I have an example to follow

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If there's one thing this election has taught me, it's that I'm not going to make a difference sitting on the fence. So, down the road I've determined to get into politics.

Of course, it's unheard of for a Vietnamese-American to get involved in politics. As a general rule, Vietamese people prefer to hide their true opinions and aren't interested in getting into politics (they're too busy trying to be doctors or engineers).


An article from Mercury News...

Posted on Thu, Nov. 04, 2004


First Vietnamese-American lawmaker is object of pride and threats

BEN FOX

Associated Press


WESTMINSTER, Calif. - The first order of business for Van Tran,
following his election night success, was a trip to a Vietnam War
memorial. With a bodyguard.

That's politics in Southern California's Little Saigon, where the
first Vietnamese-American elected to a state legislature - and the
nation's highest-ranking Vietnamese-American elected official - is
an object of community pride and death threats.

Tran said he has been told by two people he considers reliable that
Vietnamese communists have targeted him for assassination because of
his new political status and past activism against the regime that
rules the homeland his family fled 30 years ago.

It's not the first time he's gotten threats: A year ago, he felt
compelled to get a concealed weapons permit and is nearly always
armed when he's in public.

"That's the burden of public life and I'm fully aware of it," Tran
told reporters before placing flowers at the black granite memorial
to celebrate his election to the state Assembly.

The 40-year-old Republican attorney easily defeated his Democratic
opponent and said he plans to focus on public safety and
transportation when he gets to Sacramento. He also says he wants to
ease the financial burdens of small businesses and fight against
illegal immigration.

"There is a unique responsibility by virtue of the fact that I'm a
Vietnamese-American but ... I have to represent everyone equally and
I intend to do that," he said.

In the Assembly, the Democrats have a firm grip on power and Tran
isn't likely to succeed in enacting a conservative platform that
includes opposition to abortion rights. That may not matter back
home: He's a celebrity who is greeted with handshakes and embraces
as he walks the streets.

"Everyone is proud of him," said Ngo Ky, a self-described activist
in Garden Grove. "He doesn't belong to his family anymore. He
belongs to the community."

Little Saigon, which straddles the neighboring Orange County cities
of Garden Grove and Westminster, is the largest Vietnamese community
outside of Vietnam. Many are first generation refugees whose hatred
of communism is deep.

Tran, who won a seat on the Garden Grove City Council in 2000,
shares that view. He has testified before Congress about human
rights abuses in Vietnam and he was among the leaders of an effort
this year to pass an anti-communist ordinance that restricts
official visits to Little Saigon by delegations from the Vietnamese
government.

"I'm a product of the Vietnam War as much as John Kerry and George
Bush," he said at the memorial, where he also burned sticks of
incense as a tribute to the fallen U.S. and South Vietnamese
soldiers who died in the war.

Tran's family fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon and moved to
Grand Rapids, Mich., before settling in Orange County, home to about
133,000 people of Vietnamese descent.

"Van in my opinion is the poster child for the American dream," said
Westminster City Councilman Andy Quach. "This is a gentleman who
comes from a well-to-do family who lost everything when the
communists took over and they came here and started over. ... Now
he's contributing back by participating in the political process."

Tran owes his election in part to the fact that his district leans
toward the GOP and he was pretty much assured victory over his
underfunded challenger. Still, Linda Vo, an Asian American studies
professor at the University of California, Irvine, said it has
significance: "It symbolizes to many that the community is getting
more engaged in the political system and is fostering more leaders."


And yes, a lot of the Vietnamese refugee committee in America has this almost irrational fear of Communism. It's almost a sort of McCarthyism without the witch hunts (but only because those who would want those witch hunts don't have the power to carry them out). I'm going to work on changing that.

Comments

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Thanks ;).