Little Saigon | |
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    | |
  Little Saigon Location within San Jose | |
| Coordinates: 37°19′55″N121°51′26″W / 37.3318833°N 121.8573377°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | Santa Clara |
| City | San Jose |
Little Saigon is a neighborhood of San Jose, California, located in East San Jose. It is a hub for Silicon Valley's Vietnamese community and one of the largest Little Saigons in the world, [1] as San Jose has more Vietnamese residents than any city outside of Vietnam. [2]
The epicenter of the Vietnamese-American community of San Jose, however, is on Story Road. home to the popular Grand Century Mall and Vietnam Town (both shopping malls are owned by Chinese-Vietnamese real estate developer Lap Tang) and is officially designated by the San Jose City Council as "Little Saigon". [1] [3]
Lee's Sandwiches, (a Vietnamese banh mi sandwich chain eatery) as well as the phở chain, Pho Hoa Restaurant, had their first locations here in San Jose. [1]
In 2007, the Little Saigon district was officially created and recognized by the City of San José. [4] The city council's initial refusal to name the district Little Saigon prompted protests and a hunger strike at San Jose City Hall by Lý Tống . [5]
In 2021, as part of the Stop Asian Hate campaign, the San Jose Police Department increased patrols through the neighborhood, after a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. [6]
Comprising over 180,000 residents, about 10.6% of the population, (as of the 2010 U.S. Census), San Jose has more Vietnamese residents than any single city outside of Vietnam. [2]
The Vietnamese community of San Jose has been politically divided over the naming of the business district, with various groups favoring "Little Saigon", "New Saigon", and "Vietnamese Business District". [7] Non-Vietnamese businesses and residents, as well as the San Jose Hispanic Chamber of Commerce have also opposed the name "Little Saigon".
In November 2007, the San Jose City Council voted 8–3 to choose the compromise name "Saigon Business District", resulting in ongoing protest, debate, and an effort to recall city council member Madison Nguyen, who proposed the name "Saigon Business District". [8] On March 4, 2008, after a public meeting in which more than 1000 "Little Saigon" supporters participated, the city council voted 11–1 to rescind the name "Saigon Business District", but stopped short of renaming it.
Little Saigon is the site of celebrations every year for the Tết (Vietnamese New Year) festival. [9]
An intercity bus service named Xe Đò Hoàng connects the Little Saigon in San Jose to the one in Orange County and various other cities in California and Arizona with high concentration of Vietnamese Americans. [10]
Little Saigon is located in East San Jose. [3] It is bound by the Junípero Serra Freeway (CA 280) to the north, Senter Road to the west, and the Bayshore Freeway (US 101) to the east. Its southern boundary is roughly Owsley Avenue.
The primary thoroughfare through Little Saigon is Story Road.
Ho Chi Minh City, commonly and formerly officially known as Saigon, is the largest city in Vietnam, situated in the south. In the southeastern region, the city surrounds the Saigon River and covers about 2,061 square kilometres.
Westminster is a city in northern Orange County, California known for its many Vietnamese refugees who immigrated to the city during the 1980s. They settled largely in Little Saigon, and the city is known as the "capital" of overseas Vietnamese with 36,058 Vietnamese Americans and at 40.2% (2010), the highest municipal prevalence of Vietnamese Americans. Westminster was founded in 1870 by Rev. Lemuel Webber as a Presbyterian temperance colony and was incorporated in 1957.
The Chinatown–International District of Seattle, Washington is the center of Seattle's Asian American community. Within the Chinatown International District are the three neighborhoods known as Seattle's Chinatown, Japantown and Little Saigon, named for the concentration of businesses owned by people of Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese descent, respectively. The geographic area also once included Seattle's Manilatown. The name Chinatown/International District was established by City Ordinance 119297 in 1999 as a result of the three neighborhoods' work and consensus on the Seattle Chinatown International District Urban Village Strategic Plan submitted to the City Council in December 1998. Like many other areas of Seattle, the neighborhood is multiethnic, but the majority of its residents are of Chinese ethnicity. It is one of eight historic neighborhoods recognized by the City of Seattle. CID has a mix of residences and businesses and is a tourist attraction for its ethnic Asian businesses and landmarks.
Little Saigon is a name given to ethnic enclaves of expatriate Vietnamese mainly in English-speaking countries. Alternate names include Little Vietnam and Little Hanoi, depending on the enclave's political history, sometimes to avoid political problems it is called by the neutral name Vietnamtown. Saigon is the former name of the capital of the former South Vietnam, where a large number of first-generation Vietnamese immigrants arriving to the United States originate, whereas Hanoi is the current capital of Vietnam.
The Mercury News is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidiary of Digital First Media. As of March 2013, it was the fifth largest daily newspaper in the United States, with a daily circulation of 611,194. As of 2018, the paper has a circulation of 324,500 daily and 415,200 on Sundays. As of 2021, this further declined. The Bay Area News Group no longer reports its circulation, but rather "readership". For 2021, they reported a "readership" of 312,700 adults daily.
