The Viet Museum located at History Park is one of the most important cultural institutions of the Vietnamese American community in San Jose. For nearly two decades, it has served as a place to preserve and share the refugee journey and heritage of the Vietnamese diaspora.
The museum was founded by Loc Vu (recently deceased) and has been operated by the Immigrant Resettlement & Cultural Center (IRCC). For almost 20 years, IRCC has maintained a leasing agreement with History San Jose, the nonprofit organization contracted by the City of San Jose to manage History Park. Under this agreement, the Viet Museum has operated out of a historic Victorian house within the park, where it preserves the collective memories and displays historical artifacts documenting the Vietnamese refugee experience.
Since December 2024, however, the museum has been closed by History San Jose due to an internal governance dispute within IRCC.
In late 2025, Bill Schroh, President and CEO of History San Jose, issued notice that the organization intends to terminate the leasing contract with IRCC and release a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a new operator to manage the Viet Museum by the end of December 2025. The stated reason is that IRCC has not provided sufficient proof that the current IRCC leadership represents the controlling management of the organization.
The current IRCC Board of Directors was elected by IRCC members on January 11, 2025, in accordance with the organization's bylaws, which require board members to be elected annually by IRCC members. Following this election, Quinn Tran, a retired high-tech executive and former CEO of the American Red Cross of Silicon Valley, was appointed President and Executive Director to replace Loc Vu, who stepped down from those roles.
Since assuming leadership, Quinn Tran has focused on reopening the Viet Museum so the public can once again visit and learn about the Vietnamese American refugee experience. IRCC has provided complete legal documentation to History San Jose—including corporate governance records and board election documentation—and has participated in mediation proceedings aimed at resolving internal governance conflicts.
Despite these efforts, Bill Schroh and Michelle Duncan, Director of Operations at History San Jose, have continued to move toward its threats as mentioned above. As a result, IRCC now faces the potential permanent closure of the Viet Museum.
History San Jose is seeking to terminate IRCC’s contract without clear legal merit while making unilateral decisions without meaningful communication with IRCC. At the same time, the organization has threatened to bring in a new operator to run the Viet Museum without acknowledging that the artifacts housed in the museum belong to IRCC, which spent more than 20 years collecting and preserving them.
Any new operator selected by History San Jose would therefore likely inherit only an empty historic building rather than the museum collection itself.
As a last resort—after attempts at dialogue and mediation failed to produce a mutually acceptable resolution—IRCC has filed an action seeking declaratory and injunctive relief relating to the operation of the Viet Museum at History Park.
