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By Brian Hews
Publisher | Follow X
March 16, 2026
Rep. Derek Tran is publicly condemning the City of Anaheim for hosting an event featuring senior officials from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, calling the move a betrayal of Orange County’s deeply rooted Vietnamese refugee community and a painful reminder of the trauma many families still carry five decades after fleeing communist rule.
In a strongly worded statement, Tran said he was “profoundly disappointed” that Anaheim would provide a platform for representatives of what he described as the “dictatorial communist government of Vietnam” during the Vietnam-U.S. Innovation and Investment Forum.
The controversy hits especially hard in Orange County, home to the largest Vietnamese diaspora community in the world and thousands of former refugees, political prisoners, and families who escaped Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. Tran said many in Anaheim and surrounding cities survived re-education camps, imprisonment, political persecution, and violence before rebuilding their lives in the United States.
“To celebrate this regime in our own backyard is an affront to those who lost family members at its hands and risked everything to escape,” Tran said.
Tran framed the issue not as a routine diplomatic disagreement, but as a deeply personal and emotional wound for a community that still bears the scars of communist repression. He said the presence of Vietnamese officials in Anaheim sends the wrong message to families whose lives were shattered by the regime and who came to Orange County in search of freedom and democracy.
He also accused the government in Hanoi of continuing to suppress dissent, imprison journalists, and silence free expression, arguing that welcoming its officials undermines the democratic values that helped Vietnamese Americans flourish in the United States.
Tran said he relayed his concerns directly to Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken and told city leaders that the event has triggered “profound disappointment” throughout the Vietnamese American community. He said that community stands united in opposing any effort to legitimize what he called a repressive communist government.
The statement adds political heat to what might otherwise have been billed as an economic or investment-focused forum. Instead, Tran’s response turned it into a flashpoint over memory, exile, human rights, and whether local governments should offer ceremonial or civic legitimacy to representatives of regimes many residents view not as partners, but as former oppressors.
Tran has taken a similar position before. His office noted that he previously denounced diplomatic engagement involving the Vietnamese government after U.S. Consul General Susan Burns participated in a 2025 commemoration related to the fall of Saigon, a date that remains emotionally charged for Vietnamese refugees and their descendants.
For many in Little Saigon and beyond, the issue is not merely international policy. It is family history. It is prison camps, boat escapes, missing relatives, and a lifetime spent trying to recover from what was lost. Tran’s statement makes clear that, in his view, Anaheim’s decision ignored that history and reopened wounds that never fully healed.
The city has not publicly signaled any retreat from the event, but Tran’s remarks are likely to intensify scrutiny from Vietnamese American residents, activists, and elected officials across Orange County.
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