Seeing a Future in Westminster

* Re “Unflagging Controversy in Heart of Westminster,” April 15:

When my wife and I moved to Orange County from Fresno in 1977, Westminster was about the best and most affordable community near the coast where we wanted to live. What we found was a city on the skids.

Westminster was a city forced to fire its experienced teachers because it could no longer afford to pay them; a city with little or no employment, rising crime, declining property values and zero community pride; a city we abandoned in less than two years for one with better schools.

The reason Westminster attracted so many of the new Vietnamese immigrants was that they could afford to live there. Now that the city has been revitalized, some of the same idiots that let their community rot want to reclaim its “American” past.

They fume about freeway signs that say “Little Saigon.” They fuss because firemen don’t know what kind of businesses they are entering. Do all Santa Ana firemen read Spanish? Shall we change “Los Angeles” to “The Angels”?

Westminster is a shining example of the American dream. A group of immigrants who came to this country with what little they could carry in their own hands has transformed a decaying community into a bustling, vibrant new town.

What better symbol of that renaissance than two flags flying together? One of a dream lost, the other of a new and better life in a country that is supposed to stand for just such a triumph.

TOM SLOSS

Fountain Valley