The whole thing about F.O.B. II has pretty much boiled over with most people, but a low-level rumbling is still constantly going in emailing lists, forums, web sites, and a handful of print publications from out of town that are a little late to the debate.
A Vietnamese-American columnist at UCLA’s Daily Bruin (go Bruins!) added her thoughts to the mix here, in a piece entitled “Censorship of exhibit more offensive than art itself.”
The piece was picked for distribution by U-Wire and has appeared in other papers across the country such as the Minnesota Daily here.
Nam-Giao Do – born in the U.S. of refugee parents – did not mince words.
Excerpts:
Now, more than 30 years after the Vietnamese American community had been established, the freedom of expression that so many refugees yearned for is denied to them, by, unfortunately, members of their own community….
….
The closing of “F.O.B. II: Art Speaks” is another distressing example of how some community members not only protest to express their staunch anti-communist stance, but also use their protesting to shut down what they deem opposing voices and deny others their freedom of expression.
Instead of engaging in constructive dialogue with the artists, they refused to speak with the curators. Instead of communicating their ideas in a fair manner and being receptive to other ideas, they were too extreme in their refusal to listen.
Communities cannot thrive by thinking only in black and white terms. It is not progressive or healing to assume that someone must be a communist if they try to initiate dialogue about communism or relations between the Vietnamese American communities, here and in Vietnam.
….
We are united. Like all communities, we share a rich cultural heritage, a beautiful language and a war-ridden history. We share our wealth and expertise; many open-minded Vietnamese Americans regularly return to Vietnam for humanitarian, business and educational purposes. But to say that we are united under just one voice – one experience – would be a mistake. As the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association stated in their press release, we are “a stronger community because of our diversity and not in spite of it.”
The following story of the Village of Skokie, Illinois, may shed some light on the current freedom of expression controversy in OC.
In 1977 the American Nazis planned to march through the mostly Jewish (40,500 of 70,000 people) Village of Skokie, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in defiance of the Jewish refugees and survivors of concentration camps. Of course, the Jews were extremely angry and many Jews threatened violence against the Nazis. Four days before the scheduled march, the Village of Skokie brought a lawsuit to prevent it. Guess what? A Jewish attorney went to court to defend the rights of Nazis and he won! (However, the Nazis abandoned the march through Skokie and held its rally in Chicago) Who was that courageous attorney? Mr. Aryeh Neier, former Director of ACLU, who was born in Berlin in 1937 of Jewish parents and at two years old escaped with his parents and sister to England; most of the rest of his family was lost in the Holocaust.
“By attempting to deny the Nazis the freedom to speak, Skokie itself served the Nazi cause!” – Aryeh Neier
“….constructive dialogue with artists..” What is wrong with this girl?
The Bastard Brian Doan has refused his own father’s request to not to display provocative communist flag background picture at the exhibit!
More that often we need to listen to our parents…because they are usually right.
Yah, Jung Kim . . . look what happened to you since you didn’t listen to mom …. JUST KIDDING !
Is this where my tax dollars are going, training more commies? Hahaha.
Another young & very naive one Ms. Nam-Giao Do !
the city shut down the art exhibit, not the protesters. get the fact straight.
and bolsavik, you’d better shut your mouth up since your wife is the director of vaala, the organization that instigated the whole thing. so, whatever you say or present in this forum is considered biased, no matter what your intent is.
Great article. Good for her.
not only is miss do smart she’s beautiful. too bad so many of you on this blog have your heads up your ass.
Jung Kim,
Because I’m always right, and because you’re always listen to me, you have become such a ridiculous person now. I bet Mr. Aryeh Neier didn’t listen to his parents unconditionally, that’s why he could do that great things. Read Tien Huynh’s post above over and over, my son Jung Kim, and stop listening to me if you want to be a better thinker.
rather have a head than have no head at all !!!
JK,
Your dad is an idiot. Who would want to listen to him anyway? Keep up ther good work and root out evil and its followers like Jose s. This person is the devil incarnate.
JK Fan,
You can’t be my son’s fan, because you don’t understand him at all. My son’s already said very clearly above: “More that often we need to listen to our parents…because they are usually right.” How the hell can you be his fan and don’t listen to him at the same time?
Tien Nguyen,
I was in Champaign Il, about 2 hours from Chicago in 1977 during the Skokie Nazis Rally.
jk fan, we all know you’r jung kim it’s pretty pathetic you come on here and try to make yourself look better but we all know thats not gonna happen. and m&m, miss do doesnt hide her identity like you and most of the communist filth who come here and insult people do. it takes a lot of courage to speak your mind and put yourself out there regardless of what people say. it shows a lot of moxy. something you dont have.
jose, since you want to know my name so badly here’s the list , just pick one: Son Do, Tu Nguyen, Lan Pham, Thuy Tran, Tuan Pham …. if you need more let me know. If you’re not a communist, you ought to be one. They like to tell us what to do, how to live very similar to what you’re doing now. And one more thing, I do speak my mind but you’re just too “s” to understand what I’m saying or too busy telling people what to do!
