Ho Chi Minh show draws fire
Le^ Hu+ng
Thursday, March 16, 2000
Ho Chi Minh show draws fire
S.J. Viet groups allege artistic `provocation'
BY JESSIE MANGALIMAN
Mercury News Staff Writer
A controversial art exhibit that opens Saturday in Oakland -- 40
portraits of Ho Chi Minh by a Boston artist -- has rekindled fervent
anti-communist sentiments in San Jose, home of the country's
second-largest Vietnamese-American community.
Leaders of various local anti-communist groups said they were
mobilizing a protest of the show, which opens Saturday at the Pacific
Bridge Gallery. They expect hundreds of people to join in the
demonstration against the artwork, which portrays the communist leader
who led North Vietnam in its ultimately successful war against the
South. He died in 1969, six years before the fall of Saigon.
At an emotional meeting in San Jose Tuesday night, in a room filled
with crudely drawn sketches and an effigy of Ho Chi Minh, leaders of
the groups said the show's images were a tacit endorsement of a man
whom they referred to as ``mass murderer,'' ``lewd monster,'' and
``Dracula monster.'' They demanded the show's cancellation.
``You have a right to proceed with the exhibit. You can also stop the
exhibit,'' said Tran Van Loan, a San Jose resident who is coordinating
the protest. ``We consider this show a challenge and a provocation to
our community.''
The 90-minute meeting came to an abrupt end after the gallery owners,
Beth Gates and Geoff Dorn, emphatically refused to cancel the show,
saying that it would amount to censorship.
``It is not our desire to harass anyone or force them to see an
exhibition that they don't want to see,'' Dorn told the group. ``You
object to the portrait of Ho Chi Minh but there are plenty of
portraits of Ho Chi Minh in this very room. What's the difference?''
The effigy and other sketches are ``ghosts of a mass murderer,'' the
leaders said. The art show is communist propaganda, they said.
Wednesday, as Dorn and Gates prepared for the show, a Vietnamese
artist who teaches at City College of San Francisco withdrew from the
show's panel discussion scheduled for Sunday because of community
pressure, Gates said. The artist, Chung Hoang Chuong, did not return
telephone calls. Dorn and Gates invited the opposition group to name a
replacement for Chuong, but the leaders refused.
Barrage of opposition
In the past week, opponents of the show have barraged the gallery with
e-mail, faxes and phone calls. They have also sent letters to Oakland
Mayor Jerry Brown, artist David Thomas, and members of the Oakland
City Council asking for the show to be shut down. Organizers of the
protest have notified the Oakland police of their plans to picket the
show. Gates and Dorn said they too, have talked with officials at the
mayor's office and the police department in preparation for the show.
``Ho Chi Minh is dead. Let him be dead. Don't resurrect a symbol that
provokes pain in the Vietnamese community. It's a provocative and
insensitive thing to do,'' said Chan Tran, a San Jose economist who
said she plans to join the protest.
Tran likened the controversy over the image -- an institutional
portrait found in public spaces in all of Vietnam -- to the battle
over the Confederate flag on top of South Carolina's Statehouse. Ho
Chi Minh is a ``hateful reminder'' of the suffering that many South
Vietnamese endured at the hands of communists, she said.
Exodus to U.S.
Tens of thousands of political refugees fled South Vietnam when it
fell to communist hands in 1975. Their exodus to the United States led
to the emergence of Vietnamese communities across the country -- with
San Jose and Orange County becoming home to the largest concentrations
of Vietnamese and Vietnamese-Americans.
An American Civil Liberties Union lawyer disputed Tran's flag analogy.
``When you fly the Confederate flag, it bears the endorsement of the
state. That's not what happens with an art exhibit. The fact that it's
a show doesn't necessarily mean the exhibitor endorses the message.
It's chosen because it's interesting, it's good art,'' said Ann Brick,
a staff attorney with the Northern California office of the ACLU.
Dorn and First Amendment lawyers with the American Civil Liberties
Union said succumbing to pressure would be equivalent to suppressing
the right to free expression. That was the same message Oakland Vice
Mayor Henry Chang sent via e-mail to about 40 others -- some from
Texas and Norway -- who have also asked him to shut down the show.
Trying to use reason
But others in California's Vietnamese-American community are calling
for a measured and reasoned response.
``I totally support those who are organizing the protest because Ho
Chi Minh's hands are tainted with blood. But I also know this is an
issue of freedom of speech. My fear is if we're not careful, people
might see us as bunch of fanatics when we express our feelings about
him,'' said Diem Do, a project manager for a health care organization
in Orange County.
Dorn and Gates said no one who had sent e-mail or called the gallery
had threatened them with harm, but some people had used obscenities
and abusive language.
Last year, Truong Van Tran, a video store owner in Orange County's
``Little Saigon'' area, sparked a huge protest when he put up a poster
of Ho Chi Minh and the flag of communist Vietnam in his video store.
``They're free to protest (in San Jose) but what they're not free to
do is what they did in Tran's case: They took over the shopping
center, papered his window with the South Vietnamese flag and blocked
access to his store,'' said Peter Eliasberg, a staff attorney with the
American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
Portraits of Ho Chi Minh
The subject of the Oakland exhibit is the same stock image of Ho Chi
Minh, used in portraits on paper containing lithography, oil pastel,
digital imaging and collage. The portraits have been shown in other
galleries in the United States, Thomas said.
Thomas, a Vietnam War veteran, is not new to this kind of controversy.
In 1993, an art show on the Vietnam War that he organized was canceled
by officials at the San Jose Museum of Art after a protest by some in
the Vietnamese-American community. In 1996, another show organized by
Thomas showcasing Vietnamese artists was also picketed, but that show
was not canceled.
``My whole goal is to bring dialogue about Ho Chi Minh,'' said Thomas,
who teaches art and computer graphics at Boston's Emmanuel College.
Unknown to Americans
``We've studied Vietnam from every aspect, except Ho Chi Minh. There's
never been an attempt in this country to take a serious look at who he
is and why he chose the path he chose,'' Thomas said. ``To me, those
are the critical questions. That doesn't mean I'm trying to ram my
opinion down anybody's throat.''
But impassioned opponents of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese-Americans who
lost families during the war and at so-called re-education camps,
dispute the communist leader's role.
``Ho Chi Minh is a symbol of hatred. . . . The flag and his picture
are the two most hated symbols among Vietnamese,'' said Binh Vo, a
software engineer from San Jose.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IF YOU'RE INTERESTED
For more information on the exhibit and Sunday's panel discussion on
Ho Chi Minh contact the Pacific Bridge Gallery in Oakland at
(510) 451-8840 or visit the gallery's Web site (www.asianartnow.com).
Contact Jessie Mangaliman at jmang...@sjmercury.com or
(408) 920-5794.