Eden Center is a Vietnamese American strip mall located near the crossroads of Seven Corners in the City of Falls Church, Virginia. Eden Center is the largest Vietnamese commercial center on the East Coast, and the largest Asian-themed mall on the east coast of North America. The city's Economic Development commission considers it the city's top tourist destination. The center is home to more than 120 shops, restaurants and businesses catering extensively to the Asian American, especially the Vietnamese-American, population. Eden Center has created an anchor for Vietnamese culture serving the Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and Pennsylvania areas, as shown by the large number of phở soup restaurants, bánh mì delicatessens, bakeries, markets, as well as Vietnamese-American cultural events that are regularly held at the Center.
Phở or pho is a Vietnamese soup dish consisting of broth, rice noodles, herbs, and meat. Pho is a popular food in Vietnam where it is served in households, street stalls and restaurants countrywide. Pho is considered Vietnam's national dish.
In Vietnamese cuisine, Bánh mì or banh mi is a short baguette with thin, crisp crust and soft, airy texture. It is often split lengthwise and filled with savory ingredients like a submarine sandwich and served as a meal, called bánh mì thịt. Plain banh mi is also eaten as a staple food.
City Heights is a dense urban community in central San Diego, California, known for its ethnic diversity. The area was previously known as East San Diego. City Heights is located south of Mission Valley and northeast of Balboa Park.
Madison Nguyen is an American politician from California. She served on the San Jose, California, City Council from 2005 to 2014, representing district 7, and she additionally served as vice mayor from 2011 to 2014. She was the first Vietnamese American elected to the city council.
Lee's Sandwiches International, Inc., is a Vietnamese-American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in San Jose, California, with locations in several states and in Taiwan. Lee's Sandwiches specializes in bánh mì, "European-style" baguette sandwiches, Vietnamese iced coffee, and Vietnamese dessert chè. It is credited with having helped to popularize Vietnamese sandwiches and iced coffee among mainstream American consumers and inspiring several other Vietnamese-owned bakery chains.
The media in the San Francisco Bay Area has historically focused on San Francisco but also includes two other major media centers, Oakland and San Jose. The Federal Communications Commission, Nielsen Media Research, and other similar media organizations treat the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose Bay Area as one entire media market. The region hosts to one of the oldest radio stations in the United States still in existence, KCBS (AM) (740 kHz), founded by engineer Charles Herrold in 1909. As the home of Silicon Valley, the Bay Area is also a technologically advanced and innovative region, with many companies involved with Internet media or influential websites.
Sunnyvale Town Center was a two-level shopping mall located in Sunnyvale, California, USA. It opened in 1979 on the site of much of the city's downtown, and was anchored by Macy's, Montgomery Ward, and later, J.C. Penney. Target moved in when Montgomery Ward closed. By the early 2000s, the mall had failed financially and only the Target and Macy's stores remained open. Work on a mixed-use development to replace the mall was stalled by a legal dispute from 2009 to 2015, with most buildings incomplete, but resumed after the city reached an agreement with new developers in mid-2016. By the end of 2020, a multi-screen movie theater and a supermarket had been built and opened in addition to most of the residential buildings; as of January 2021, replacement plans were going forward for a group of lots including the site of Macy's, which closed in 2019. Much of the area has now been rebranded as CityLine Sunnyvale.
Samuel Theodore Liccardo is an American attorney and politician from California, serving as Mayor of San Jose, California. A member of the Democratic Party, Liccardo was elected mayor in November 2014. He was reelected in 2018 with 75.8% of the vote. As the leader of the California Big City Mayors Coalition, Liccardo has advocated on statewide issues including homelessness and COVID-19 response.
The Little Saigon district straddling the cities of Garden Grove and Westminster in Orange County, California is the largest Little Saigon in the United States. Saigon is the former name of the capital of the former South Vietnam, where a large number of first-generation Vietnamese immigrants originate.
Little Portugal is a historic neighborhood of San Jose, California, and historically the center of the local Portuguese-American community. Little Portugal is home to numerous Portuguese businesses, including Adega, numerous Portuguese social clubs, and the Five Wounds Portuguese National Church.
Viet Mercury was a Vietnamese-language newspaper serving the Vietnamese American community in San Jose and the surrounding Silicon Valley area in California. It was published weekly by the San Jose Mercury News from 1999 to 2005; it also published daily for a time. It was the first Vietnamese-language newspaper published by an English-language daily, as well as the first non-Hispanic ethnic newspaper published by a major American company. Along with the Spanish-language Nuevo Mundo, it was one of two non-English weekly newspapers published by the Mercury News.
Little Saigon, also popularly known as Vietnamtown or simply Viet-Town, is a neighborhood in Houston, Texas centered on Bellaire Boulevard west of Chinatown. It is one of the largest Vietnamese enclaves in the United States.
Rincon South is a neighborhood of San Jose, California, located in North San Jose. Rincon South is a major employment hub for Silicon Valley businesses, and is home to numerous high tech companies.
Asian Garden Mall, known in Vietnamese as Phước Lộc Thọ, is a shopping center in Westminster, California. Open since 1987, Asian Garden Mall is the first and largest Vietnamese-American shopping mall and is seen as a symbol of the community. The mall is located at 9200 Bolsa Avenue, serving as the focal point of Little Saigon in Orange County and is the site of many cultural and political events in the Vietnamese-American community.
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