The Little Saigon name is a big deal

Vietnamese Americans in San Jose and around the United States are outraged at San Jose City Councilmember Nguyen—a Vietnamese American herself—for leading the charge to designate a strip of Story Road as ''Saigon Business District'' against the wishes of most Vietnamese Americans, who want the area to be known as ''Little Saigon.''

The matter was settled when in late November San Jose’s City Council voted 8 to 3 in favor of Saigon Business District, but the fallout from the decision has changed the political status quo of San Jose. Nguyen has lost her support among many Vietnamese Americans while they, for all their efforts, have been perceived as unreasonable, fanatical, and as one councilmember put it, ''disrespectful.''

But most frustrating to followers of this controversy is the fact that nobody seems to understand why there is a controversy in the first place. Supporters of Saigon Business District feel the name honors the fallen capitol of the former Republic of South Vietnam and cannot understand why the Vietnamese community would take issue with this name. Meanwhile Vietnamese Americans have good reasons for insisting the area be called Little Saigon, but have failed to successfully articulate those reasons in English.

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