Monday, November 17, 2014

Bao Nguyen Becomes the New Mayor of Garden Grove

It has been a successful year for Vietnamese-American candidates in California.  The two cities that made up Little Saigon in Orange County now have two Vietnamese-American mayors.  Bao Nguyen won his race by 15 votes to be the first Vietnamese-American mayor in Garden Grove, population 175,000.   Both Garden Grove  and Westminster (population 90,000) have council members that are also Vietnamese descend. 

Of course, Janet Nguyen becomes the first Vietnamese-American state senator in California.  She trounced her opponent by 20%.

In San Jose,  Tam Nguyen won the D7 councilmember race by 214 votes while 4 other Vietnamese-Americans won their school board trustee election.  Meanwhile, it was an expected reaction as the majority of the Vietnamese-American voters  in D7 and D4 rejoiced and celebrated when one of their own,  Madison Nguyen, lost her mayoral race early in the primary. 

As more and more Vietnamese-Americans are actively participate in political offices,  it would not be surprised that 8 years from now, there are more Vietnamese-Americans elected to city and state government in California





 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is refreshing to see the current VN-Americans take the political stage as effective leaders with civic vision. For the longest time, the VN-American politician community seemed misdirected in representing themselves and community in pleasing non-Viets and the older and certainly not wiser older-generation Viet constituents.

By following the delusional older-generation Viet mentality of being a Vietnamese living the US, the VN-American politicians had to be a figment of a character and persuade voters that they could still lead the community while in character.

This approach presented aplenty of avenues for attack, categorization, dismissal, and most importantly misunderstood as token candidates when their accomplishments have direct positive contribution to the community. The current VN-American politicians have come to recognize that they are an integral fabric of the American culture and landscape as previous groups of immigrants. They need not carry their parents’ generation failures and ignorance/stupidity and live in the present and future with given ability and education.

It is good to see common sense, rationality, simple communication with vision and direct results without fanfare. It is also good that future generations take the endeavor to know English like the Irish and Jewish people, to contribute to the language from a Viet culture inspired perspective.

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