[Special Issue on SEA Demographics] Response - Community Development

Response to Mark E. Pfeifer\u27s featured article

A Special Tribute to Anne Frank of the Southeast Asian Archive at the University of California, Irvine

Special tributes in honor of Anne Frank for her service to the field through the Southeast Asian Archive at UC, Irvine

“Whose School District is this?”: Vietnamese Americans and Coalitional Politics in Orange County, California

This essay discusses important lessons for community organizing based on the efforts by the Vietnamese American community in Orange County to have their voices heard in the decision-making process at the school district level. I document their struggle to reinstate Dr. KimOanh Nguyen-Lam, an experienced educator who is fluent in English, Vietnamese, Spanish, and French, as Superintendent of the Westminster School District (WSD) when her job offer was retracted without justification by the school board one week after she was hired. In this majority-minority school district, with Latinos at 38% and Asian Americans at 37%, she would have been the first Vietnamese American Superintendent of a public school in the country. I examine how community leaders organized multi-ethnic and -racial coalitions, engaged in collective protest, and focused their activities on electoral politics. The conflict revolves around which teachers are hired and promoted and who controls the content of the curriculum; yet ultimately, the Nguyen-Lam controversy represents the struggle over the allocation of public school resources and political power in a racially diverse school district. Key lessons can be learned from these events, especially the challenges of building coalitions within the Vietnamese community and creating multiracial alliances with the Latino community, which can inform future coalition efforts by refugee and immigrant populations

[Special Issue on SEA Demographics] Response - Community Development

Response to Mark E. Pfeifer's featured article

A Special Tribute to Anne Frank of the Southeast Asian Archive at the University of California, Irvine

Special tributes in honor of Anne Frank for her service to the field through the Southeast Asian Archive at UC, Irvine