May 18, 2004

 By Martin Wisckol
The Orange County Register

 When Democratic Party boss Frank Barbaro surveys an Orange County map, his gaze settles firmly on Little Saigon. Barbaro's Democrats control the predominantly Latino center of the county and Republicans reign almost everywhere else. But the growing Vietnamese-American electorate - once staunchly Republican - is up for grabs.

 "It is the one true political battleground in Orange County," said Barbaro, chairman of the county party. "It's pivotal in terms of one party or the other gaining ground."

 Already, Barbaro has established a Vietnamese outreach committee for the John Kerry campaign, complete with separate strategies for college campuses and for neighborhoods. His Republican counterpart, Scott Baugh, is also preparing an all-out wooing of the same electorate.

 No wonder.

 With 75,000 voters registered countywide, the Vietnamese community can determine the outcome of key elections. It helped ensure Garden Grove Councilman Van Tran's easy victory in his Assembly primary against a high-profile GOP opponent. Tran's anticipated win in November will make him the first Vietnamese-American state legislator.

The Vietnamese community makes up more than 40,000 of the 227,000 voters in the upcoming 1st District county supervisor's race, and movement is under way to establish a voting bloc that could determine whether Assemblyman Lou x Correa or Garden Grove Mayor Bruce Broadwater - both Democrats - becomes the next supervisor.

The three state legislators who represent most of Little Saigon each have Vietnamese-speaking aides who work in the area, which straddles Garden Grove and Westminster and is home to the county's highest concentration of those with Vietnamese blood. Long ignored by local government, the community now has two Vietnamese-American council members and one school board member.

And the community can now demand action from the officials. The most recent instance came last month, when both the Garden Grove and Westminster councils responded to community pressure by announcing plans to discourage visits by communist Vietnam's government and trade officials.

"People are starting to pay attention," Tran said.

"And in five or 10 years, I see the community even more engaged in the political process, with more voting power and with more of its own candidates ... from all political parties."

In the meantime, there is a growing political competition, Tran says, that can only benefit the community.

FLEEING THE GOP

Like most first-generation Vietnamese immigrants who gained citizenship after the 1975 fall of South Vietnam to communist North Vietnam, Tammy Tran's parents registered as Republicans. By 1992, there were 24,000 Vietnamese-American voters in Orange County, and 62 percent were Republican - three times the number for Democrats, according to Christian Collet's Pacific Opinions research group.

Many were attracted by the strong anti-Communist posture of the GOP and by Ronald Reagan's popularity. Tran - not related to Van Tran - said she first registered as a Republican, too, because of her parents' influence and because of Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton.

"I really respected his record supporting human rights in Vietnam," said Tran, 23.

But her outlook changed. She saw that Democrats were also anti-Communist. Her mother, who owned a pharmacy, complained about Republicans threatening to cut health programs that her customers needed. There was a stirring resentment in the community over a perceived anti-immigrant posture by Republicans, a perception that dates to 1994's Proposition 187 and its attempted ban on services for illegal immigrants.

 At the same time, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana, hired Xuan Vu, a woman well-known in Little Saigon who then helped many there with government-aid issues. Sanchez herself became active in the community and with issues relating to Vietnam.

 "She became a star in the community," said Tran, who re-registered as a Democrat and is now an aide herself - for Correa.

State Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Santa Ana, became popular in the district because of constituent outreach, and Bill Clinton was embraced thanks to a healthy economy and his support for social programs.

 "They felt like Uncle Clinton was on their side," said Lan Nguyen, a Garden Grove school board member and former Republican now unaffiliated with either party.

 By 2002, Republican registration among Vietnamese-Americans had dropped from 62 percent to 38 percent. Democrats were up to 32 percent, while independent voters were up to 26 percent.

"When you look at the parties, you don't see much difference," said Fountain Valley's Tri Tran, 25, an independent voter who works at EZ Lube. "One may say they're more for health care, but there's not really much difference. It's just party rhetoric."

 'SHOW US'

Party lines are highly permeable in Little Saigon. Party loyalty comes a distant second to loyalty to the community. Republican Van Tran teamed up with Democrat Chuyen Nguyen in the mid-1990s to form the Vietnamese American Voters Coalition, a nonpartisan effort to register and educate voters. In Van Tran's primary win, independent Lan Nguyen was among his top supporters.

"I don't think party affiliation means that much," said Janet Nguyen, an aide to GOP Assemblyman Ken Maddox, who represents part of Little Saigon. "Instead, the message from the community is, 'Show us. Come to the community. Get involved. We don't care what party you are.'."

 Van Tran and Lan Nguyen led a massive voter-registration effort in the months leading up to the primary. Working almost exclusively in Little Saigon, they signed up 4,200 new Republicans, including re-registering more than 1,000 Democrats who changed parties so they could vote for Tran. The drive reversed the trend away from the GOP, although Democratic boss Barbaro said it was a conscious decision by his party not to compete for voters in the primary because of Tran's huge popularity.

"We don't perceive those as true Republican votes and we intend to win them back," he said.

With Tran expected to coast to victory in November, he and Nguyen are focusing on the supervisorial race between two Democrats."The Vietnamese community will decide that race," said Tran in a rare display of braggadocio. He has not announced who he'll be backing, but many expect it'll be his colleague on the Garden Grove council, Broadwater, who is the underdog and has half the money of Correa.

In the meantime, both parties will be deepening their roots in the community.

"We can't just go in at election time - that's seen as insincere," said county GOP boss Baugh. "We need to be there all year long, year-in and year-out, participating in the community."