Davis to Meet With County Vietnamese
Several Vietnamese American community leaders from Orange County plan to meet with Gov. Gray Davis on Friday in Newport Beach to discuss issues of human rights and trade in Vietnam.
Representatives of the Vietnamese American community had asked Davis repeatedly to show up at the site of the two-month protest in Little Saigon that erupted in January over a shopkeeper’s display of Communist symbols.
Though he declined at the time, citing scheduling conflicts, the governor has agreed to meet with about 15 community leaders after speaking at a luncheon for the Democratic Foundation of Orange County on Friday, a legislative aide said.
Chuyen Nguyen, an aide to state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Garden Grove) who helped arrange the meeting, said he expects serious issues of trade and human rights to come up.
“California is the seventh-largest economic power in the world, and pretty soon I think Vietnam is going to come, hat in hand, asking for favors,” Nguyen said. “So the Vietnamese community here surely will ask the governor to tie human rights conditions with the terms of trade.”
Davis is the guest speaker at the Democratic Foundation of Orange County’s annual membership meeting at the Four Seasons hotel in Newport Beach on Friday. Nguyen said Davis agreed to meet with the group for about half an hour after the luncheon.
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