@Country First:
I was in State College, PA, about 9 hrs from Chicago, at that time.
Anh Tien,
How about it ! ! !
* Remember the Iranian student movement against Shad of Iran on many US campus in the 1970s. Regrettably, the revolution was later on hijacked by the most radical elements from underground religious sect with the installation of Ayatollah Khomeini. A student democracy movement was taken over by dogmatic theology.
* Our democracy movement is being hijacked by radical and secret elements of war, of revenge, and destruction.
country first, why bring the iranian students protesting the USA placement of the shah into power to control the oil reserves into this? this is about our freedoms here. and m&m, i dont demand to know your name but i think it’s pretty cowardly of you to pop off like you do and hide your identity. it just shows me you have no spine. thats probably why you support the communist filth protesters like you do.
Mr. Jose S.
My intention was to forewarn the danger of many hidden radical groups waiting to take over popular grass-root movements, and turn it into a bloody pursuit of power.
* The Iranian student democracy movement in the 70s was a perfect example.
@Country First:
I remember my impression about the Iranian democratic movements at that time was that the Iranian people were eager to overthrow the regime of the dictatorial Shah, they hastily embraced Ayatollah Khomeini, only to discover that Ayatollah Khomeini was an absolute ruler! But it was too late…
For someone to claim to be a born US citizen, you sure couldn’t understand plain English could you jose sanchez? Like Sonny said, if you don’t get it you don’t get it so I’m not going wasting my like debate any issue with people like you. You only believe what you want to believe and only hear what you, want to hear, pretty much like the communist. You might want to consider joining them, you’d be a perfect candidate.
jose, get it in your thick head : Freedom is not a one way street, if Brian Doan want his right then so are the protesters. The main issue of this whole debate is not about right or wrong but it’s about should or shouldn’t, that’s the question!
Jung Kim, you know your father is too blinded by all the profit and money that he’s making by doing the business with the communists but too ashamed to admit that so he had to make up some excuses about you have to have an open mind , to forgive and forget about what happened in Viet Nam war.
I know he often told you that you shouldn’t have to care about anything just as long as you could make money & that’s all that really matter. So you could choose to listen to him or have a mind of your own and figure out the difference between right & wrong , to be moral or immoral is all up to you.
Jose s. and JK’s Dad,
The both of you are JK wannabes. Losers will always be losers.
I like JK because he call it like it is. Obviously, JK doesn’t think much of both of you.
Jose s. — you should not be spreading your “s” around this blog. It’s already polluted with you on it as it is.
It is increasingly obvious that the 1.7-2.0 generation of Vietnamese Americans hold quite different views from those of their parents.
It’s because they’re young & very naive. You coudn’t never understand what is a ” communist ” until you live under ” communism ” .
That’s very true. They can’t really understand about communism without enduring the hardship of living in Vietnam, especially between 1976 and 1985.
By the same token, as they’ve grown up, lived, and breathed the American air, they should understand a lot more about freedom and democracy. Apparently, Ms. Do was quite on target in her articulation about the freedom of expression that we all claim to understand but rarely do — especially when it is inconvenient.
It is so ironic that some of you claim to be expert of communist regime with only a few years living in communist Vietnam, and yet so ignorant about democracy after 30 years living in America.
“Using communist medicine to treat communism disease” is your motif operanti. The risk of you becoming another bigger communist is a real present danger.
Many of you ( older generations ) are so NAIVE about the democratic processes, so gullible for politics of private revenge and hatred, thus becoming easy BAITS for fanatical propoganda which provokes violence, not humanity.
Some of you only want to destroy, and yet offer no sollution to build a different future.
jose licka solorio will be always ……a low class individual.
Self incriminating puffy flat nose froggy.
jose licka solorio now believes all my friends and fans are me.
El loco ma ma mia sancho…… jose sancho is real idiot.
country first, please explain that? what do you mean by that?
Let me do one last try to explain Communists in a very simple everyday words for whoever wanna know and atleast feel communism.
Unlike America where Uncle Sam give us the Amendments and Rights and Rules and Laws and Regulations……and so on………Communists are a completely diferrent animal….Put it this way, are we trying to preach Democracy to Iragis right now?..And are we suscessful yet?..After several thousand dead soldiers and thirty thousands wounded plus countless lives maimed by the war later, you really think we are doing this world a favor of getting rid of that fool Saddam?..And you really think CNN s gonna broadcast the truth behind all this mess?…Dream on.
