Prologue: A translated rambling commentary from Brian Do in his biweekly attack against Cindy Chavez on a Youtube show: “I don't know where they stand, Cindy Chavez and her groups are left wing with special privileges. We left Vietnam, immigrated here to fight the communists, partly because we don't want the government to decide for us, we want a free voice. We left Vietnam because we don't want any the government officials to decide for whom they can give or for whom they can help, they hold power here. Cindy Chavez and her privileged faction are truly a left-wing group. Their political positions are completely contrary to the basic interests that our Vietnamese community aspires to”
In the San Jose mayoral race replacing term limit Mayor Sam Liccardo, the fight for the Vietnamese votes has been quite heated so far with both SCC Supervisor Cindy Chavez and Councilmember Matt Mahan working hard to persuade the voters. Currently, the conventional wisdom is Mahan has done a good job creating winds behind his back trying to close the gap in the Vietnamese community. He is benefiting from aggressive tactics executed by his ardent supporters and Vietnamese campaigners. It is impressive considering that he is an unknown in the community and has not shown his supports or efforts that would in any ways benefit the community during his time in office. Meanwhile Chavez is a familiar face with strong ties and long records of supporting the community for years.
Throughout the campaign, Brian Do, a school board member of Eastside Union School District and a campaigner for Mahan, has been consistenly online and radio shows poking at Chavez on many issues whether real or imaginary. Basically, a clever strategy of throwing everything under the sink and hoping some will stick:
1. She is left wing and that would make her against the “Vietnamese people’s interests”, and she only cares about "her people and her community".
2. Chavez is causing crime increase. By following the state policy enacted during the pandemic to ease crowding in county jail, she has encouraged more crimes to be committed. The policy allowed low level offenders of nonviolent crimes to be released while waiting for court order dates. Do claimed that with this policy “she allowed criminals to be released” and “the people of her community” after being released would commit more crimes in the Vietnamese community, specifically in Little Saigon, as well as in other communities.
3. Chavez has distributed funding disproportionately to “her people” than to the Vietnamese community. If you vote for her, the Vietnamese will get minimal to nothing for our rightful "piece of the pie”. Do would provide examples of how the county is not providing the “fair share” of social services to the Vietnamese people while “her community” would have all the privileges or more. June Tran, a Mahan’s fervent supporter, recently went on a Youtube interview to level charges that Chavez is spending wastefully and yet not for the benefits of the Vietnamese community. The attacks are viewed by some as race baiting with the idea somehow Matt Mahan will take care of the Vietnamese community better than Chavez for she is favored other ethnic groups, mostly implying Hispanic.
4. For two straight weeks, the local newspaper Calitoday ran paid articles
denouncing Chavez for her support of abortion and Proposition 1 which would
support the constitution amendment for the women’s right to
choose.
Supporters of Chavez who
are often less vocal and have been slow to respond finally had enough of the
twisted misinformation and baseless claims. They pointed out:
A. Mahan is a Democratic
liberal candidate with a liberal social agenda including supporting and funding
abortion as he signed an open letter along with 77 other elected officials in
the Bay Area urging Governor Newsom to support and funding abortion in
California.
B. Chavez is giving more funding to “her community
or to her people” than the Vietnamese community. There is no such
proof. The county government budgeted funding to serve
all people and the Vietnamese community is being equally served. And
to Chavez credit, her funding of the Vietnamese-American Service Center is a
testament of her unwavering support of the community for the last 10 years.
But being persistent, Mahan's supporters
continue to claim that the Vietnamese community received below average
healthcare supports during the COVID-19 pandemic while the other communities
received better services. Both ICAN and VIVO, the two largest and oldest
Vietnamese American nonprofit establishments serving the community on health
care and social services in the last 40 years rebuked such outrageous
fallacies:
Quyen
Vuong, ICAN Executive Director said: “For many years, Supervisory Cindy
Chavez has been a true friend, advocate and supporter of the Vietnamese
community. During the pandemic, she provided outreach and engagement
funding to ICAN and many other organizations and media outlets to keep the
Vietnamese community informed about covid vaccines to protect their
health. Sup. Chavez also supported the efforts to have the public health
COVID website be done in Vietnamese, with weekly updates posted on Youtube from
the County in Vietnamese about the covid situation, and county staff going on
Vietnamese media outlets to stay connected with the community. Under her
leadership and support, the construction and planning of the Vietnamese
American Service Center continued to move forward in spite of the pandemic, so
it could open its door as planned in early 2022. We need a
mayor who is truly committed to improving our lives and livelihood while
understanding and respecting our culture and traditions.”
