Listen to Nguy or get a wave of Nguy at you.

Little Saigon activists tell USC to take down Vietnam flag

University officials say the flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam outside a campus building conforms to state and United Nations standards; activists say they are ready to launch a protest if it is not removed

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/flag-un...guyen-communist

WESTMINSTER Activists from Little Saigon say they are putting the University of Southern California on notice over a Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag that flies on campus.

Three activists – Hung Nguyen, An Son Tran and Tung X. Nguyen – approached an employee of the University Relations department on campus last week to make an official request that the school remove what is perceived as the communist flag by Vietnamese Americans or replace it with the red and yellow former South Vietnamese flag.

"The red and yellow flag is the official flag of the Vietnamese American community," Hung Nguyen said. "The university has hundreds if not thousands of students from our community and they should honor our sentiments about the flag."

But USC officials don't plan to remove or replace the flag, said university spokesman James Grant.

USC is among the nation's most diverse campuses and has thousands of international students attending, Grant said. So far, no student has complained about this particular flag, he said.

"The flags have been in our main building for a long time," he said. "They were made to conform to state and United Nations standards. We see no need to take them down."

The activists approached Irvine Valley College last month with a similar request. The college took down its entire exhibit of miniature flags from 144 countries after Westminster Councilman Andy Quach and Garden Grove Councilwoman Dina Nguyen and the activists objected to the presence of the communist flag in the exhibit.

Hung Nguyen said he and others intend to visit all California's campuses and urge them to remove the communist flag.

The Union of Vietnamese Student Associations, based in Garden Grove, also sent out a letter to USC two weeks ago after a Vietnamese American student there told them about the flag, said Bao Mai, a senior member of the student union.

“We have a good community of Vietnamese students, a few hundred, in USC,” he said. “We don’t want to see a large-scale protest happen there. We want to resolve the issue before that.”

But the students union would certainly join in a protest if it happens because USC has a Vietnamese Student Association on campus and is a member of the union, Mai said.

Hung Nguyen said community members from Little Saigon will attempt to have a discussion with top USC officials to make them see why the local Vietnamese American community is extremely sensitive to the issue.

The rapidly growing Little Saigon community is primarily composed of refugees who fled Vietnam in the '70s and '80s after the communist takeover in that country in 1975.

"Our first step is to give them the information," he said. "The second step is to have a discussion between our Vietnamese elected officials and university officials to see if they will take down the communist flag. Our last resort will be to protest the university's approach to this issue."

Quach said he has not been approached by Nguyen to talk to university officials.

"It is of course at the discretion of the university, but I don't think the university understands the political and emotional implications of their decision," he said.

Quach said he might send them a video tape of the 1999 protest of a Little Saigon video store owner who displayed a large banner of Ho Chi Minh outside his store. Thousands thronged outside the store in protest.

"The video will show them how strongly anti-communist this community is and how strongly we feel about it," Quach said.

Grant said the university respects the community's sentiments about their flag.

"They do have their right to express their feeling and opinions," he said. "But I don't think we did anything wrong by flying that flag. It is Vietnam's official flag."

"I don't think we did anything wrong..." Obviously a dirty commie How soon before his house is razed to the ground?

If you don't know what is the official flag of Viet Nam, ask Grant.

These motherfukers really need to get a life instead of protesting issue such as this!!! The Red/Yellow star flag IS the OFFICIAL Viet Nam flag NOT the three fukin stripes, give it a rest already and go play some fukin golf for crying out loud

What the fuk?! Are they protesting AGAIN ?

Go to NYC, there is a Vietnam flag in among the flags that represent all the countries in th WHO. Why don't they go up there and protest.

If the campus wants the country flags of all its international students then go ahead. I know USC has quite a number of internation students from VN. One Vietnamese-American starts to cry, they all cry. How embarrassing.

I hear you, I just think these activists are too extreme and they probably don't have anything else better to do than go around protesting thing such as this!!! This is just getting too old...

I kinda feel sorry for the extremists.

You hear me. Di hoc thi la hoc hanh di, lam mai chuyen vo duyen khong a.

$hit, this reminds me why Vietnam wasnt painted on the mural of our school. Some... Alot.... of vietnamese kids wanted it to be the southern flag. So they decided to not put it up at all. My English teacher (whom wanted the official vietnamese flag) was really pissed off.

Bill Clinton paying respects to the VC flag!

I have the feel for the teacher. Just because some individuals, all the kids have to learn what's wrong. I don't think other kids' parents would feel happy to send their kids to school just to learn something that is not up-to-date or incorrect. Would you?

^ I wanted the official flag, since I had a northern and traditional upbringing.

bill Clinton is a b!tch for giving the Chinese military secret and put the U.S at risk. freaking douche bag!

