The Original Little Saigon

The Little Saigon battle between San Jose City Council and the Vietnamese-American community received worldwide notoriety. From the NY Times to LA Times, it caught the attention of the mainstream. With the globalization of media and cultural values, my friends from Sydney to Dubai all wanted to know more as they followed the scintillating story on the Web.

So now we have a Vietnamese-American elected official being recalled by her own kin who got her elected in the first place. And the reasons are for lying to the community and practicing politics as usual. If the recall is successful, it would not be the proudest moment of the Vietnamese-American community in San Jose .

But then compare to other Vietnamese-American communities, I think it is tame and rather mundane. And not to highlight other communities, but I heard that Orange County politics is getting juicier as June election is near.

In a fractious community with Janet Nguyen winning the powerful supervisor seat with 4 votes over Tran and his cohorts (Known in OC term as “The Trannies”), we now have an all Viet battle for a district made up only of about 20% Vietnamese-American registered voters. This is the first time in the history of OC (the second largest county in California ) and probably in any major metropolitans where candidates are all Asian naturalized citizens.

Now being from San Jose , I tried to listen while not falling off my chair to these stories as I was munching dried squid and beer nuts with the in-crowd of the original Little Saigon.

A long time activist in Garden Grove opined: “We have lawyer who has never been a part of the community and never held any public office. He is running because his last name is Vietnamese and he can get free TV media from his law firm. They own a TV station you see. He is being sued for improper campaign financing. His naivite’ shows even more when he hired an infamous campaign manager who was not fondly remembered as a staffer of the Orange County Democratic Party. Well he is now living up to his reputation by hiring hard core gangsters to walk the precinct and do campaign work. Nothing is illegal of course as long as the probation officer approves it. Matter of fact, it might turn out to be an effective strategy to persuade voter’s decision as well as get out the votes.”

An older gentleman who is well known for his aggressive writing about the community under a catchy pen name chimed in: “The other candidate is by definition a “Trannie”. She is a newly elected Garden Grove city councilmember who declared no income on her Form 700 but managed to lend her self at total of $55,000 for her campaign elections. But what impressive is her ability to raise somewhere $100,000 in less than a month after announcing her campaign at the last minute to replace the other Trannie - Mr. Photoshop candidate. Another “Trannie” with shadowy background running for office trying to create more division in the community”

Not to be outdone, a middle age lady, the only woman in the group dryly mentioned: “Then there is the incumbent who is in a salary dispute with one of her campaign staffers. Money at the end of the day is not the issue but image is from what the pundits have gathered. And the campaign staffer may not have the image of the conservative OC republican but on the other hand in 2008, it is a morphing species.”

The weather was unusual cool in southern Cal in the past couple of days but the political gossiping wire is sizzling hot.

John Vu