Unflagging Controversy in Heart of Westminster

It’s been a spring ritual in Westminster in recent years: the flags of the United States and the defunct Republic of South Vietnam fluttering together from city light poles to mark the anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

This year, though, the flags might not fly.

In what some local observers say reflects a growing rift between non-Vietnamese city residents and more recent Vietnamese immigrants, the Westminster City Council on Tuesday night rejected this year’s request to use city light poles to fly the flags in tandem for a week, questioning whether the display would show proper respect for the American flag.

The decision angered many residents of Vietnamese descent, while the debate pitted veterans groups against one another and sent simmering differences over expressions of citizenship into a full boil.

Ironically, the symbolism of a flag has once again brought to the surface sharp and emotional differences within a city struggling to mesh two cultures.

A very different flag--that of the current Communist Vietnam--launched weeks of anti-communist demonstrations in Little Saigon in January. Vietnamese Americans rallied to protest video store owner Truong Van Tran’s display of a Communist Vietnamese flag and a picture of the late Communist leader Ho Chi Minh.

Passions from that first controversy, local residents said, added momentum to long-standing opposition by some to the practice of flying the U.S. and South Vietnamese flags at equal heights, in apparent violation of standard American flag etiquette.

“There are some rather remarkable prejudices here, and I believe they are very broadly cast throughout the community,” said Reginald Crozier, a longtime Westminster resident and observer of city politics. “I think a lot of it has to do with the larger demonstration . . . in front of that video store, and the rather large expense incurred by having to pay law enforcement. I think there has been a lot of patience lost. . . . It has people irritated.”

At issue is the recent practice of flying the American and South Vietnamese flags together from public poles along Bolsa Avenue, the heart of Little Saigon, to commemorate the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. Local veterans groups objected in the past, arguing in vain that U.S. flag etiquette requires the American flag, when displayed domestically, never be flown level with or lower than the flag of another nation.

Backlash from the demonstrations this year, though, propelled a surge of interest in the issue and prompted the council to reject the plan after attempts to reach a compromise failed, veterans said.

The rejected proposal would have anchored the two flags in a holder resembling a shield mounted on light standards, the pole holding the South Vietnamese flag four inches shorter than that holding the American flag.

“I’m certainly disappointed,” said Luan Tran, an attorney for the Vietnamese Community of Southern California, a social services agency that played a role in organizing the demonstrations. “My concern is it’s going to put Westminster on the world map once again, in a very negative fashion. I’m afraid Westminster is going to be perceived as an intolerant place.”

Mayor Frank Fry Jr. and Councilman Tony Lam supported the flag proposal, while council members Joy L. Neugebauer, Margie L. Rice and Kermit Marsh opposed it. Rice, however, said she would change her vote if the flags flew for just one day. Proponents said they intend to bring such a plan to the next City Council meeting.

Last year, the council approved hanging the flags by a 3-2 vote. Marsh, a new member who provided the swing vote this year, said he deferred to the judgment of the veterans groups.

“I think the flag should be treated with dignity and respect,” Marsh said. “If they display the flag in a haphazard and tacky manner, it’s worse than not showing it at all.”

To Vietnamese, Flag Is All That’s Left of Home

Tran said the South Vietnamese flag stands as a powerful symbol, even if the country itself no longer exists.

“It represents democracy, it represents human rights for Vietnam,” Tran said. “The South Vietnamese flag is the only thing we have left. We lost everything to communism. Every year, especially during April 30, the South Vietnamese flag takes an even more significant importance because it reminds us of all the suffering that we went through because of communism.”

The flag also represents complex emotions over a past that can’t be reclaimed, Lam said.

“It’s a symbol for everybody that fought, myself included,” Lam said. It is inextricably tied, he said, to memories of “the day that we lost . . . the lives of loved ones on the high seas escaping Vietnam.”

Hundreds of thousands of people fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon, many of them settling in Orange County. Over the years Bolsa Avenue has emerged as the capital of that expatriate community, and the recent demonstrations have exposed what some say have been long-simmering resentment by white Westminster residents toward the new arrivals.

The controversy also pitted Westminster’s neighborhood-based VFW and American Legion posts against the U.S. Army Rangers Assn., which sought the city’s permission to fly the two flags. Members of the Rangers are active and retired military personnel--including foreign citizens--trained at Ft. Benning in Georgia.

“There was a lot of prejudice and bigotry being presented there by the patriotic organizations,” said Gerry Rush of Tustin, commander of the Ranger group’s western region. “You have to feel that, when they’re talking about the Vietnamese in their community.”

Members of the groups, though, said they acted out of patriotism.

“It takes away from the dignity of the flag, and it just looks junky hanging them from poles like that,” said Ed Crone, commander of American Legion Post 555. “I’m a Vietnam vet, and one of my pet things is the American flag. When I see it being hung wrong, you got to talk to me about it.”

Crone said his opposition picked up added support this year because of the demonstrations.

“People are getting tired of that area over there,” he said. “They had that area tore up for a month. I’m not saying [the demonstrations were] wrong. If they asked me, I probably would have helped them.”

He said the area already has a distinctive South Vietnamese flavor.

“If you drive down Bolsa, there’s a couple hundred flags flying,” Crone said. “That’s sufficient. They’re on the buildings. They look OK. They’re on private property. Why do they want to put them up on light posts, and make them look trashy?”

Clashing Concepts of Good Citizenship

John Kerr, quartermaster for VFW Post 9756, said part of the opposition stems from the length of the observance. In the past, organizers have sought as long as a month; this year, they asked for a eight-day commemoration.

“They want to block traffic and all kinds of things,” Kerr said. “My post got the word and felt this year we should let our feelings be known. The majority of the post felt that they shouldn’t even fly it, shouldn’t even put up their Vietnamese banner on public property.”

Yet the roots of the opposition go deeper, and reflect differing concepts of citizenship, said Howard Skeen, a World War II veteran and 15-year observer of local politics.

“There seems to be a feeling that they’ve got to bring Vietnam to the States and carve out a section of the States, in this case Westminster. That’s not, in my estimation . . . practicing good citizenship. There’s been an undercurrent of rebellion ever since I moved in here in ’84.

“They’ve been in the country now going on 25 years, and they’ve been given plenty of rope to adjust. . . . People living around there are just absolutely fed up with it. . . .What they don’t understand is that they’re not still Vietnamese, they’re Americans.”

Tran, the Vietnamese Community attorney, bristled at the idea that Vietnamese immigrants remained insular.

“Look at every profession in this country,” he said. “There are Vietnamese who are fully integrated into the most prominent companies. In every industry there are Vietnamese Americans. I think we have successfully integrated into society.”

Non-Vietnamese people, he said, sometimes view Little Saigon as “just a ghetto.”

“This is not the case,” Tran said. “This is just a normal thing that people tend to stay together. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s Chinatowns all over the world and no one’s complaining.”