By Jocelyn Wiener -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, September 21, 2003
Allen Hoang almost drowned in 1981 at the age of 9 when a 30-foot wooden sailboat carrying him and 31 other refugees hit a rock during their escape from Vietnam. And so, on Friday night, he celebrated his freedom.
Dinh Nguyen spent 8 1/2 years in a communist prison after the fall of Saigon. Every morning, he awoke to see the flag flying overhead.
"Even though we don't like the communist flag, we have no choice," said Nguyen, 60. "Every morning they forced us to salute the flag. We hate it, but if we do differently, they kill us, you know."
On Friday night he also celebrated his freedom.
More than 1,000 people gathered in the parking lot of Pacific Plaza, a south Sacramento mall, to sing, dance, eat and applaud the City Council's recent resolution to adopt the "freedom and heritage" flag as the official symbol of the Vietnamese American community in Sacramento.
"I'm very happy. I'm very proud," Nguyen said.
On July 30, Sacramento became the 11th city in the nation to pass a resolution recognizing the freedom flag -- yellow with three red stripes as opposed to the communist regime's red with a yellow star -- as the flag to be flown at city functions involving the Vietnamese American community.
The freedom flag was first flown in Vietnam in the 1940s, when the country fought for and won its independence from France. "It represents our resiliency in fighting off foreign domination for many centuries," Hoang, 31, said. "We could have been wiped out, but we survived and persisted. It represents our desire for freedom, equality and independence as well."
Music poured from a decorated stage during Friday's ceremony. Balloons spelled out "VIETNAM" in gold letters. Children and men in camouflage fatigues waved paper flags, yellow and red as well as red, white, and blue.
"Having visited Vietnam in '96, I understood the importance of the flag to the Vietnamese community," said Councilman Dave Jones, who worked closely with a committee of Vietnamese American community leaders to pass the resolution. "I was impressed by the country's natural beauty and culture and potential, but I was saddened to see a government that was standing in the way of the Vietnamese community's ability to realize that potential," Jones said.
"(The City Council's) issuance of this resolution reflects our community support for the aspirations of the Vietnamese community for freedom and democracy."
Jones said his office had received more than a thousand letters in support of the resolution and no letters in opposition. The resolution's text estimates that some 40,000 Vietnamese Americans live in and around Sacramento.
Fifteen members of Vietnam Veterans of America, Sacramento Valley Chapter 500, attended the celebration.
"We ... invited them to come," Hoang said. "We wanted to recognize their sacrifices to defend Vietnam's freedom. We want the young people to understand that."
George McNeill, 53, president of the group, went to Vietnam when he was 19.
"The important thing is that we were proud to help people who were fighting for freedom and independence against tyranny," he said. "Accepting the flag as being a representation of their community is our way of accepting their community into our American community."
Westminster, Garden Grove, Milpitas, Pomona and San Jose all have passed similar resolutions.
San Francisco vetoed one such measure in late July.
"Recognizing a country's flag or something like that gets you dangerously close to foreign policy, something that I don't think a municipal legislature should be doing," Matt Gonzalez, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, told the San Francisco Chronicle at that time.
Dzung Vu, a spokesman for the Vietnamese Consulate, told the Chronicle that the San Francisco resolution was the work of "some very bad Vietnamese here. They want to make divisions between people here and in Vietnam. They want to revive the past."
John Dzuong Nguyen, 56, of Elk Grove chaired Sacramento's committee. He said he believed the San Francisco veto was related to the fact that the Vietnamese Consulate is located in that city, and that San Francisco has a sister city relationship with Ho Chi Minh City (the former Saigon).
Nguyen served in the South Vietnamese air force for six years until he was imprisoned in a communist re-education camp in 1975. He said he was tortured there until he escaped to Thailand in 1980.
"Whenever we see something like (the communist flag), it's a painful experience," he said. "We've been tortured in the re-education camps. All the bad, painful feelings will come back. That will probably never go till we die.
"The freedom flag truly represents the freedom and the democracy that we've been fighting for."
Nga Tran, 68, fought in the South Vietnamese army for 13 years. He, too, was imprisoned after the fall of Saigon. From 1975 to 1985, he said, he lived in a communist prison camp, working hard and eating nothing but cassava, a starchy root. In his first three years there, he lost 44 pounds.
On Friday night, he feasted on chicken and beef.
"It's a delicious food," he smiled. "I feel very, very, very happy in my heart."
Vietnam freedom flag
The "freedom and heritage flag" was first flown in Vietnam in the 1940s, when the country fought for and won its freedom from France. Sacramento has adopted it as the official flag for the Vietnamese community in the city.