Giao Nguyen Speaks Up During Spanberger Visit to Eden Center
It's always refreshing when that one person is bold enough to speak up.
Following speeches by the Va. Democratic ticket at Falls Church's Eden Center June 27, one bold Vietnamese woman in the crowd and close to the stage, Giao "Genie" Nguyen, raised her hand to offer "advice" to the candidates, though the floor had not been opened for questions and the luminaries on stage were beginning to assemble for picture-taking.
As the final speaker in the event, Virginia 7th District U.S. Representative Abigail Spanberger (D), running to be Virginia's next Governor in the Nov. 4 statewide elections, happily took Nguyen's questions. But because Nguyen did not have a microphone and her questions were not repeated audibly, most of the audience could not hear their exchange.
The Falls Church Independent spoke with Nguyen following the event to hear about the concerns she raised and find out more about her thinking. While she lives in Prince George's County, she works at Eden Center.
While Nguyen's a strong supporter of the Democratic ticket of Abigail Spanberger, Ghazala Hashmi, and Jay Jones in the Nov. 4 statewide elections for Va. Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General, respectively, she wanted the Democrats to know that the Vietnamese community at Eden Center tend to be staunchly anti-communist since many had fled Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon and communist takeover 50 years ago. But, she was also adamant that the Trump administration's actions so far in the President's second term have soured many Vietnamese-Americans on the President's policies.
Asked what issues Nguyen had raised with Spanberger, she emphasized the "importance of democracy to the Vietnamese community."
"I would like to express myself to the hopefully elected Governor Spanberger, that today here at Eden Center, it was built up by Vietnamese-Americans who have spent 50 years in the United States, become citizens here – business owners at Eden Center – and contributed a lot to the economy here at Falls Church, Virginia," Nguyen said.
"And we would like to stress that we left Vietnam because we reject communism. We were fighting in search of freedom. No dictatorship. We are against communism and we wanted freedom, liberty, and justice for all. So, it’s very important, this year, especially in Virginia, because everything that Trump did was against the law, against immigrants, and he’s deported many Vietnamese-Americans already."
Many of the workers at Eden Center are fearful of [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ICE raids, Nguyen said. "The workers here are frightened, yes, because we [employ] Mexican-Americans and they might have come here originally, maybe without papers, but now they have papers to work, and they are documented. But the way that ICE detains them without any rhyme or reason."
ICE "didn’t even ask for papers and they detain and they deport them to third countries. This is important because Vietnamese-Americans have already been deported to El Salvador and Libya, and we have raised our voices. But, just yesterday the Supreme Court agreed to let Trump deport us to third countries – which is not right. And it’s unconstitutional."
"So, we feel that here in Virginia, the home of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, we would like our next Governor to honor the Constitution. And No Kings! That’s what George Washington established this country for – No Kings! And also Liberty and Justice for all!"
"So, the diversity is important. Trump is against diversity because he fired people who are not White. He fired the colored people. Many Vietnamese, when we came here, we did not know what to do. We had to go through education. And we worked for the government. And many of them were laid off because Trump is against DEI. And I think that’s very wrong, especially I think here in Falls Church where we suffer a lot of issues with DOGE and what Musk and Trump did by just letting go of all the people of color."
"So, you're wearing a Spanberger t-shirt?; Are you in full support of the Democratice ticket?," we asked.
"I just got a shirt today… Trump, last time was blaming the Democrats for communism. But that isn’t right. Because we Vietnamese know. We lived under the communists and we know how bad they are. Just a one-party monopoly of power with no rules of law and they just did whatever they wanted to us, just exactly like the way Trump is doing to our own people here in the U.S. So, we are devastated and afraid. We’re horrified."
"Now we see exactly what happened in Vietnam happening here, especially in the U.S. In California, many Vietnamese live in California. A good group of us. If you remember January 6, 2021, many Vietnamese-Americans came out to support Trump, because he [had] lied to us. He told us that the election was stolen. And that is important to us. We wanted a fair election. Trump said a big lie that the election is stolen. And that Biden, the quote-unquote “communist,” wanted to take over the White House by conquest. That is why many Vietnamese-Americans took his word and believed his lie."
"But many of them were detained. I don’t know if you remember one time there was a flag, a Vietnamese heritage flag that was flying at the Capitol? I don’t know if you saw that, but that made many of us Vietnamese-Americans feel very sad, because of the big lie that Trump put out that the people who love Vietnam love the U.S. for the values, had mistakenly believed Trump, and now the same thing is happening and he continues to lie. If you listen to him, days in and days out, he makes so many lies. And we feel bad."
Here's the article we published yesterday about the event:
Christopher Jones
By Christopher Jones
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