Hoa Van Tran, the sole Democratic candidate for OC Supervisor, District 1, on Thursday night stated his personal view on illegal immigration to OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano here: He thinks they should be given some type of amnesty.

The Bolsavik came over and asked Hoa (picture) what he meant. And he said, “That’s exactly what I meant. That’s my personal stand.”

“Illegal immigrants should be given some way to become legal immigrants and to naturalize,” he said.

So the Bolsavik and Hoa sat down to get some more details. Hoa opened with the statement that “It’s really a federal matter. I’m just stating my personal feeling.”

But what about the perception that Vietnamese voters are conservative law-and-order types who’d want to deport all illegals?

“I don’t think that’s right,” Hoa said. “When we left Vietnam as boat people, we went to a third country. Like Malaysia or Hong Kong. When we came, they put us in camps, because we were illegal.”

“We’re legal now,” Hoa said, “but we were illegal when we landed in the refugee camps.”

Hoa himself was a boat person who landed in Singapore. He mentioned the Whitehead camp in Hong Kong several times. That camp was notorious as the very last refugee camp in Hong Kong, and from which tens of thousands of Vietnamese were forced back to the communist country by the British in their hurry to turn the island over to the Chinese government.

Hoa explained further, “From a practical standpoint, how would you deport 10 to 12 million people?” He pointed out that all three major presidential candidates - McCain, Obama, Clinton - have repudiated mass deportation.

“As Democrats, we look at social issues. We need to help out the little guys who have no voice,” Hoa said. “This country was built on immigrants, and we shouldn’t turn our back on immigrants.”

But there’s a difference between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, no?

“Look,” Hoa said. “There are illegal immigrants from everywhere. There are illegal immigrants from Mexico, there are Asian illegal immigrants from Vietnam. There are white illegal immigrants from Europe and Canda. Do we check everybody, check their passports, check their birth certificates? Or do we only check based on skin color?”

“From a human standpoint, I am an immigrant,” Hoa said. “When we landed in Singapore, we were illegal. When other Vietnamese landed in Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, we were all illegal.”

What about Assemblyman Van Thai Tran (no relations) and OC Supervisor Janet Nguyen and their stands on immigration?

Phu Do Nguyen, one of Hoa’s most ardent supporters and one-time campaign treasurer, who had been listening from a safe distance away, walked over and chimed in, “The guy (Van Tran) is a disgrace. He doesn’t know where he’s coming from.” Hoa calmed Phu down: “Van came in 1975, he wasn’t a boat person.”

Phu kept on, “Just because we achieved our American dream doesn’t mean we should turn our back on other people who want to pursue their American dream.”

But, we Vietnamese were escaping an oppressive communist regime. Whereas, let’s take Mexico; Mexico is a democratic country.

Not really, Phu said. “In the refugee camps, everybody’s positioning themselves so they could be resettled in America. Nobody wanted to go to Australia or France. Why? If seeking freedom was the only reason, we’d go anywhere, not just America. No, we were also chasing the American dream.”

So what would Hoa do about it? Nothing. “I’m just stating my personal stand. It’s really a federal matter. I’m running for county office.”

Yes, he’s back, putting to rest the rumor that Ky Ngo’s on the lam. Last night, his friend Trong Doan had been on the radio claiming Ky Ngo’s on some sort of “secret mission” relating to some hush-hush anti-communist activities in Vietnam.

Mission aborted? Accomplished? Whatever. A day after the Bolsavik’s entry here publicizing the fact that there’s no warrant out on Ngo’s head, he’s back. This morning, the leader of the protests against Nguoi Viet answered a call from the OC Register. Then this afternoon he showed up at the protest site in front of Nguoi Viet. No more US-Vietnam flag jacket though. That’s him in the yellow cap in the picture above. The taller man is Rambo Pham, a regular on the right-wing listservs.

A secret admirer sent the photos below to the Bolsavik. It appears that Moran Street is not a good place to leave your car out overnight. Check it out:

No air in the left front tire.

No air in the right front tire.

Crap!

Damn commies. They did it! Yes they did, yes they did!

Ever wondered “How come there aren’t more films about boat people?” - ”How come there aren’t more films about the Vietnamese community?” - ”How come there aren’t more films about April 30, the fall of Saigon?”  - “How come there aren’t more films about young Vietnamese-Americans?”

There won’t be more films about anything unless Vietnamse-Americans as a community show support for the people who bleed sweat and tears creating such films.

