V Is for LGBT Viets: Hieu Nguyen and Joee Truong

From Charles Lam, OC Weekly

Hieu Nguyen and Joee Truong have barely known each other for a year, but they act as if they’ve grown up together. Sitting side by side at a table and surrounded by bánh cánh and bún bò Hue, they deftly finish each other’s sentences and anecdotes about how they came to run the Vietnamese Rainbow of Orange County (VROC), eyes gleaming and mouths smiling in unison.

Hieu Nguyen and Joee Truong, VROC co-chairs. Photo by Rickett & Sones.

The two 29-year-olds—Nguyen is a social worker, and Truong a nurse—are VROC’s co-chairs, and together, with the help of the other seven members of the board, they’re ushering in a new age of Vietnamese LGBTQ reality.

“The Vietnamese culture is really into saving face,” says Nguyen, slightly smiling. “You’re not really supposed to talk about these sort of things. My mother always asks me, ‘Why are you so out?'”

VROC first came into prominence thanks to the 2013 Westminster Tet Parade. After finding out that organizers planned to bar LGBTQ groups from marching, several like-minded individuals banded together to fight for inclusion, Nguyen—who immigrated from Hue to Garden Grove—and Truong—Saigon to LA—among them. After the 2013 parade passed, multiple members dropped out of the group, burnt out by the whirlwind of unexpected visibility and advocacy that had consumed their lives in only a few short weeks. The two stayed on and helped form the core of the new board of directors. They went to work almost immediately, going through basic community-organization training in March, barely a month after the parade.

“In July, we went to Hawaii to do intensive leadership and community-organization training,” says Truong. “It was like we were working, going 8 to 5 each day, and it was worth it.”

Read the full article by Charles Lam from OC Weekly.