And Irag s not even half of what Communist s capable of, wanna see some obvious examples?…
Let s take our Veterant Michael Burr here for example….He can go back to Vietnam under the current Communist Goverment with no hassles at all, and everywhere he goes? No street police will bother him, no bribing for sure, all he sees are happy faces, smiles and fancy cars and motocycles….no cattle pulling carts or cyclos like back in the 60-70 when the US force was there…..So, he ofcourse saw how the country had progressed since 75?..His defending of Communists is very legit, see?….But that would be the total opposite if you are a Viet Tourist.
The same thing happen to this recent wave of younger, claimed themself educated, generation of Vietnamese-Americans standing up high and proud….thinking that the older generation are pretty much outdated, full of hatred, embracing the bitter past…blah blah blah….so they wanna play hero and started to shove the ideas of democracy down their elderly s throat?…Almost identical to US introducing Democracy to these nutcase Iragi bombers, it s not gonna happen.
But you ask what is my point right?…The point is that s what make Communist dangerous, so dangerous that even a very few extreme individuals in Irag willing to blow themself up will have no match to Communism agenda….They can convince even higher educated class, former combatants, even former enemy….. to joint their goal of robbing the poor innocent folks with a smile?..See how flexcible is their system compared to ours?…No need for the fricking Amendments to make them lawyers rich, no need for the complicated Law book and DAs, the law s determined by how you are related to their Goverment….very simple and effective right?…
They, the Commi filth like some refer to, know how to blend in the environment perfectly and will never show their true colour unless you ve been there and survived to tell………………most don t, but the real boat people do…..and we call those survived “protestors” now…
Final words?…Brian Doan never tastes Commi filth, so does Ms Do. And Mr Michael Burr.
Yah, sometimes a few years is all it takes Country First. For you to have said that we already how much you know about communism, so please spare us the mumble jumbo.
I don’t think any of us in this forum ” …. claim to understand about Freedom of Expression but rarely do – especially when it is inconvenient “, we all understood it cause we were not out there doing the protesting. Freedom of Expression could work both way : you could show me whatever you like and I have a right to say I don’t like it !
You do not have to agree with me. But when you try to suppress my right to voice my opinion, you’ve violated my right.
Many of you here do not seem to understand that Mr. Doan, Ms. Do, Mr. Burr are not defending or promoting communism, but rather they are celebrating what it means to be American. You just don’t get that. You don’t. So you keeping mumbling about how communists are bad.
Sonny T,
While sleeper cell commies you talk about are dangerous, their lifestyle here will neutralize their BS thinking. Take the hardcore Russian communist leaders when the USSR was dismanteling. Who sold out their country wholesale? The very high ranking SOBs! Now, you think this low level commies here (and I mean real commies, not the ones accused by the local scumbags) have the self discipline to carry forth their BS beliefs in this land of materialism.
If anything, they would abuse capitalism to create extreme wealth for themselves. These guys are not some super race, just opportunists.
If Brian Doan, Ms. Do & Micheal Burr are celebrating what is means to be American then what are we? Aren’t we also American ? So they could show us whatever they want because they’re American but we American couldn’t say we don’t like it? What kind of BS are you trying to sell ?
Agree with you Ted, and i think our FBI friends are ways smarters than us on that issue.
The idea of student exchange programs and all this embargo lifting and normalizing trades are for that hidden agenda….US are smart enough not to get in the middle of another Asian war, but rather see a Vietnam under US influence, our country s geological location are like a leverage for bigger world super powers to control and dominate each other….sad but truth.
And yes, the top Communists are what we re talking about here, those are criminals….We can only hope some day in the near future, a conflict within themself will bring their political party to it s knee.
But believe me, they don t just give up..there ll be bloodshed because of human greed, we can only hope for less civilians lives involved.
Yes M&M….I don t get that either, they tried to show others how to be Americans, but when they got some kind of reactions?..Bitching bitching bitching?…Why?..
I don t wanna sound like a crazy mofo, but i did say be4…Would you rather have a noisy protest, with flags and colors and bullhorns and national anthem singing and cops hovering around……i mean the fun stuff?..Or you want rock throwing, arsonist , and God forbid…a crazy suicidal bomber?…I honestly want the protest myself….Lighten up people.
This s America….The only place in the world where everybody, rich and poor, have a free front row ticket to a giant circuit?..Beat that?..
And for you my friend Champha, nobody s acusing Brian Doan, Ms Do and Mr Michael Burr communist…..we re just saying they might support the idea of Communism, might?..Accoding to their leans?..
