Davis Swears In O.C. Judge

Under the proud gaze of family, friends and supporters, Nho Trong Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American judge in Orange County history, took the oath of office Monday in a packed Anaheim hotel conference room.

“He will serve all the people justly, fairly and equally under the law,” said Gov. Gray Davis who swore in Nguyen, 61. “He’s led a remarkable life and he’ll be a remarkable judge.”

Davis said Nguyen is the first judge he has sworn in from the nearly 50 judicial appointments he has made as governor. Davis said he made a point of it because of his admiration for Nguyen.

Even as many hailed Nguyen’s appointment to Orange County Superior Court as a milestone for--and in recognition of--the local Vietnamese American community, those present, including the newly named judge, went to lengths to put his ethnicity in context.

“It is not about Vietnam, it is about America and the American dream,” Nguyen told about 150 people gathered for the ceremony. “It’s about dreams and possibilities.”

Nguyen fled Vietnam for the United States in April 1975, boarding one of the last helicopters to leave the American Embassy during the fall of Saigon. Sixteen days later, he was reunited at Camp Pendleton with his wife and three children, who had departed earlier.

In the U.S., the onetime Vietnamese congressman held a string of jobs, from handyman’s helper to computer programmer, to put his children and himself through school. He became a lawyer, as did his daughter, Tita, 28, who practices patent law in San Jose. His son Martin, 25, is a schoolteacher. Another son, Andy, is a medical student.

“You reap what you sow,” said Nguyen’s wife, Bang Van, 53, who also is a teacher.

Nguyen is the fourth Vietnamese American in the country to serve as a state or federal judge. He will work at the West Justice Center in Westminster.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who recommended Nguyen to the county bench, said Nguyen’s “wealth of life experience through triumph and tragedy will give him the wisdom to be a great judge. . . . His appointment is a story about our country as much as it is about Mr. Nguyen.”