Bao Trieu, Chair and
co-founder of VIVO stated: “The Board of Supervisors along with
the leadership of Supervisor Cindy Chavez has been very supportive of the
Vietnamese community through many effective outreach and social programs for
seniors, homeless and low-income families. Her pro-active efforts
helped save many lives in the county during the COVID-19
pandemic. The county provided resources adequately to all communities on
prevention education, providing vaccines and priority treatment and testing
were unprecedented in California. VIVO is proud to be part of the efforts as
the oldest Vietnamese-American nonprofit organization that provide essential
health and social supports to disadvantaged and hard to reach
communities."
C. The crime issue is mostly a problem with Mayor Sam
Liccardo and the City Council for a long time not willing to provide adequate budget to bolster the police
force where there were over 200 police officers either left the force or
retired without being filled. Mayor Liccardo and the City
Council including Mahan with their Black Lives Matter supports showed their unity and doing the right thing against institutionalized
racism. However, they compounded the problem that long has been
ignored which is the inadequate funding of police and fire
departments. As San Jose residents can attest, if you call 911 for
non-violent crimes, the police department would be reluctant to send officers
to the scene due to manpower shortage. Unfortunately, the county government has no
jurisdiction on city’s law enforcement.
Some Vietnamese supporters of Mahan and their attacks using race baiting tactic playing Vietnamese voters that somehow as a Hispanic, Chavez will provide more funding and better social benefits to Hispanic and other ethnic groups than Vietnamese. The message is by voting for Matt Mahan, the Vietnamese community will receive better favors. Some people would call this is a racist message at its core. While a few Vietnamese people are saying that Matt Mahan should denounce these intolerable baseless claims trying to create fears & hatred and speak up against such divisive politics using race.
By allowing these extreme supporters to continue using race baiting tactics, their negative and destructive noises now overshadow Mahan's cultivated image of not politics as usual and thoughtful personality.
An Unfortunate Incident
Last weekend, during the
monthly flag raising ceremony at the Viet Heritage Garden, Brian
Do, June Tran and other Mahan’s supporters decided to stage a
political stun to embarrassed Chavez and her staff. For years,
the ceremony is non-political and always an event reserved to honor and remember
the plight of freedom and the fight against communism. It is in
public park where political rallies and campaigns are not allowed by city
policy. Both Chavez and Mahan stopped by to pay respect and
join the ceremony.
Mahan came together with
Brian Do, June Tran, and 5 others. His supporters had with them
signs denouncing Chavez for sending a cease and desist letter to Brian Do for
implying that she is a communist sympathizer. To them, this is a
violation of his free speech. They hid the signs so the organizers
would not see and went inside the park. Now whether Mahan knew
about this protest stun is not known. He was there for a short time
and left quickly before his supporters carried out the plan. They were trying
to unfurl their signs while Chavez was speaking but could not do it in
time. So as Chavez departed, they ran out to the gate
and started chanting and denouncing her.
Brian Do then went
back in the park and started
attacking Chavez. He accused her of being a bully and trying to
silent the voices of the community. He claimed that he is a
"political victim". He was quickly removed
from the stage and people were yelling at him to
leave. A lot of people were taken by surprise and offended since this is the
day reserved for paying respect and in a public area not allowed by the city for
political campaign and shenanigan.
Mr. Son Nguyen
said: “ Brian Do is disrespectful and many people here are
upset. He, June Tran and supporters took advantage of the ceremonial event and turned it into a political circus for their own political gains. Matt owes the
community an apology”.
Mrs. Loan commented: “We
will file a complaint to the city and ask them to ban Matt and his supporters
from the park. Matt is violating his own city policy of using
public places for political gain and creating chaos and division at a
ceremonial event."
Other people at the
event spoke up: “This reflects the campaign tactic of Matt, creating
division, stirring hatred among ourselves. With Brian Do and June
Tran stirring things up to create chaos and discontent, it has turned a
reverend event of the community for the last 10 years into a farce for their
political agenda. It is a very sad day for the community”
Conventional wisdom would indicate Chavez is the favorite in the Vietnamese community based on her track record. But with the strong supports of Mayor Liccardo, Madison Nguyen and her supporters, Mahan has made a showing in the community by riding on a momentum of dividing the community using baseless claims to seed false fears and uncertainties in the community. Some people in the community think this is a street fight politics and if history repeats itself, it will bring back memories to those in the community old enough to live through the divisiveness era manufactured purposely for political gains by Madison Nguyen.
LSI predicts a very close race with a separation of less than 2,000 votes between winner and loser. Let us put up a chair to watch an unprecedented campaign brawl in the history of San Jose mayoral race.
