The San Jose City Council is paying attention at last to the people who demand that their city, the 10th largest city in the United States, have a gateway entry to a redeveloped section which properly reflects the heritage of the people who came there as refugees.  These refugees rebuilt the city house-by-house, store-by-store, one small business at a time.  They sent the children to public schools and made that success a priority of  life that puts other groups to shame. 

The power struggle over human rights in Vietnam is now on the table, thanks to your efforts and those of San Jose Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren and now California Senator Barbara Boxer.  Will you lead that struggle from a strong moral position of ecumenism that includes "Americans" not as foreigners but as fellow immigrants and citizens with a stake in society who need to learn about Vietnam today in order to bring freedom there?   You can't do it alone.  Ask the government of South Africa about that. 

All the larger society see among Little Saigon in San Jose leadership are jackals howling at each prey before they rip it to shreds. Such good press to target a vulnerable young woman, Madison Nguyen.  Now how about targeting the real power in San Jose, Chuck Reed's international business machine called the Chamber of Commerce?  How about requiring them to speak out and ask for human rights in Vietnam?  Get them while their stocks are down. 

There are Democrats and  Republicans  in Congress who are in leadership for human rights in Vietnam.  How about asking every presidential candidate for the election in 2008 to take a stand for human rights in Vietnam?  Most of them are riding on rhetoric of "no more Vietnams."  How about educating them about that history?  Can you do it without requiring that more young Americans (including Vietnamese Americans) die in Iraq to prove your valor in the 1960s and 1970s?  I dare you to try.

More than 50% of the engineers at Cisco Systems, San Jose's largest employer, are of Vietnamese heritage.  Do they say anything as a power group about the meaning of  Little Saigon as a name of cultural heritage to share?  Do they even say anything as a group about human rights in Vietnam?  What about it, VACETS?

The Veterans of Foreign Wars in the USA showed the flag of South Vietnam with pride as they honored  the 58,000 Americans who died fighting communism in Vietnam last week in Washington D.C. at the 25th anniversary of The Wall, which is the most-visited memorial in the country.  Was there anyone from the Vietnamese American power structure thanking the VFW for recognition of the heritage flag?   I know the Amerasian Family was there with pride in Vietnamese American heritage. 

How about showing the nonVietnamese City Council members that you can work together as Vietnamese people, that is your strength in society?  It is the strength of any minority group in American society.   Some do it well, and become  "seamless" in  the fabric, but when you  examine the texture of  the cloth you see their culture and values as part of the whole.

Strengthen the fabric of our society by reweaving, not unraveling.  The whole world's watching.

Jean Libby, editor
VietAm Review