Violence, Hope and American Dreams
Two storefronts, two immigrants, two glimpses on a single Southern California day into the bitter and the sweet American experience.
One stop Thursday was at the Westminster election headquarters of Van Tran, the other at the Irvine convenience story where Suresh Dass worked. The two men never met, but on Tuesday, each made the news in a way that captures the maddening duality of life in these United States: No matter how much we’d like to wish it away, life in America remains equal parts hope and violence.
It would be great if the only America we had was the one that produced Tran’s story. He came to America from South Vietnam with his family in 1975 when he was 10. His election in the Republican Party primary Tuesday night -- in a heavily Republican district -- virtually guarantees that Tran will become the first Vietnamese American state legislator in America.
His story has all the hallmarks of the America we want to be -- the land of opportunity we’ve sold to the world for two centuries. His parents and their four children left Saigon in a U.S. Army transport plane and with two pieces of luggage. They settled in Michigan, then packed up and drove a U-Haul to Orange County in August 1980.
A generation later, Tran, who didn’t speak English when he came to America, drew enough Vietnamese American and Anglo votes Tuesday to win an election.
That’s the America we like to talk about and that is very much the truth. Tran’s story is not myth.
However, 15 miles and one freeway over from Tran’s headquarters, another immigrant’s story ended the same day Tran won his primary. Like Tran, Suresh Dass came to America with hope. An assistant professor in his native India, Dass was working the overnight shift at a 7-Eleven in Irvine when two men beat and stabbed him in a futile attempt to rob the store. A surveillance camera caught the attack; arrests followed within hours.
His family told a Times reporter that Dass, the father of three grown children, didn’t fear the night shift, thinking Irvine a safe city and his customers friendly. He’d saved enough to plan a visit to his son in India -- a trip he’ll never make.
The fact that Irvine is such a safe city only underscores the specter and unpredictable scope of violence in America. In 2002, the last full year of statistics available in FBI crime reports, America had 16,200 murders.
I made the twin stops Thursday, seeing the mirror images of America with crystal clarity. At Tran’s campaign headquarters, you could look inside the locked office in a bustling commercial center in Little Saigon and see campaign signs with his name against the backdrop of the American flag. On the floor was a cluster of red, white and blue balloons, each a festive reminder of the success of an immigrant for whom the American dream came true.
At the convenience store, some three dozen floral arrangements were displayed outside the store, some with notes attached, each testifying to people’s sadness over Dass’ killing.
“America is a mixed bag of hope and opportunity,” Tran said Thursday from Sacramento. Lamenting Dass’ death, Tran said, “Refugees and immigrants who make the effort and decision to leave their homeland to come here have compelling reasons to do so. They are strong people. I know this family is also strong. They’re going through grief now, but they will move forward and will continue on with what they’re doing. And they will succeed.”
Americans have every right to celebrate Tran’s story.
But the celebration shouldn’t drown out what the bouquets outside the Irvine convenience store also tell us about the land we love.
Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.