A San Jose councilmember is demanding the immediate termination of a staffer from a colleague’s office after being heckled during a recent public meeting.
Vietnamese American Councilmember Bien Doan, who represents District 7, began the April 8 San Jose City Council meeting by declaring April 2025 as Displaced Vietnamese American Heritage Month. He later invited a community representative to take a picture with the mayor and council. Hanh-Giao “HG” Nguyen, who works for District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz and is also part of the Vietnamese American community, heckled Doan during his presentation and called him “a disgrace.” According to an email obtained by San José Spotlight, the public outburst led to Doan calling for Nguyen to be fired immediately following the council meeting.
“HG was in the Council Chamber staffing for the (District 5) office as they were also presenting a ceremonial item today. In short, she was paid to be there and used that time to verbally attack a political rival and elected employee of our City,” Doan wrote.
Nguyen and Doan did not respond to requests for comment.
Doan attracted controversy with Little Saigon activists last year after he announced new rules for reserving events at the Vietnamese Heritage Garden in San Jose’s History Park. The garden has become the center of political divide over anticommunism among older Vietnamese Americans. District 5 officials at the time said they had concerns about Doan’s actions.
In the April 8 email sent to City Manager Jennifer Maguire, Doan said Nguyen engaged in gross misconduct when she started yelling phrases at him like “we do not celebrate that” and “you are insulting us.”
Members of the community who spoke with San José Spotlight, but wanted to remain anonymous, said Nguyen took issue with Doan’s use of the word “celebrate” when referring to “Displaced Vietnamese American Heritage Month.”
A longtime advocate for the San Jose and Santa Clara County Vietnamese community, Nguyen ran for the District 5 council seat in 2022 before going to work for Ortiz after he won the seat. She ran another unsuccessful campaign last year for a seat on the Franklin-McKinley School District board.
Public social media posts show Nguyen regularly attends Vietnamese cultural events in San Jose with the District 5 office — and while Doan’s District 7 office attends the same events, the two council offices are rarely pictured together.
A District 5 representative did not respond to a request for comment.
Contact Vicente Vera at [email protected] or follow @VicenteJVera on X.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.