By Anh Do, Los Angeles Times
Hieu Nguyen, right, a founding member of the gay rights group Viet Rainbow of Orange County, speaks with Garden Grove Mayor Pro Tem Dina Nguyen during a break in a City Council meeting in September. Hieu’s group has emerged as a militant front and a platform for educating immigrants in Little Saigon, a community that rigidly clings to tradition. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times / September 10, 2013)
Hieu Nguyen and fellow protesters stood on the sidewalk holding signs and waving an enormous rainbow flag as the traditional Vietnamese parade passed them by.
Barred from the Lunar New Year’s event — and largely ignored in their own community — members of the fledgling gay rights group decided it was time to stop playing nice.
They took training sessions with established LGBT groups, sought out legal strategy from veteran gay rights defenders Lambda Legal and attended workshops.
Now emboldened activists are flexing their muscles and demanding change in Little Saigon, a sprawling immigrant community that has dragged its feet on coming to terms with basic gay rights issues.
“This is not the Rosa Parks era,” said Nguyen, a Garden Grove social worker. “I’m not sitting at the back of the bus anymore.”
The newly formed Viet Rainbow has emerged as a militant front and a platform for educating immigrants in a community that rigidly clings to tradition.
There is a chapter for parents. There is a scholarship for LGBT students. And there is a resolve to march in the upcoming annual Tet parade.
When organizers of the colorful celebration, which winds along the main boulevard in Little Saigon, put Viet Rainbow on notice that LGBT individuals would also be barred from the Feb. 2, 2014, parade, supporters warned that their exclusion this time would come at a price.
Peter Renn, an attorney at Lambda Legal, which has spent decades fighting for LGBT causes, said banning the group could be a financial bloodletting for organizers once gay rights leaders put pressure on sponsors.
“This issue isn’t going to go away. Organizers will be called out. They will hear the demands — there’s no way to avoid it,” Renn said.
“This blatant act of discrimination will not be left unchallenged,” added Wilson Cruz, spokesman for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “If Tet parade leaders want to truly celebrate this day, they must do so by acknowledging and celebrating with the entire community.”
Still, it may be an uphill struggle.
Some leaders in Little Saigon, which stretches across central Orange County and is the largest Vietnamese American community in the nation, suggested that some immigrants are not ready to welcome LGBT men and women, especially when they openly show affection.
Read the full story by Anh Do from Los Angeles Times.