Some of them are coming to UCLA this Sunday for a Cinema Symposium. This is the fourth time this biennial event has been held. This year features some well-known names such as Timothy Linh Bui (Green Dragon) and Ham Tran (Journey from the Fall), as well as some lesser known people such as Elyse Dinh. You may have seen her in Spider-Man 2, standing in the street, singing “Spider-Man, Spider-Man” offkey and screeching a violin.

Cinema Symposium is presented by Vietnamese Language and Culture (VNLC) in cooperation with VAALA (Vietnamese-American Arts & Letters Association), that organization that’s practically the only bridge between young artists and the rest of the Vietnamese-American community. It is a sad state of affairs in Bolsavikland that there isn’t another group doing the same thing. Come on! Somebody start something!

Here’s the press release on Cinema Symposium 4:

Cinema Symposium 4

“Filmmaking: the good, the bad, the Ugly”

Sunday April 13, 2008 at 2:30p.m.

Northwest DE NEVE Auditorium, UCLA (Park in Lot 8 )

www.vnlc.org   www.vaala.org   www.VietFilmFest.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                 

Los Angeles, Calif. – UCLA’s Vietnamese Language and Culture (VNLC) and the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA) partner up to present the fourth biennial Cinema Symposium titled “Filmmaking: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly,” featuring nine distinguished guest panelists who have contributed in raising the recent Viet Film Wave.  Cinema Symposium 4 will be held on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at Northwest Auditorium on the UCLA campus.  Admission is free and open to the public.

The distinguished guest panelists include: Timothy Linh Bui (Writer/Director/Producer, “Powder Blue”, “Green Dragon”), Elyse Dinh (Actress, “Green Dragon”, “Running in Tall Grasses”), Abraham Ferrer (Exhibitions Director, Visual Communications), Stephane Gauger (Writer/Director/Producer, “Owl and the Sparrow”), Elisabeth Huynh (Fox Film Acquisitions), David Ngo (Director, “The Queen from Virginia: The Jackie Bong Wright Story”), Ham Tran (Writer/Director/Producer, “Journey from the Fall”), Bao Tranchi (Costume Designer, “Journey from the Fall”, “America’s Next Top Model” Cycle 7, “Charlie’s Angels”), and Christopher Wong (Composer, “Journey from the Fall”, “The Rebel”).

This multi-dimensional panel will offer different angles on both artistic as well as business aspects of filmmaking.  Cinema Symposium 4 sets on the theme “Filmmaking: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” to focus on the conflicts that artists encounter and eventually resolve them creating valuable contents for the cinema industry and Vietnamese American community. Each panelist will share with the audience his/her own challenges as well as achievements through his/her career pathway.  The panel discussion will open up for audience members to dialogue with the panelists.  Clips from some of the newest works will be shown at the event.

Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California

You thought Bolsavikland was strange. Down Under, they even have a Vietnamese-Australian politician jailed for life, for the killing of a member of state parliament.

Apparently, though, after 10 years in prison, the man has won the sympathy of some in local media. The ABC (A for Australian) TV program Four Corners on April 7 raised doubts about the quality of evidence in the case of former city councillor from Fairfield, New South Wales, Phuong Ngo (Vietnamese: Ngô C?nh Ph??ng, photo, from here).

OK so he’s not Vietnamese-American, but he’s still part of the Vietnamese diaspora, so the Bolsavik thinks he should get an entry, given the notoriety of his case.

Ngo has been in jail for 10 years for ordering the 1994 murder of Australian state MP John Newman. It took three trials to convict him; the first two resulting in one aborted trial and one hung jury.

A friend of Newman and former Fairfield mayor Ken Chapman explained, as quoted by the Fairfield Champion newspaper here:

“I firmly believe Ngo did it, and it was political, but it wasn’t because Ngo wanted Newman’s seat. Newman had passed information about Ngo’s dealings at the Mekong Club to ICAC, which showed how deep Ngo’s hands had been in the club’s pockets.”

According to the Four Corners program, as told by the Fairfield Advance here, “a total of 10 witnesses were offered indemnity (Ozziespeak for “immunity”) against prosecution if they gave evidence against Phuong Ngo.”

The program said that two men known only as “Tony” and “John” agreed to change their testimony and pointed fingers at Ngo after investigators allegedly offered them “overseas protection, money and indemnity against prosecution.”

A current Vietnamese-Australian Fairfield councillor, Dennis Huynh, thought that the case should be re-opened.

In a followup, ABC announced here: ”New South Wales Attorney-General John Hatzistergos says he will consider reviewing the conviction of the man jailed over the 1994 murder of the state MP John Newman, but says reviews are only granted in exceptional circumstances.”

Chapman, for one, remained unconvinced. He said, “Most of the evidence in the program has been tested before and settled, so I was a bit surprised to see it come up again but nothing has changed.”