All dressed up with this place to go

What happens when you accuse a Catholic priest of being a commie?

It’s what Nhon Ky Phan (Phan Kỳ Nhơn) is finding out, after he and Neil Nguyen accused certain media outlets of pushing the communist agenda.

It happened at a press conference on July 20, called by Phan and Nguyen. Both Phan and Nguyen are officers with one title or another at the Vietnamese-American Federation of Southern California.

The press conference was well attended by many community leaders, including (in T-shirt on the panel table) the UVSA‘s Billy Le.

Phan, Nguyen and others on the panel made accusations against “1 newspaper and 3 TV programmers” and claimed these outlets were fronting for “communist attacks” against “the community.” And they went on and on, but without identifying those media.

Which is problematic. How would “the community” counter the “communist attacks” if “the community” doesn’t know where they’re from?

So the press did the pressing. And when pressed, Neil Nguyen demurred, probably knowing what kind of trouble he’d get himself in. But Phan Ky Nhon was not hesitant. He named Viet Weekly and VBS-TV.

Well, oops. Now on the one hand VBS-TV’s programming is heavy on materials produced in Vietnam. But on the other hand VBS is run by a Catholic priest, and he knows his advantage.

And he made his stand known, by paying for full-page ads that say Nhon doesn’t know what he’s talking about — and threaten that VBS-TV’s lawyer is taking action. And since he runs a TV program, he got on TV and repeated what he said in the ads.

Nhon hasn’t responded to the priest. As to Neil Nguyen, who owes his position to the blessing of the Interfaith Council, he’s staying out of this one, probably thinking himself lucky he wasn’t the one answering that question.

Everybody else on that panel slinks away too, unwilling to side with Nhon to take on a priest.

To this day, by the way, nobody has named the other two supposed commie TV programmers.

The new leader of the organizing committee for the Tet Festival at has set a challenging goal for this coming fest: To break the $1million mark, on the cummulative amount of money the UVSA donates back to the community.

Phong Ly, the new President of the Union of Vietnamese Students Associations of Southern California, and the incoming Tet Chair, told the Bolsavik that he’s aiming to “make the Tet Festival so profitable that, after deducting other expenses, we can donate back to the community enough to break the $1 million mark, cummulatively.”

Including the 2009 Tet Festival, UVSA has donated in the neighborhood of $880,000 over 7 years, Tet Vice-Chair and UVSA Treasurer Tieu-Y Nguyen told the Bolsavik. To break the million-dollar mark means they would have to donate $120,000. Which means they would have to net a profit of $300,000.

That’s a tall order, considering that consumer confidence (and therefore propensity to spend) is still low, and after the 2009 festival (pic above, and more here) the group netted $206,466.99; and donated $73,233.50, according to Viet Bao here. The year before, they donated $106,000 (see here).

To break the $1 million cummulative mark, the UVSA would need a whopping 50% year-to-year increase. But then again, what’s life without a little challenge? Who knows, maybe they will.

Every year, of the profit from the Tet Festival, the UVSA sets aside $60,000 as seed money for the following Tet Festival, and then divide the remaining money in half. Half is donated to community groups, and the other half goes to support UVSA activities.

Last year, the UVSA won a unanimous vote by the Garden Grove City Council to renew the organization’s 5-year contract to hold the annual Tet Festival at Garden Grove Park. The park is located next door to Bolsa Grande High School, which has a majority Viet student concentration.

Above is Miss Vietnam of Southern California Valerie Pham Ngoc Quyen, crowned at a live pageant on closing night of UVSA’s Tet Festival, probably the biggest Viet event anywhere in the USA. (Photo from EthanNgoPhotography.com; go there for lots more Tet pictures.)

The Bolsavik was at the Tet Festival just enjoying himself. As he entered Garden Grove Park, this gentleman was just leaving. The photo is from the Daily Titan – CSUF’s student paper.

His name is Nguyen The Ngoc and he shows up at practically every public event. The Bolsavik once witnessed him following State Senator Lou Correa around with a big sign detailing all the reasons why he (Nguyen The Ngoc) supports Lou.

There were, of course, martial arts demonstrations and lion dances left and right. Here’s one, photo taken from the Facebook album of Mimi Le, a student activist.

The Phan Boi Chau Youth for Democracy (in Vietnamese: Đoàn Thanh niên Phan Bội Châu) set up an entire mini-village, in Vietnamese countryside style.

