http://blog.myspace.com/norcaluvsa
March 5, 2008

Thousands of Vietnamese Americans packed the San José City Hall chambers,
with overflows leading out to the Rotunda. The air was buzzing with
apprehension, and it was such an exciting feel. A few of us youths managed
to get into one of the chambers and viewed the City Council meeting from
projectors. The San José City Council was to decide the fate of the name
that was to be given to the business district on Story Road. Most of the
demonstrators that were present wanted 'Little Saigon.'

When it the Open Forum opened up for the issue of the naming debate itself,
two groups went up: San Jose Voters for Democracy, who demanded government
accountability, especially in regards to Madison Nguyen and her alleged
backdoor dealings (i.e. Brown Act Violations), and also represented the
Committee for Little Saigon by asking to settle the decision to name the
district 'Little Saigon' that evening. My-Phuong Le was their spokesperson,
a fellow youth who attends Stanford University. At the very least, she
showed that youths can play a pivotal role for our community. There was also
'One Voice' who supported the memo to basically call for a community "Time
Out". They advocated not rushing into any decisions, and that we must take
the correct approach to ensure all voices are heard, as is necessary for a
true democracy, and that we must not resort to dirty tactics such as
slander, labeling people as pro-communists, bullying, death threats, etc. In
fact, one of the elders admitted that he received a death threat on his cell
phone inbox that morning when people heard he would be present that evening.
The speeches brought before the community by these two groups solicited
cheering and applause.

And when the Open Forum opened the floor for individual comments, hundreds
of individuals spoke their opinion, most of whom spoke in favor of Little
Saigon, and a handful who had other perspectives to contribute. It was a
surreal feeling to hear different stories. One dentist admitted he was a
busy man, and that he came out because he cared about this issue. Veterans
came up to speak about having to leave their homeland to flee from communist
oppression. I counted about 5 (6 including My-Phuong) youths who came up and
spoke. One high school girl erupted in tears wanting the name Little Saigon
in honor of the sacrifices that her parents made in coming to America. There
was a teacher who asked the Councilmembers, "Please show me how to teach my
kids what democracy is." There were humorous moments, when a non-Vietnamese
senior opened the forum by saying, "I met a lot of very nice Vietnamese
people on my way here." And that was his comment.

As much as I wanted to jump up to the podium to make a comment, suffocating
from my need to show the community that youths do care, I could not for two
reasons. The first reason is that the UVSA Intercollegiate Council has
decided that when an official UVSA staff or councilmember speaks on an
issue, that statement would be seen as representative of the entire
organization. Therefore, we've adopted a policy to take a neutral stance
automatically until the Council has deliberated and has come to a decision
on an issue. For partisan issues, the decision requires four-fifths (80%)
supermajority of the Council. The second reason for not speaking is that the
Youth Forum Committee that organized the Youth Forum regarding the
Vietnamese Retail Area Designation Issue in January 2008 has not completed
their report, and we did not discuss whether to make our findings this
report public yet. Alas, it is out of respect for the processes in place
that I must hold my tongue and not adorn any paraphernalia or make any
comments that would make me seem partisan, since doing so would disrespect
the peers I must represent. But trust me, there were things mentioned at the
Youth Forum that was never brought up by either groups who spoke at City
Hall. I do feel that the youths have something to contribute to the
discussion.

Meanwhile last Monday, San Francisco State University VSA held their first
general meeting after being officially recognized by the school. This
fulfills their requirement to be an official member of UVSA. In April, the
Intercollegiate Council will consider their membership, and with it, full
voting rights that goes with membership. Around the same time, it was
decided that San Joaquin Delta College VSA could no longer fulfill its role
as a member organization of UVSA, and their status has been placed under
review in light of numerous internal problems facing their VSA. So yeah, we
helped build one, and we lost one. We're 1-and-1 so far. We will look into
outreaching to other non-affiliated VSAs, and some of the Councilmembers
have already sought to help establish new chapters as well, including the
new campus of the University of California at Merced.

One of our Councilmembers, Anh Tran, resigned to pursue her passion: to
explore the possibility of creating a Youth Commission arm of the
organization called Vietnamese American Community of Northern California,
thereby fulfilling a need of the youths to bridge relations between our
generation and the older generation. I had spoken briefly with Thomas Nguyen
from that organization and we both agreed that there was a need. It's just
that we needed a group of youths dedicated to that task, and I'm proud to
say that Anh Tran will be the Torchbearer for this endeavor.

Speaking of building bridges, that was the theme for VASCON (Vietnamese
American Student Conference) back in 2006. This year it will be held at
Washington DC, and we do have a few students from Northern California who
will be attending. Contact Priscilla Luong if you have more questions, but
VASCON is an awesome way to connect with youths across the nation and to
learn the issues affecting our community, as well as to meet the movers and
shakers in our community, the kind of people who really took to heart the
idea of being the change they wanted to see.

This morning I had a lunch with one of our staff, and she has agreed to look
into creating a High School Outreach Committee to gather up college students
and young professionals dedicated to developing our high school students and
the high school VSAs. Lily Tran will be the Torchbearer for this endeavor,
should anyone be interested in being part of this Committee.

Congratulations to University of Pacific VSA for holding an awesome culture
show on February 22, 2008! The kids were adorable, and the show was overall
entertaining and amusing.

Also, we are still maintaing the Collective Philanthropy Project campaign
for VOICE to help establish anti-human trafficking resources in Southeast
Asia. We're still working on an effective presentation and campaign
strategy, but if anyone is interested in taking a role in this, we'd be more
than happy to accept interns.

For upcoming activities, UC Berkeley VSA will be holding a forum on the
Paracel & Spratly Islands issue in which China has taken unilateral
military-enforced steps to asserts its claims over those islands, despite
Vietnam and other countries' claims on those islands as well. The forum will
be this Saturday on March 8, 2008.

UVSA will hold its first annual Olympics the following Saturday, March 15,
2008 at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, co-hosted by San Francisco State
University VSA. We will be putting our gameface on, so get your school cheer
ready for ROLL CALL and rock the boat with different intercollegiate
competitions!

If there are other activities that I haven't mentioned, I tend to focus
solely on UVSA and VSA events, with non-affiliated events being mentioned
only on our Commission maiiling lists.

Take care y'all! Oh yeah, I invented a new word of the week: activista, n. a
community activist who makes advocacy work look sexy. Ooh yeah! (That
particular comment belongs to the author of this blog and is not necessarily
reflective of the opinion of UVSA. Yet.)