Marching around Bolsa Ave. in Little Saigon, over a hundred young Vietnamese-American Obama supporters gathered on Saturday to show their support for the Democratic candidate, in what has traditionally been a conservative Republican community.
The young Democrats were joined by politicians and community elders, who said they wanted to demonstrate that Vietnamese-Americans are not all voting for McCain.
“McCain served in Vietnam. I say, ‘thank you for your duty,’ but country first. McCain will do (the) same policies as Bush,” said The Ngoc Nguyen, a registered Republican in his seventies who is voting for Obama in November.
Nguyen, who spoke at the rally, said he thinks that fellow community members in Little Saigon should listen to what the Democratic candidate has to say.
“If someone does better, we must give him or her a chance,” Nguyen said. “Why Don’t we give Obama a chance?” he said
There is a lot of negativity about Obama in the Vietnamese-American community, said 24-year-old My-Dung Tran, one of the rally organizers. The negativity is mostly because people in the community don’t know enough about Obama, Tran said.
Many in the community, Tran said, also feel loyalty to McCain because of his service in Vietnam.
Despite political differences, ties between the generations were emphasised by many of the rally participants.
By rallying for Obama, Garden Grove City Council candidate Linh Ho said that said she and the other young Obama supporters were enjoying the rights that their parents and grandparents came to America for.
“It’s a great time to bring change to the community, the city, the country,” Ho said said.
Ho added that she was already the beneficiary of a long history of change in America.
Tran said there is a growing difference in political views between the current young generation of Vietnamese Americans and their elders.
“A lot of us in the younger generation are mostly Democrats,” Tran said. “We live in a country where we are allowed to choose our party, we don’t have to vote the same as the older generation voted.”
Even though Tran sees more young Vietnamese-Americans becoming Democrats, members of older generations, like Nguyen, showed a strong presence at the rally as well.
But young Vietnamese-Americans who are urging older generations to consider the Democratic party should wait before they hold up elders like Nguyen as an example of crossing over to the Democrats.
The elderly man has every intention of remaining a registered Republican, and if Obama can’t help the country, then Nguyen said he will vote for someone else next time around.
This freedom of political choice, Nguyen and his fellow Obama supporters in Little Saigon, said, is one of the great things about being American.
Not quite a foothold. More like a pinky brush. These people are the usual Democrat activists in the community. The overwhelming majority of Viet Americans support McCain, and for good reasons. Who and what has Obama done with, for and along side the Viet community on any issues or project?
CNN: PALIN HITS OBAMA FOR TERRORIST CONNECTION
ENGLEWOOD, Colorado (CNN) — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday slammed Sen. Barack Obama’s political relationship with a former anti-war radical, accusing him of associating “with terrorists who targeted their own country.”
We see America as the greatest force for good in this world,” Palin said at a fund-raising event in Colorado, adding, “Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”
Palin made similar comments later at a rally in Carson, California.
Obama’s Chicago, Illinois, home is in the same neighborhood as Bill Ayers, a founder of the radical Weather Underground, which was involved in several bombings in the early 1970s, including the Pentagon and the Capitol, and the two have met several times since Obama’s 1995 campaign for a state Senate seat.
Palin cited an article in Saturday’s New York Times about Obama’s relationship with Ayers, now 63. Riot and bomb conspiracy charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974, and he is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
Obama and Ayers attended a meeting for a school reform project in 1995 and met again later that year when Ayers held a campaign event for Obama when then-Illinois state Sen. Alice Palmer, who planned to run for Congress, introduced the young community organizer as her chosen successor, campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.
Both men also served on a charitable board together, he said. Labolt also said the two have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Obama came to the U.S. Senate in 2005 and last met more than a year ago when they encountered each other on the street in their Hyde Park neighborhood.
Change is coming in the Vietnamese-American community. The new generation of leaders is moving towards progressive politics and there’s nothing the old school can do but face that reality.
Response to No Hold: What has the republicans done? Also, the Viet community is varied with many different experiences and ideas. You can’t place the whole Vietnamese American community under one party’s ideology.
There is a greater plurality of political and social views in the Orange County Vietnamese-American community than is apparent to many observers.
Please link to a film I made in Falls Church Virginia about the Pan-Asian Vote.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBF9OVB_jV8
I’m happy to see that our demographic is getting media attention in this election, as every vote will count in swing states.
Vietnamese American community is turning Blue and there’s nothing Van Tran or the old guards can do about it….
A Vietvet and proud of it, I got one of those vets’ ballcaps at a local gun show and wear it sometimes. I live in Westminster, but no Asian person has ever commented on my status as a Vietnam veteran, unlike some of my non-Asian neighbors who have thanked me for my service.