When the Bolsavik got there, they were having a pretend-wedding in traditional style. Late to the party, the Bolsavik was way out back in the crowd and never realized that the pretend-bride was Van Le, a PBC and VietACT activist. The pretend-groom was Viet Tran, also a student activist.

VietACT, if you don’t know, is a highly effective anti-human trafficking advocacy group. (Photo also from Mimi Le’s album.)

There’s also a pretend military camp.

It displays guns and ammos and booths selling mementos from the war. This area has its own stage where the Bolsavik caught this musical act of two little girls singing and dancing to the accompaniment of men in fatigues.

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The Bolsavik was hanging around near the main stage, watching community performers ranging from a rock band, a music school cleverly named TruongNhac.com (pics below), various performance groups, plus a karate school whose master Tom Vo teaches at two ends of Southern California: a dojo in Lake Elsinore and a class at UC Irvine.

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While there, the Bolsavik watched the coordinator Karen Lam keep making round trips back and forth between the stage and a gate. Apparently there was some glitch and the guest list never made it to the ticket checkers, so Lam had to personally escort the performers in. At something like 100 yards every 15 minutes or so, the Bolsavik was amazed that her heels (or her legs!) didn’t give in.

So, that was the UVSA Tet Festival. It’s a truism that no big event ever, never in the history of mankind, ever went off without a hitch, and this is no exception. But all in all, the UVSA Tet Festival has been consistently outperforming expectation year after year. Nice.

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The agreement for the Tet Festival for the next 5 years, between UVSA and the City of Garden Grove, went up for a vote before the City Council last night, and it passed unanimously.

Before the meeting, there were some rumors (including in comments on Bolsavik.com here) that back-room deals being worked to cut short the students’ renewed contract. They brought volunteers and activists to the meeting in force, to show widespread and massive support for the UVSA to get another 5 years of the Tet Festival. UVSA, short for Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California (Vietnamese: Tong Hoi Sinh Vien), is an umbrella organization of Vietnamese Student Associations at 12 Southern California colleges and universities, and another 20 Vietnamese Clubs at local high schools.

Among the standing-room only crowd at the meeting was Bao Mai (pictured left, in UVSA Tet Festival T-shirt, with Huy Nguyen, a reporter for Viet Bao), a hero of sort to the pro-democracy activists. Bao Mai had gone to Vietnam, walked up to the gates of the (very fortified) Saigon office of the Ministry of Security, and demanded to visit several political prisoners being held there. Mai was himself held for 48 hours then placed on a plane, kicked out of the country.

Vu Dinh and Phong Ly, the UVSA’s vice-presidents, spoke separately in support of renewing the contract for another 5 years. Linh Ho, a former UVSA officer, also spoke. Also addressing the council was Nick Lecong, one of supervisor Janet Nguyen‘s staffers who appeared as a private citizen.

Phong Ly (pictured top, at podium) then came back and asked for just 5 seconds to thank people who had come out in support. Mayor Bill Dalton ok’d it, but half way through Phong’s sentence Dalton interrupted and said, “Maybe you should wait until after we’ve voted.”

The contract renewal was one of the meeting’s consent items. That means the whole lot was supposedly uncontroversial and would be voted as a group unless some member of the council pulled something out.

The council members were so anxious to get the item discussed, Dalton and Councilwoman Dina Nguyen stepped all over each other pulling the UVSA contract.

After passing the other consent items, the council moved on to the UVSA contract and Bill Dalton spoke first, announcing his support for renewing the productive relationship with the UVSA for a full 5 years. Dina Nguyen and the other council members in turn spoke, all supporting the UVSA. (Read the staff report and the Bolsavik’s summary of the contract here.)

The motion to approve the contract passed 5-0. The room erupted in applause.

Dalton then called a recess, and the council members came out to mingle with the crowd. It’s not every day you get all these politically aware Vietnamese from all over the OC to come to your meeting.

That’s Phong Ly shaking hands with Dalton in the picture at right. Behind them is Councilman Mark Rosen. To the left is council candidate Robin Marcario talking to Dina Nguyen.

Does this action belie the rumors of sabotage? Or does it mean the smarter faction on the council prevailed and the UVSA successfully beat back the would-be saboteurs? Make your own conclusion based on everything you know.

