Enlarge By Bob Riha Jr.

, USA TODAY

Every day, Ky Ngo and a small group protest outside a Vietnamese-language daily newspaper's Westminster,
Calif. office, accusing the paper of sympathizing with Vietnamese communists.
Ba'o USA Today vie^'t ve^` Ngo^ Ky?

Ki'nh mo+`i Quy' DDo^`ng Hu+o+ng ddo.c ba`i ba'o Ngo^ Ky? to^' ca'o to^.i a'c cu?a ba'o Ngu+o+`i Vie^.t va`
Co^.ng Sa?n Vie^.t Nam ddu+o+.c dda(ng tre^n to+` ba'o no^?i tie^'ng ha`ng dda^`u Hoa Ky`, va` pha't ha`nh
mo^~i nga`y 2,25 trie^.u to+` ba'o, nhie^`u nha^'t ta.i My~.

Trong chu? tru+o+ng "DDa'nh Vie^.t Co^.ng, Die^.t Vie^.t Gian" ngay tre^n nu+o+'c Hoa Ky` na`y, Ngo^ Ky?
co^' ga(ng truye^`n dda.t nhu+~ng ly' tu+o+?ng Quo^'c Gia cho^'ng Co^.ng Sa?n, cu~ng nhu+ vinh danh la'
Co+` Va`ng Ba So.c DDo? dde^'n nha^n da^n va` chi'nh phu? Hoa Ky` ba(`ng phu+o+ng tie^.n truye^`n tho^ng
ngoa.i quo^'c. Ba?n tin dda(ng tre^n ba'o na`y la` mo^.t tho^ng ddie^.p dda^'u tranh va` le^n a'n su+. ta`n a'c
cu?a Co^.ng Sa?n Vie^.t Nam va` su+. vo^ lie^m si?, pha?n quo^'c cu?a ba'o Ngu+o+`i Vie^.t.

Ki'nh mo+`i Quy' Vi. thu+o+?ng la~m ba`i ba'o du+o+'i dda^y.
Tra^n tro.ng
Ngo^ Ky?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-04-06-vietnamese-protests_N.htm#uslPageReturn
Frustration grows in Little Saigon
Posted 3d 3h ago | Comments7 | Recommend6

Enlarge By Bob Riha Jr. , USA TODAY

Every day, Ky Ngo and a small group protest outside
a Vietnamese-language daily newspaper's
Westminster , Calif. office, accusing the paper of
sympathizing with Vietnamese communists. By William M. Welch, USA TODAY

WESTMINSTER, Calif. — All day every day, Ky Ngo and a small group stand vigil on a business block in the Little Saigon section here, surroundi
and red flag of the former South Vietnam government.
"What we are doing here is for the people of Vietnam ," says Ngo, 54, who fled Saigon days before it fell in April 1975. "We speak because the pe
speak."
They direct their protests at a Vietnamese-language daily newspaper they say has insulted their heritage and sympathizes with Vietnam commun
growing number of often angry demonstrations in this ethnic enclave outside Los Angeles and in smaller Vietnamese-American communities.
While aimed at different targets, from the current Vietnam flag displayed on college campuses to singers of Vietnamese songs, the protests reflec
Vietnamese-Americans who worry that their cause and history is being forgotten, protesters such as Ngo and community observers say.
"They don't stand up to fight communists like we do," says Ngo. "They are so young. They don't know."
A magnet for South Vietnamese
Little Saigon here is home to an estimated 150,000 Vietnamese-Americans who have created a thriving district that stretches for more than a mile
to Vietnamese in signs along the Bolsa Avenue corridor, Westminster and adjoining Garden Grove . Tens of thousands of people each day visit th
of the homeland: restaurants, grocers, jewelers, medical offices, video stores and late-night cafes offering sweet Vietnamese coffee.
Since "Black April" 1975, as the fall is remembered here, this strip of urban development in Orange County outside Los Angeles has been a magn
fled the communist regime. Many first landed as refugees at Camp Pendleton , the Marine base just to the south, and gravitated here for cheap re
Close to 600,000 Vietnamese migrated legally to the USA between the wind-down of the war and 2000, according to the federal Office of Immigra
here or in smaller enclaves across the country, including areas in San Jose , Houston , New Orleans and Northern Virginia .
Among the first to arrive was Yen Do, who had aided American combat journalists in Vietnam . He created a daily Vietnamese-language newspap
comforting cultural touchstone for new arrivals.
More than two years after Yen Do's death, his newspaper has become the object of scorn by some who are angered at artwork the paper publishe
insulted the South Vietnamese flag, the one that preceded the flag of communist Vietnam.
The newspaper denies any intent to insult. But in a sign of how seriously such accusations are taken here, it fired its editor and managing editor. T
and two others, charging harassment and business interference. On Thursday, police charged one protester, Trong Doan, 59, with assaulting a
'A flag that stands for terrorists'
The flag has emerged as a flashpoint, a symbol of one's fidelity to the cause of ending communism in Vietnam .
Some have threatened demonstrations at the University of Southern California , where a Vietnamese flag flies among other flags representing the
Phuong Nyguen says: "It is a flag that stands for terrorists, inhuman rights."
Linda Trinh Vo, a Vietnam-born political scientist at the University of California-Irvine, says protests by Ngo's generation have persuaded more tha
across the country to pass symbolic resolutions honoring the South Vietnamese flag.
But times are changing.
For decades, Vietnamese-Americans have aligned themselves with Republicans for their anti-communism. Vietnamese Republicans have won se
councils and the county board of supervisors. Yet new Vietnamese-American voters are more likely to register as independents or Democrats.
Ngo has been a delegate to five Republican National Conventions, often seen there in a traditional Vietnamese silk costume. He sees the current
Bush and Sen. John McCain, as soft on Vietnam .
Ngo and others have never forgotten the persecution they or family members endured after Saigon fell to the communists in 1975 at the end of th
of thousands of Vietnamese, worried about becoming political prisoners for supporting the United States , fled in rickety boats. Many drowned. Ng
prisoner to human rights abuses, censorship, one-party rule.
Although the U.S. State Department issues condemnations of Vietnam 's human-rights abuses, trade between the two countries flourishes, and
in 2006.
Worse for Ngo and others, Vietnam is attracting international investment from the community here. Some educated Vietnamese-Americans have
cash in. Hao-Nhien Vu, 42, the managing editor fired from Nguoi Viet, says that no one is happy with the communist government of Vietnam
over how to handle it.
"The young people are a lot more open to reconciling with their counterparts in Vietnam and to the U.S. line, which we've got to engage," he says
Vietnamese-Americans, like other immigrant groups, are feeling the inevitable divisions of generation, culture and education, says Hoi Trinh, 38, w
as a teenager.
The son-in-law of Nguyen Cao Ky, the former South Vietnamese prime minister general, Trinh wrote a weekly column for Nguoi Viet and last year
work as an international investment lawyer. Trinh, once a target of protests, says he understands the concerns.
"When a lot of blood has been spilled in the past, it's not easy to forgive and forget," Trinh said in a phone interview from Vietnam . "It's easy for u
blood, were way too young and grew up in the West."
On Sunday, protesters went after singer Khanh Ly, who performed at a concert in Garden Grove , Calif. Her songs included those from the late Tr
songs were pro-communist, the protesters said.
In Little Saigon the next day, she heard shouts of "communist" and "Go back to Saigon and sing the Ho Chi Minh song."
"I don't know why" they protest, Ly, 63, told a reporter.
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