You think it s easy to be a hard-core, disciplined Communist?..Think again my friend…You d be honored to be a Communist if you past their cruel life test, that including killing your own mom and dad and sibblings if asked for. Do you have balls to do that?….If you are lucky enough to have a friend who s a CIA, you might know what i meant…Remember, CIA, not any street police or supermarket security guards….Not all badges are equal.
” … as they’ve grown up, lived, and breathed the American air, they should understand a lot more about freedom and democracy. ” Well excuse me, but they can never understand the true meaning of freedom until their freedom got taken away so until then do not dare to say that they understand a lot more about freedom than any of us here in this forum.
while I agree with you on the crimes of communist regime in Vietnam, the main problem is :
President Bush’s pro-communist Vietnam :
John D. Negroponte, US Deputy Secretary of State, Recent trip to Vietnam in September 2008
>>> Vietnam NOW is better than the OLD Vietnam <<<
I was really struck by what I found in Vietnam: tremendous PROSPERITY, particularly in the south, although in the north as well; a great — no rancor, no animosity towards the United States, either towards our people or towards our government; and I think a great interest in increasing the interchanges between our two societies, at all different levels, especially the educational level. I cannot tell you how many people, both in the government and in the private sector, that I met who talked to me getting American universities or American courses to Vietnam. Many would like to have turnkey projects where major American universities would install themselves in one way or another. At a minimum, Vietnam wants U.S.-style curricula will become a part of the regular diet of the Vietnam education system. So I found this extraordinarily encouraging.
http://www.state.gov/s/d/2008/110567.htm
Mr. John D. Negroponte was the Director of National Intelligence, who speaks Vietnamese fluently.
He was the head of American Counterintelligence agency in Vietnam.
Country First,
Wait until you no longer serve their interest and see how they treat you, regardless if you are a Viet or not. Too bad the upper layer is thick with shite over in VN.
Ted Nguyen, thank you for such true statement !
Communist Victims (speaking to their children): Hey, you there. You gotta see my point of view, feel what I feel and believe what I believe!
The Children: Right back at ya!
Communist Victims: We are Vietnamese and I’m your elder, therefore you gotta respect me and do what I say!
The Children: Yeah, right! This is America, pals. You and me, we’re equals. My point of view is just as valid as your point of view.
Communist Victims: Haven’t you listened to what I said? WE ARE VIETNAMESE! My point of view supersedes your point of view.
The Children: No, YOU are Vietnamese. Me and my pals are Americans. If you don’t know what it means to be an American, you don’t deserve to live here. You deserve to be with the Communists.
Communist Victims: You ungrateful bastards!
American observer (rolling his eyes and mumbling): How the hell did those Communists get here?
@MM: “So they could show us whatever they want because they’re American but we American couldn’t say we don’t like it? What kind of BS are you trying to sell ?”
You’re the one who’s either trying to BS or has no idea what you are talking about. Noone disagreeing “the community” has tried to suppress their voice. On the other hand, “the community” has tried all things they can to suppress opposing voice and they succeeded to a certain extend.
@Sonny Tran: “nobody s acusing Brian Doan, Ms Do and Mr Michael Burr communist…..we re just saying they might support the idea of Communism, might?”
I wrote they “were not defending nor promoting communism”, and you counter-pointed with that? I don’t think you understand what I wrote. I also don’t think you know that people *have* called Mr. Doan a communist.
Brian Doan s not even closed to qualified to be a Communist, maybe an antenna ….just maybe. What does he gotta worry about people calling him a Commi if he is not?..I d be delighted to be called an ex-Russian KGB?..You know the fear on people s face when they think you are a KGB or Gestapo?..Priceless bud…..Priceless.
Attention all people who seek freedom in the USA. Enter the USA with your own risks! You are free from oppression by anyone, and your children will also be free from oppression by anyone! (Anyone includes communists, anti-communists, communist victims, refugees, former prisoners, you yourselves, everyone, all people, etc.,) You are welcome to stay. You are also welcome to leave. (For every 5 people who immigrated to the USA, there are 3 people who left the USA)
@champha, if you want to blame someone for suppress Brian’s voice then you can blame the organizers for that because they were the one who decided to close down the place. The protesters were only there doing the protesting which within their right, am I correct ? If you have time to go back & read all the comments that most of us here have posted regarding the issue then you will realize that you’re the one who have no idea what you’re talking about ! We weren’t disagree with the rights of Brian Doan, we were debating about whether he should or shouldn’t have done what he did. Let say if Michael Burr were wearing a shirt with a slogan saying like ” I’m an American & I have rights ” then nobody will argue with that because he didn’t provoke any body but if you wore a shirt that has an image that might provoke someone then somebody’s going to react. it’s simple as that !