Either way, the UVSA — the only group that has run the Tet Festival with full transparency and who has donated $806,000 to charities over five years — will continue to run the Tet Festival for the next five years.

The negotiations have been completed, the UVSA — Union of Vietnamese Student Associations; Vietnamese: Tong Hoi Sinh Vien – has signed the contract, the City Attorney has approved it as to form. Now it takes approval by the city council for the contract to go into effect. The item is on the agenda for tonight’s meeting at 6:30pm.

The staff report is very favorable and recommends that the city approve the contract. Click here to read.

It is the Bolsavik’s understanding that the new contract is similar to the previous contract and unchanged in the main points, which are:

* The city allows UVSA to run the annual Tet Festival to celebrate the Lunar New Year for the next 5 years, from 2009 to 2013.

* UVSA to reimburse the city in full for all direct expenses. When the previous contract first began, UVSA only had to reimburse 1/4 of the city’s expenses in the first year, and 1/2 of the city’s expenses in subsequent years. In 2005, with the Tet Festival being a resounding success, however, the contract was amended to provide that the UVSA reimburse the city in full.

* UVSA to donate 50% of its net proceeds to the community.

* As has been the case since 2004, Tet Festival’s finances will be audited by a CPA firm selected by the City and paid for by the UVSA.

The UVSA is an umbrella organization for the VSA’s at the colleges and universities in Southern California.

The UVSA’s success breeds detractors. Jealous “leaders” of the community tried to paint the UVSA as not actively helping out with their protests. The UVSA’s press release now features a yellow band with three red stripes.

Anyway, so every year the UVSA — which is an umbrella organization of the Vietnam Student Associations at colleges and universities in Southern California — organizes the Tet Festival in Garden Grove, and then donates back 50% of all its profit.

The UVSA has a 5-year contract with the City of Garden Grove which expired with the Year of the Rat 2008′s festival in February.

This year, according to a press release put out by the UVSA, they donated $106,000. Over the five-year life of the contract, the UVSA has donated more than $800k.

For the list of all recipients of grants from UVSA since 2004, click here for the PDF. If you’re familiar with the names in Little Saigon, you’ll see that it represents a pretty good cross-section of community groups in Little Saigon, from old-time military groups to service organizations.

Here’s the text of the press release:

UVSA GIVES BACK $106,000 TO COMMUNITY

Garden Grove, CA – Today, the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California (UVSA) announces the recipients of “UVSA Tet Festival 2008 Community Assistance Fund.”  A total of $106,000 was given out to 96 community organizations throughout Southern California (see list attached).

Since 1982, UVSA has been organizing the Tet Festival in Little Saigon, providing an opportunity for the Vietnamese American community in Southern California to celebrate the Vietnamese Lunar New Year.  In 2002, UVSA established a Community Assistance Fund whereas 50% of the net proceeds from each year’s Tet Festival would go back to the community by means of grants.  All non-profit, non-political organizations are eligible to apply for this grant, with priority given to organizations which serve communities in Little Saigon and throughout Southern California.  From 2002-2008, UVSA has given back more than $806,000.

Each year, the Tet Festival draws in about 100,000 visitors throughout California and the United States with more than 300 vendor and sponsor booths.  More importantly, the festival emphasizes on promoting Vietnamese culture and tradition with special features such as Vietnamese cultural village, traditional royal court procession, Vietnamese wedding, and cultural performances.  Over the course of six months, more than 200 volunteers and 30 community organizations came together to put on this 3-day event that has truly become a community festival.

For many years, the Vietnamese American community has been discussing about the need for a community center in Little Saigon.  This year, in addition to allocating 50% of net proceeds from the Tet Festival to the Community Assistance Fund, UVSA has decided to donate $30,000 from its own operational budget as seed money to go toward the funding for this community center. 

Since 2002, UVSA has been hosting Tet Festival at Garden Grove Park and the current 5-year contract between UVSA and the City of Garden Grove has expired with Tet Festival 2008.  UVSA has entered into the process of renewing the contract with the City of Garden Grove and we hope to have the continued support of the city and the community.

As a non-profit, non-partisan, community-based organization, UVSA was founded in 1982 as a mean for youths to organize socially and politically within the local community.  UVSA exists to advocate for the educational, social, political, and cultural welfare of the Vietnamese American community.  Currently, UVSA represents VSAs from 13 universities and 20 high schools throughout Southern California.  For more information, visit our website at www.UVSA.org.