Donning traditional áo dài dresses and Vietnamese heritage flag face masks, hundreds of South Bay residents joined county officials Saturday to celebrate the opening of the first-ever Vietnamese American Service Center. Ai Duong Truong came to the event with her friends from the Hội Người Việt Cao Niên San Jose (Vietnamese Senior Group in San...
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San Jose business owners, nonprofit help provide COVID relief in Vietnam
As COVID-19 infections engulfed Vietnam and killed 10,000 people in September, two local Vietnamese-American brothers and a nonprofit sprung into action. David Duong, CEO of California Waste Solutions and a community leader in San Jose, has split his time doing business between the South Bay and the Southeast Asian country. A refugee who fled Vietnam as a...
‘A historic moment’: Santa Clara County unveils landmark Vietnamese service center
After nearly a decade of planning, the $33-million Vietnamese American Service Center near the heart of San Jose’s Little Saigon will welcome residents in for the first time Saturday. “This is such a huge moment for our community to get a service center that is dedicated to us, especially coming out of COVID,” Christina Johnson,...
Mentor program sows seeds for San Jose Vietnamese youth
Alexander Nguyen was asked at the first session of a summer mentorship program why he was there. Seven weeks later, standing in the backyard of the Viet Museum on a blazing hot Saturday, he said he finally found an answer. “For 10 years, I have shut out my community,” he told a crowd of about 20 people. “This...
Will San Jose’s Vietnamese Heritage Garden ever blossom?
When a group of Vietnamese leaders came up with the idea of a heritage garden almost 40 years ago, the vision was grand. The Viet Heritage Garden in San Jose was supposed to be a cultural oasis featuring mini-replicas of different historical Vietnamese landmarks, a reflection pond and a pathway to a community center. Today, the garden...
San Jose’s Vietnamese community struggles with its political voice
In a city with the largest Vietnamese population in the nation, Vietnamese Americans are still struggling to find their voices in politics. The lack—and loss—of Vietnamese representation in San Jose politics is the result of a number of factors, community leaders say, including an inherited distrust in politics and a generational and ideological division in the...
Amid anti-Asian violence, San Jose’s Vietnamese residents embrace COVID-19 vaccines
Despite a fear of anti-Asian violence hanging over their heads, some Vietnamese residents lined up as early as 4 a.m. to get a COVID-19 vaccine at a new mobile clinic this week — a chance to defend themselves against a virus that’s disproportionately infecting them. “We initially expected around 700 people but now there’s about 1,000,” said Asian...
‘People are hurting’: San Jose’s largest Vietnamese mall hanging by a thread
Every day at 10 a.m., Nancy steps under the white arches of Grand Century Mall and pushes open the glass doors of her store, Lac’s Skincare & Cosmetics. Sometimes she’ll watch an Asian drama on her laptop. Other times, she’ll sit and people watch behind a countertop brimming with unopened skin care products. There’s the rare...
New Alum Rock district bilingual program helps students learn Vietnamese
Thu-Hong Tran ended a recent Zoom class by asking 14 kindergartners to count to 100 in celebration of 100 days of school. “In Vietnamese please,” she said. In East San Jose, Ben Painter Elementary is the first school in Alum Rock Union School District to launch a Vietnamese dual immersion program, allowing students to learn both English...