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A Vietnamese-American captain in the San Jose Police Department has been named one of the four deputy chiefs, reports the Mercury News here.

The promotion of Captain Phan Ngo, who received his golden captain’s bars just last year, is particularly timely given the severely strained relations between the police and the Viet community over allegations of brutality and the perception of coverups in those cases.

In fact, Captain Ngo, 43, will be the only nonwhite member of the department’s top command staff - which will, however, remain all male. He will be the head of the Bureau of Technical Services,  overseeing such areas as dispatch, communication, fingerprints, records, and the IT people, among other things.

A long drawn-out controversy over the shooting death of mentally ill Daniel Pham, and the still ongoing lawsuit over the beating of San Jose State math student Phuong Ho, have made the normally tolerant Viet community vocally distrustful of the police. (When the Bolsavik first reported the Phuong Ho story for Nguoi Viet Daily News, numerous SJ residents, ranging the gamut of age, gender and political views, gave highly negative comments about the police. The Bolsavik ended up publishing only a couple of them.)

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The only Viet to ever play or coach in the NFL will not come back as part of the Dallas Cowboys’ coaching staff next season, reports the Dallas Morning News here.

Dat Nguyen has elected not to sign a contract extension after serving as the team’s assistant linebacker/defensive assistant from 2007-2009.

He was not in Fort Lauderdale as the team was getting ready for the Pro Bowl on Sunday. Earlier in the day, the team’s owner Jerry Johnson had offered all assistants the same extension to 2011 that he had agreed with head coach Wade Phillips.

In a later story here, the Morning News reports that Nguyen left to find an opportunity to move up to linebacker coach.  The paper quotes coach Phillips: “He just felt like he couldn’t move up the way he wanted to with us. He wants to coach linebackers himself.”

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The Archdiocese of Toronto’s newest auxilliary bishop, who will also be Canada’s first Asian-descent and youngest bishop, Vietnamese-born Vincent Nguyen, will be ordained in a ceremony to be streamed live here.

Pope Benedict XVI elevated Father Nguyen, 43, whose Vietnamese name is Nguyễn Mạnh Hiếu, to the episcopal rank in November of last year (read here). He was made bishop after only 12 years as a priest, an advancement considered speedy in the Catholic hierarchy.

Fr. Vincent, who came to Canada when he was 18, is currently the Chancellor of Spiritual Affairs and Moderator of the Curia, according to a press release by the Archdiocese of Toronto here. He once was in charge of the Vietnamese Catholics in Toronto, at the Vietnamese Martyrs Mission of Toronto.

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The U.S. Senate by a vote of 97-0 today unanimously confirmed Judge Jacqueline Nguyen to the U.S. District Court, making her the first Vietnamese-American federal judge.

Judge Nguyen’s confirmation vote came up shortly after noon today, here.

She previously received also unanimous approval by the Judiciary Committee, see here.

On the floor, Senator Diane Feinstein made the following statement:

“Judge Nguyen is a tested judge with a track record of success as both a judge and a federal prosecutor.

“Judge Nguyen was born in South Vietnam. She came to this country at the age of 10 during the final days of the Vietnam War. The Nguyens spent several months living at a refugee camp in Camp Pendleton, San Diego before moving to the La Crescenta neighborhood of Los Angeles.

“She was naturalized in 1984.

“Judge Nguyen’s parents worked two and three jobs at a time in Los Angeles, and Judge Nguyen and her siblings worked side-by-side with them — cleaning a dental office, peeling and cutting apples for a pie company, and finally managing the donut shop that their parents bought and owned. ”

A native of Dalat, Vietnam and a daughter of a South Vietnamese colonel, Judge Nguyen came to the U.S. in 1975 when communist forces overran the country. She was graduated from Occidental College in L.A. - the same school where the President spent his freshman year before transferring to Columbia. (Young Obama had left just when young Nguyen arrived.) After Oxy, Jacqueline Nguyen went to UCLA Law.

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A 13-year-old Vietnamese-American music student won a trip to Japan to perform his composition, reports the Arizona Republic here.

Christian Nguyen (pictured), from Gilbert, Arizona, was chosen to be one of 13 performers from the world over to join the International Junior Original Concert.

His composition “Dragon Keeper” was a winner chosen from among 35,000 entries from Yamaha Music Schools in 41 countries.

On Saturday, Nguyen performed his composition with Phoenix Symphony Orchestra member Michael D’Avanzo on the cello and Arizona State University music professor J.B. Smith on the marimba.

In the audience were his parents Andy Nguyen and Vienchi Tran, his 3-year-old sister Courtney, and Heidi Grimes, one of his teachers at East Valley Yamaha Music School in Chandler.

“I was so stunned, I didn’t even, like, feel anything. As November came close, I became more and more excited and happy,” said Christian, on the eve of his trip to Tokyo.

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The largest academic building on George Mason University’s Fairfax campus will carry the name “Long and Kimmy Nguyen Engineering Building,” after the businessman and his wife, who donated $5 million to the university, the Washington Business Journal reports here.

