[URBAN NOTE] "As Little Saigon turns 25, family and heritage mark the path ahead"

[rfmcdonald]

Anh Do's Los Angeles Times article describing the maturation of Orange County's Vietnamese neighbourhood of Little Saigon--founded, as the name suggests, by refugees from conquered South Vietnam makes for fascinating reading, and not only for its insights onto patterns of neighbourhood development. In the three decades since, the Vietnamese-American population has grown by a factor of six to reach some 1.5 million, giving Vietnamese-Americans more choices. This enclave, though, seems relatively durable.

When Danh N. Quach chose to set up shop in 1978 in Westminster, he knew just one Vietnamese doctor — the same man who agreed to co-sign a loan for him.

Now, as Little Saigon celebrates its 25th anniversary — a date marked not by the arrival of refugees, but by the state erecting a freeway offramp sign — Quach's shop stands as a landmark in the largest Vietnamese cultural district outside the country itself.

[. . .]

Danh Quach had been a pharmacist in Saigon until war brought him to America as a refugee. When he opened shop on Bolsa Avenue in Westminster, he dispensed medicine, tobacco, shampoo, boomboxes, fabric — items that new immigrants in the community sought out to mail to loved ones left in Vietnam.

He sold care packages for $100 to $300, and Air France stopped by twice a week to pick up the shipments through a government program that allowed refugees to send "humanitarian aid" to family members.

[. . .]

At the time, real estate in central Orange County was going for 50 cents a square foot, a fraction of today's cost. Quach and partner Frank Jao, the man frequently credited with developing much of Little Saigon, began buying space in strip malls, including the center where thousands staged nightly demonstrations in 1999 after a video shop owner put up a photo display of Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

Quach now owns about 300,000 square feet of retail space through real estate partnerships in Little Saigon, a mecca luring Vietnamese expatriates from around the world.

"At first, we thought Little Saigon might last 20, 25 years. We were wrong," Quach said. "I think Little Saigon is here to stay. Mom and Dad might be the tenants, and when they retire, they will pass it on to their children."