No, it is not old at all.....However, I will wait and see how the community reacts this time......I do think they will have a problem convincing USC, a private corp., to be considerated of their request. But who knows, they may rethink their PR strategy.

I would not want my kids to attend USC anyway.....their school is not that great comparing to UCLA, or Berkley, or Standford for that kind of tuition.

Don't you wish you can run your car over those activists? THey are annoying little b!tches. The more I hear about extremists, the more I hate their guts.

dude can't you see their view on this
i mean they fought a war to rid communism
if they still see that flag it means that their time in the war was not worthwhile
when my dad first went to america
he cried because he saw the striped flag
i see the striped flag as a symbol of freedom from communism
be more open minded
put yourself in their shoes and you'll understand
yes the red yellow star is a official flag of vietnam
but still those soldiers fought their hardest in order for us to be here
so respect them
we owe them A LOT

^ Tell me why USC should take down the flag? Should the WHO take down the flag of Vietnam ? Should the encyclopedia have the VNCH flag instead of the recognized flag of Vietnam?

Why boycott a singer because he is from Vietnam? Weren't most of you here were once from Vietnam? Because you have the opportunity to come to America and they don't, you look down on them?

Why boycott a woman who showed film footages of the Vietnam War in college? There are tons of vidoes about the Vietnam War in the library!

It all comes down to COMMON SENSE. When your hatred overpowered your sense of what is right and what is wrong, you become an ignorant person.


My father was jailed for 7 years because he worked for the South Vietnam government. It is understandable that they hate communism. I hate it too. But there are a lot of idiotic actions taken by the Vietnamese oversea community that I have to laugh at.

i can imagine the scenario now. Just like the 1999 protest, thousands of Vietnamese gather and protest in the vinicity of the school causing traffic and congestion, students wont be able to get to class, nearby residents will get annoyed. Protesters complain about the flag while the residents and the students complain about the protesters.

USC isn't Little Saigon, I doubt any organizer can pull a protest like that scale.

god you just posted what I wanted say and was going to post

what the hell are they doing? I hope they get slapped in the face by the Univerisities' officials.

ooops

af server sucks and blows

Here's a none bias analysis on this issues ...

Pro:

They're agianst communist

they're active and out spoken members of society


Con:

driven by hatred and revenge

totalitarian agenda

not three hot chicks, instead of three dudes!


If they're hot chicks then they fully have my support, as a matter of fact, I'll be over there everyday protesting with them. However, a bunch of dudes protesting together is kind of gay...

I know.
I keep saying its not the neo-V.C's stiring up problems, ok we glorify the victory from the war. But today is a different day, its' all about economic and prosperity.

It's quite obvious, who are the ones still stuck in the South regime era. But these kids were brought up brainwashed, surely they must be intelligent enough not to listen to their parents who ran from a failed South Vietnam empire.

Move forward.

I do "somewhat" see their view on this, if I was in their shoes I might just feel the same. But give it a rest already, I mean the war is over 30 some odd years ago, stop digging up the past which they can't change. They should focus their time/energy on something more productive, like "playing golf"

you tell us to be more open-minded but what about them? Why can't they be more open-minded? How do you think the international students from Vietnam would feel about this? The VNCH love the yellow flag then have it in their "Little Saigon"...no one protests them hanging the yellow flag in their Little Saigon no matter how offensive the yellow flag may be...so they should do the same thing, stop protesting people hanging the Star flag...

The USC DOES NOT BELONG TO THE VNCH...THEY SHOULD HAVE NO SAYING IN WHAT THE SCHOOL SHOULD HANG ON ITS WALL THE REPRESENT ITS STUDENTS...THE SCHOOL IS STATE-OWNED, NOT VNCH-OWNED

Amend to that

universities are money making corporations, they belong to the business sector. Maybe if VNCH "donate', i don't know, let say a million, maybe then they'll take down the red flag and hang up the three-stripes-yellow flag?

it's strictly business here...raising a fund to accomplish this goal seem like a practical approach. I'm guessing they're trying to protest and b!tch to annoy the USC into submission...This method has yield success many time in the past. I'm interesting in the outcome. Keep the news updated!

in addition, the new trend "It's America! love it or leave it!" is currently very popular, The VNCH are in luck. I don't know where to place my bet...this is a difficult decision...

I'll give them $100 for each A they give me.

^^that's what you call "grade inflation", 100 each for an A doesn't do it. You must be from an elite family to join the club.

It's not about how smart or hard working you are, it's all about family background and connection.


fight hard, get into power, and be corrupted. That's how it''s done! right?

The world is run by corrupt politicians, lairs, and hypocrites. If I have the resources, I'll build a new nation where engineers and soldiers are first class citizens.

I sure wonder how come they don't tell the United Nations to stop flying the red flag and use the yellow one? But instead they go to a college.

^ they're too scared