How Did The Growth Of Little Saigon Affect The Community

Little Saigon is an example of a contemporary, flourishing Asian American community built form the ground up. Through the structural opportunities in Orange County, we can see that it allowed the Vietnamese to construct their community without any interference. As shown by the fact that they did not have to compete with other groups for commercial interests, like the White Americans who had abandon it. Also because the original site for Little Saigon developed in an area that was already in a state of decline, the Vietnamese took advantage of the opportunity and shaped their own ethnic suburbs the way they had want it to be, thus the reason why the Vietnamese community of Little Saigon was so successful. They had revitalized the area, unfettered

The presence of the Vietnamese, which were once viewed as a melancholy reminder of a war that Americans would rather forget, eventually served to show portray America in a positive light. With the rapid growth of the Vietnamese community and the influence of Little Saigon and its diverse businesses, America is once again shown as a nation of opportunity. These structural and social opportunities was the reason why it was possible for the Vietnamese to establish their strong and vibrant community in Orange County. It had allowed for them to create their own style of a white suburban haven, in the form of a Vietnamese suburb they called Little Saigon. These opportunities also lead to the growth of Little Saigon and gave the Vietnamese the ability to influence the policies of Orange County as a whole. The growth of Little Saigon came in the form of the two waves that gave the community the manpower they needed to expand and hold. It was the socioeconomic diversity of the Vietnamese population that allowed for the creation of such an interconnected occupational structure and enabling them to build such a strong community compared to other ethnic groups. Though in many ways, Vietnamese shared

As the L.A. Times reports, “Until recently, the county’s most visible Asian cluster was Little Saigon, once-sleepy central distract transformed by Vietnam War refugees into a bustling shopping and dining destination.” By working together as a community, the Vietnamese managed to overcome their social barriers and achieve great successes in Orange County, which was an amazing feat for a refugee group that started out with nothing. Little Saigon is a reminder to the Vietnamese Americans, of a history and story of a people who lost their homes, families, and dignity and came in 1975 to get it all back. It was a place where successful people willingly scrubbed toilets, pumped gas, and washed dishes came to reclaim their lives. As Quach Nhut, now a prosperous pharmacist in Westminster, listened to the Fall of Saigon on the radio while he was in the refugee camp, said, “I thought Saigon was lost forever.” From little to nothing, the Vietnamese had achieve the impossible, they built a new homeland in America. Though as Tony Lam, the first Vietnamese American elected to U.S. public office, explains it, “We never had any grand plan, we were just trying to survive, run our business and support our