Dysfunctional Politics Ongoing in Little Saigon

On April 30, 1975, after pledges of affinity in the fight against Communism, the United States stood by and watched the Republic of Vietnam come to its tragic end. With the Americans pulling out and the communists rolling in, the people of South Vietnam were panicking.

Fearing a blood bath, they scrambled for a way to escape. Since then, several million have settled in America, and they have claimed Little Saigon in Westminster as the spiritual capital of Vietnam’s refugees from communism. Little Saigon has prospered economically in the intervening decades. At the same time, Vietnamese Americans (most are first-generation immigrants) still feel dutifully bound--by ancient traditions of filial piety and nationalistic sentiments--to Vietnam.

Individually, Vietnamese Americans typically have resolved this dilemma either by sending money to relatives in Vietnam or by bringing those relatives to the United States. But together they have been unable to reach an agreement as to what is best for Vietnam and how to achieve it. Differences in background, in the number of years spent in communist internment camps and in the time frame of arrival in the United States have prevented them from getting together.

Politics in Little Saigon is dysfunctional. There are too many captains and not enough foot soldiers. The result is many small organizations with family, former students and old military chums as members.

These are the relics of the former Republic of Vietnam, ranging from the bureaucrats to the intellectuals, from the high-up to the not-so-high-up military personnel. Many have spent hard years in the Vietnamese gulags and do not speak English well. To them the war never ended. They are fighting the Viet Cong from the United States.

But intercontinental struggle is a difficult task. The international system does not have the time for a leaderless group of nationalists who hold no significant global trump card. The Tibetans have the Dalai Lama. The Palestinians have the Middle East security issue. Overseas Vietnamese have nothing to speak of.

For years the anti-communist activists took comfort in cheering the U.S. policy of withholding trade and diplomatic recognition from Vietnam. The core belief of the anti-communists is to drive Vietnam economically into the ground (an economic “stone-age,” if you will), hoping to push the population into an uprising to finish up the communists. Only then would they, the anti-communists, be ready to help rebuild Vietnam. These senior warriors accept no other approach and would promptly accuse anyone who wishes to assist Vietnam with new technology of aiding and abetting the enemy.

This stand creates a rift between age groups. Among the younger generation, mostly American educated, there is a different school of thought. The younger people believe that moving Vietnam forward would allow whatever ails Vietnam to be eliminated in the process.

But on the sideline the hard-core anti-communists watch with increasing frustration. The relationship between the United States and Vietnam has warmed considerably. The Bush administration’s “road map” to Hanoi has become a well-traversed highway. The latest stretch of construction has been completed by Rep. Loretta Sanchez during her recent trip to Vietnam.

Although Sanchez was able to work in her Vietnamese constituents’ cause by linking trade with human rights in her meetings with her Hanoi counterparts, the bedrock issue in U.S.-Vietnam relations is about the 2,000 American soldiers still listed as missing in action or prisoners of war. The United States insists on a full account. Vietnam understands the U.S. position very well.

Unable to influence U.S. policy toward Vietnam, the relics of South Vietnam once again feel betrayed by the United States. Several years ago, at a town hall meeting in Little Saigon, Ambassador Douglas “Pete” Peterson had to remind the audience that he is representing the United States in Hanoi and not the other way around.

Since the massive protest against the Vietnamese Communist flag, the political atmosphere in Little Saigon has become more dysfunctional. Besides picketing Councilman Tony Lam’s restaurant and lashing out with vulgarities against his customers, the agitators are out to discredit an organization--Youth Movement for Vietnam--by accusing some founding members of being “infiltrated.”

But not everyone is unreasonable, and not everyone is politically active. Except to show outrage when being taunted by a little video store owner, the majority does not get involved in politics. The common will of the new Americans is to raise their children and have them educated.

All in all, the writing on the wall in Little Saigon says that the Tran Truong incident is less about the communist artifacts and more about the labyrinth of issues Vietnamese Americans are facing when struggling for a way to fit in with the American system. Please, you are no longer refugees. You are Americans now.