Reason for Anger in Little Saigon

* Some people may wonder why we were so angry with a man who was displaying a poster of the late Communist leader Ho Chi Minh along with a flag in the heart of Little Saigon.

Even though I am just 19 and of course did not face many obstacles as my grandparents and parents did, I have learned that Communists destroyed our whole lives.

For instance, the government prevented you from getting higher education just because you were a son or daughter of a former South Vietnamese soldier.

Columnist Dana Parsons said on March 5, “The protesters can picket and boycott and write angry letters to the editor, but they can’t be allowed to block access to Tran’s business. They can’t be allowed to intimidate people who may want to patronize it.”

I disagree with his statement because it really hurt for us to see the Communist flag displayed in Little Saigon.

Does shopkeeper Truong Van Tran understand that if a person in Vietnam displays the flag of the old South Vietnam today, he will be jailed tomorrow and probably for years? Is he blind to this irony? Does he not understand the flag of tyranny and repression, the flag of a police state?

Why are Vietnamese Americans refugees? We left our homes that we had worked our whole lives for. We risked our lives in thousands of small boats to escape from the Communists. Many thousands perished in the deep oceans during these dangerous voyages.

The Communist government is responsible for more violations of human rights than can be counted. I believe our young generations can make our dreams a reality.

I hope one day when there is no Communist government, I will go back to my country to contribute knowledge gained in America to help the country out of poverty.

LOAN THANH NGUYEN

Midway City

* I have read Shawn Hubler’s March 22 column so many times that I learned by heart her unfeeling attitude toward Vietnamese protesters.

She described them, “rage infects Vietnamese protesters”; and “so much rage”; and “they’d been raging here in Little Saigon”; and “rage doesn’t last.”

Rage is a state of wild, uncontrollable anger. Rage is a fashion. To rage is to be full of violent force.

The protesters are not in a rage. They have accused City Councilman Tony Lam of being a traitor and a communist and shown evidence for their accusation.

They are not in a rage due to the fact that they have reported on Vietnamese spies’ infiltration to the FBI.

After the normalization between the United States and Vietnam, Vietnamese spies broadcast communism on radio and infiltrated protesters throughout Truong Van Tran’s case in hopes that protesters would do everything wrong in Americans’ eyes.

The protesters have a sixth sense to distinguish anti-communists from pro-communists or communist sympathizers due to the fact that they were Communists’ victims.

KEN DAO

Garden Grove