Just sixteen years ago, Tony Lam, a 56-year-old refugee from Vietnam became the first Vietnamese American elected to public office in the United States. At the time, Lam was the lone Vietnamese face in the world of American politics, a distinction he held for nearly a decade.
Now, his fellow Vietnamese Americans are transforming the Orange County. Here's an interesting Los Angeles Times on the growing influence of Vietnamese Americans in Orange County politics: Orange County's Vietnamese American political scene comes of age.
It's pretty incredible. There are now ten Vietnamese Americans from Orange County who have been elected to school boards, city councils, the county Board of Supervisors and the state Assembly. And last week, Westminster because the first city in the nation with a majority Vietnamese American city council. That's political muscle, and it's only growing.
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