original Saigon, said, “of course we all know--and it is with pride--of the place called Little Saigon. In Paris, London, New York City, San Francisco, there are a number of Chinatowns. But there is only one place called Little Saigon, and for many Vietnamese not in Vietnam, it is like their second home.”

The internationally known area is not without its problems and critics. And even its most ardent supporters have concerns.

Public investment in the area became a political issue in the recent and unsuccessful campaign to recall some Westminster City Council members. The Westminster Citizens for a Responsible Government, in its campaign literature, alleged that the city was spending too much money to promote and develop Little Saigon.

Vietnamese community leaders counter that those spearheading the recall campaign are trying to stoke the prejudice and fears of local residents. Also, the about $500,000 in annual tax revenues the district generates for the city has more than repaid its cost in development, they say.

Little Saigon has also been plagued with crime in recent years.

“I only go to Little Saigon in the daytime,” said poll respondent Tam Tran, 39, of Garden Grove. “There have just been too many stories of shootings, fistfights, purse-snatchings lately for my peace of mind.”

The public relations problems do not stop there.

A small number of non-Asians complain that an insular ethnic community like Little Saigon prevents some Vietnamese from successfully assimilating into mainstream, Western culture.

Dung Le, 27, a computer programmer from San Diego, dismisses such claims, which he calls “unfair and inaccurate.”

“How could anyone begrudge the Vietnamese, or people of any other ethnicity, who want to spend some time in a place they feel culturally theirs,” said Le, of San Diego, who visits Little Saigon once a month. “Plus, most of us don’t live in Little Saigon.”

Indeed, only 12% of Orange County Vietnamese residents actually reside in Little Saigon, according to the Times survey. In fact, just 11% of Vietnamese Americans in Southern California--and 18% in Orange County--say they live in predominantly Vietnamese areas.

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But The Times Poll also found that while Southern California’s Vietnamese immigrants have established their homes in neighborhoods that are ethnically heterogeneous, they have maintained their strongest bonds of friendship with other Vietnamese--not unlike the patterns detected in an earlier Times Poll of Koreans. Only 33% of the Vietnamese said they have close friends who are non-Vietnamese, while 46% volunteered that their close friends were Vietnamese.

Little Saigon’s popularity transcends the generation gap too. The poll found that 49% of the younger generation of Vietnamese think of the area as the community’s most important cultural asset, while 55% of those over 50 rated it that way.

“I have my own life and other things to do, but I always come back” to Little Saigon, said Trina Vo, a 21-year-old Santa Ana resident and UCLA student. On this day, she was sitting with a group of friends, Vietnamese and white, on a bench outside a sandwich shop. All were enjoying their banh mi thit nguoi, a spicy Vietnamese version of a hoagie.

“This is where my roots are,” said Vo, “where I can practice my Vietnamese, where I can get authentic Vietnamese food.”

But poll respondent Julie Nguyen, 23, of Gardena predicts that the area’s popularity among the younger generation will fade. “The younger generation . . . (prefers) to shop in big malls like South Coast Plaza. By the time it comes to the third generation (of Vietnamese Americans), Little Saigon will have lost its significance to most of us,” Nguyen said.

To attract even more youths and non-Asian tourists, Vietnamese leaders say they hope to build a cultural center that would include a performing arts center, a museum, and art and Vietnamese history displays that would enhance what is a largely commercial district now.

“If the economy permits, I think all that would be possible in the next five years,” said Westminster Councilman Tony Lam, who also was a major figure in the development of Little Saigon.

The City Council is studying recommendations of the ad-hoc Bolsa Corridor Citizen Advisory Committee, which outlined some long-range plans to make Little Saigon a tourist center for non-Asian visitors.

The recommendations include landscaping, installing ornamental lighting on the district’s streets, providing shuttle services and tours in the area, and building a visitor center.

“We’d like to market Little Saigon locally first and internationally later,” said Frank Zellner, executive director of the Westminster Chamber of Commerce and a member of the advisory committee.

Some developers, such as Jao, have plans to continue expanding the area. Jao has introduced the blueprints of Temple Village, a plaza with the ambience of the original Saigon, containing a pagoda and French Colonial buildings where business owners can live above their retail shops, restaurants or offices--similar to the mixed residential-commercial development that exists in the cities of Vietnam.

Co Pham, president of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce, hopes Little Saigon will one day establish a lucrative trade with Vietnam.

“It’s all still in the distant future, of course, but why should we stop now,” Pham said. “Little Saigon has come a long way in a relatively short period of time. We still have a lot of room to grow and a lot of dreams and plans to build on.”

Los Angeles Times Poll: An Ethnic Center of Gravity

The Little Saigon area of Westminster is generally viewed by the Southern California Vietnamese as a cultural center to which they throng for Asian products, food and the companionship of their countrymen. For the most part, they have established their homes in ethnically mixed neighborhoods and have more Vietnamese than non-Vietnamese friends.

“Have you heard of an area in the Westminster/Garden Grove section of Orange County called Little Saigon, or not?” Those who said yes were asked: “How important is the area known as Little Saigon in Orange County to you personally as a business, cultural and social center?”

Orange Rest of Total County So. Calif. Important 70% 74% 67% Not important 15 8 19 Live in Little Saigon (volunteered) 5 12 * Not heard of Little Saigon 2 2 2 Don’t know 8 4 12

* Less than 1%

“How would you describe the racial and ethnic makeup of the neighborhood where you live?”

Orange Rest of Total County So. Calif. Mostly white 35% 40% 31% Mostly black 3 * 4 Mostly Latino 12 9 14 Mostly Vietnamese 11 18 5 Mostly non-Vietnamese Asian 9 4 13 Mostly other 5 6 5 Evenly mixed 23 21 25 Don’t know 2 2 3

* Less than 1%

“Are any of your close personal friends black, white, Latino, non-Vietnamese Asian or Vietnamese?”

Orange Rest of Total County So. Calif. Yes, Vietnamese 46% 50% 43% Yes, white 19 18 19 Yes, non-Vietnamese Asian 15 13 16 Yes, black 9 8 9 Yes, Latino 9 9 10 Have no friends 24 21 26

Note: Totals add to more than 100% because of multiple responses

Source: Los Angeles Times Poll

How the Poll Was Conducted

The Times Poll interviewed 861 adult Vietnamese residents of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties by telephone from March 28 through April 19, 1994. The questions were developed in consultation with Duong Pham, a visiting lecturer at UC Irvine and UCLA, and Khao Luu, president of the Assn. of Former Vietnamese Educators Overseas. The interviewing was conducted in Vietnamese and English by Vietnamese American interviewers at Interviewing Services of America Inc. of Van Nuys. A list of Vietnamese surnames was used to draw the samples from phone directories in the six counties. Results were adjusted slightly so that the sample conforms with census information about sex, age and education. Vietnamese residents of Orange County were oversampled and a total of 502 interviews were conducted there; 359 were conducted in the other five counties.

Where Southern California results are cited, the Orange County sample is weighted to its proper proportion in the sample. The margin of sampling error for the entire sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points. For the Orange County sample, the error is plus or minus 5 percentage points and for the rest of the region it is plus or minus 7 points. The sampling error for other subgroups may vary. In addition to sampling error, poll results can be affected by other factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented. Additionally, surname samples of this type do not allow for the sampling of people with unlisted telephone numbers and Vietnamese residents who do not have Vietnamese surnames.