Reflecting on 20 Years of Gains and Losses : Vietnamese Americans Overcome Adversity to Add Welcome Ingredient to Melting Pot

Next month will mark the 20th anniversary of the Communist takeover of Vietnam, a traumatic event that sent hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to the United States, many of them to Orange County. Here and in other communities across the country that the refugees and their America-born children now call home, the anniversary has become an occasion to take stock of what was gained and what was lost.

Vietnamese Americans in Little Saigon and nearby communities have established Project 20, a months-long series of cultural events to include panel discussions, concerts and art shows. Khoa Le composed a symphonic suite titled “1975” that will be given its premiere June 3 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa. Le said the 20th anniversary “is a time when you can look back, and at the same time look to the future.” He said he felt that Americans wanted to know something about these newest refugees, and that they had something to share with their adopted country.

Le is right on both counts. For much of their two decades here, the Vietnamese community was largely unheard by people outside it. There were Vietnamese-language signs on shops in Westminster and Garden Grove, but little presence in the larger community.

In recent years, a refugee from Vietnam has become a Westminster councilman, another Vietnamese American has run for Congress, and the number who are citizens and registered voters has started to climb. That is a welcome change.

The Vietnamese have things to share as well. The “melting pot” has benefited from immigrants around the world in politics, economics, culture and religion.

Americans should have a heightened interest in Vietnamese involvement in all aspects of American life because of the ties born in war, when troops from both nations fought and died for the same cause.

An organizer of the Project 20 commemorations said one reason for the low profile of Vietnamese for their early years in this county was the need simply to survive. Later years brought a flourishing Vietnamese community: 10 Vietnamese-language bookstores in and around Little Saigon, five literary magazines.

As the second generation of Vietnamese Americans reaches adulthood, they are finding more entrances to mainstream culture, a good development. Vietnamese faces are turning up on television and in films more than before, reflecting an inclusion in society. That should be everyone’s goal.