Dr. Long Nguyen is the founder and CEO of Pragmatics based in McLean, Virginia, a leading information technology solutions provider with more than 500 employees.

The 180,000-square-foot building formally opened this fall. It is also the university’s first LEED-certified green building.

Dr. Nguyen currently serves on GMU’s Board of Visitors. He actually did not go to school or teach there at all. Dr. Long Nguyen came to the U.S. as an exchange student in 1960, received his B.A. in physics from North Carolina State University, his M.A. also in physics from the University of Virginia, and his Ph.D. in computer at Iowa State University, according to the bio posted on his company’s web site.

The GMU Board of Visitors’ web site says that Dr. Nguyen has taught as professor in computer science at Georgetown, Indiana, and the Bolsavik’s alma mater, Purdue.

Dr. Nguyen is noted as a “frequent giver” in the Greater D.C. area. He has established 9/11 and Katrina relief funds, and funded endowed chairs at Iowa State University and at George Mason University.

He once hosted a dinner for 80 wounded soldiers, and gave phone cards to the patients at the Walter Reed Army Hospital.

In 2008, Dr. Nguyen was named one of Washington Business Journal’s 2008 Minority Business Leaders.

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(Photo by Chitose Suzuki, AP)

When the USS Lassen made its official port call to Da Nang, Vietnam, earlier today, it marked the first time that a Vietnamese-American U.S. warship commander came back on Vietnamese shore.

Cmdr. Hung Le (in Vietnamese: Lê Bá Hùng) was just 5 years old when communist forces overran South Vietnam. The commander’s father, himself an officer in the South Vietnamese navy, took his family on a boat and headed out to sea. They were picked up by the USS Barbour County, a tank landing ship of approximately the same size as the destroyer Cmdr. Le now helms.

Cmdr. Le is a native of Huế in central Vietnam. A friend of the family told the Bolsavik that the commander’s grandfather was Lê Bá Hà, ward chief of Phú Cát in the city. The family friend confirmed that the commander comes from the city’s illustrious ”Lê Bá” family.

A few hours before entering Vietnam, Cmdr. Le corresponded by email with a reporter of Nguoi Viet Daily News. (No, not the Bolsavik.) The interview is published here, in Vietnamese.

Some excerpts:

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A Vietnamese-Canadian priest in the Archdiocese of Toronto has been named Auxilliary Bishop of that same archdiocese by Pope Benedict XVI, announced the Vatican in its daily newsletter here.

Fr. Vincent Nguyen (Vietnamese name: Nguyễn Mạnh Hiếu) was one of two priests appointed for Toronto. The Vatican newsletter announced that the Pope appointed “Fr. Vincent Nguyen of the clergy of the archdiocese of Toronto, Canada, adjunct judicial vicar and vice chancellor, and Fr. William Terrence McGrattan of the clergy of the diocese of London, Canada, rector of the Saint Peter major seminary, as auxiliaries of the archdiocese of Toronto.”

Fr. Vincent, who came to Canada when he was 18, is currently the Chancellor of Spiritual Affairs and Moderator of the Curia, according to a press release by the Archdiocese of Toronto here. He once was in charge of the Vietnamese Catholics in Toronto, at the Vietnamese Martyrs Mission of Toronto.

The press release quotes Fr. Vincent as saying:

“I am humbled to have been asked by the Holy Father to serve the people of the Archdiocese of Toronto as Auxiliary Bishop. To the faithful of the Archdiocese, please pray for me as I embark upon this new ministry as I will pray for you. I will do all I can to assist Archbishop [Thomas] Collins as we strive to strengthen and nurture the diverse faith community of the Archdiocese.”

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A Viet long-time Superior Court judge is only one step away from becoming the first Vietnamese-American federal judge, having been reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to its web site here.

In the video webcast here, the unanimous vote on Judge Nguyen occurs at 29:00 to 29:25.

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The film that won the Audience Choice Award at the Vietnamese International Film Festival, a documentary about former orphans airlifted out of Vietnam at the end of the war, is coming to a film festival near you.

After the success at ViFF and at several other festivals including the director’s home town of Dallas, the film “Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam” is coming to the San Diego Asian Film Festival. (Click here for tickets.) Director Tammy Nguyen Lee will be in attendance at the screening at 2:00 pm on Saturday October 24.

The director (pictured right) is a graduate of SMU’s Meadows School with a B.A. with honors in Cinema, and also a Bruin, having graduated from UCLA’s Producers Program with an MFA. She is also, get this, a former Miss Asian American Texas 1999-2000.

In a recent interview with the Bolsavik, Tammy Nguyen Lee says of audiences’ reactions, “People, many who weren’t even aware of this historic event, are inspired by the courage of the Babylift volunteers and moved by the struggle of the adoptees. No matter the age, no matter the race, this is a relatable story that has universal themes and is touching lives and hearts everywhere.”

(The interview will be published on Nguoi Viet. You just got a preview ahead of everyone else. Lucky you.)

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