Week 4: Kristina Nguyen

I was looking forward to reading "Whose Community is it Anyway?" in Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde's book "Transnationalizing Vietnam." I was approximately 13 years old when I attended marches related to both Little Saigon, and Cau Thi Bich Tran's incident. Madison Nguyen has definitely been someone I looked up to as a young girl. She was the first Asian and women I knew who was in politics. This chapter made me reflect and remember the challenges associated with the different components of the Vietnamese Diaspora. I remember attending the marches at San Jose City Hall where people were going on hunger strikes and more because they were fruited about the business district not being named "Little Saigon." I was really confused but nonetheless, supported my best friend's dad (a South Vietnamese general during the war) who mobilized the march. Because I also came from the same district (Franklin-McKinley School District); I saw how this small part really affect Madison's role. She came from someone I admired to a communist overnight for what it seems. I came from admiring her to seeing the whole Vietnamese community lose support for her and in turn, I felt lost and hopeless. There definitely needs to be a change in the Vietnamese community with regards to politics. I look back and realized that if it wasn't for all this commotion I might have been able to focus more as a young teenager on the great things Madison did instead of remember her connection to "communism" and not doing what the larger community wants. Now that I'm an older adult and continuing to learn more. Reading things such as this chapter definitely gives me fresh perspective and gives me hope to contribute to the change.

This is a picture of the marches in front of San Jose's City Hall. When will we able to separate politics and business? (I say this because a major reason between naming Little Saigon vs Saigon Business District is mainly to avoid a political name and hence that there aren't only just Vietnamese businesses on this district, but rather quite a diversity.)