Ly Kien Truc, photographer

Background Information

Truong Van Tran, Hi-Tek store owner

Truong Van Tran, son of farmers and brother to six other siblings, was born in 1961 in Dong Thap, a village in southwest Vietnam. In 1980 he fled Thailand on a small boat with his cousin and sister. In June of that year he arrived in California and joined the Vo Vi meditation group. After four years of meditation study, Tran proclaimed himself a master and started lecturing across the nation. In 1989 he left the group due to conflicts with other members, and in the same year married Kim Khanh Thi Nguyen.

In order to contribute to the family income, Tran started salvaging and selling TV's and VCR's he found in neighborhood dumpsters. This experience, and the education he received through electronic courses, led him to open Hi-Tek TV and VCR in 1996 in Westminster, California.

His attitude about communism changed after numerous visits to Vietnam. There he witnessed social improvement and he began extolling the benefits of US-Vietnam relations. Tran expressed his views to his neighborhood community through fliers, newsletters, and organized debates. His decision to hang the poster of Ho Chi Minh and the communist flag during the Martin Luther King holiday was made in remembrance of King's fortitude as well as to exercise Tran's own 1st Amendment rights of free speech.

The exposure he received from the protests proved to be his financial downfall. The police assigned to escort Tran to his store also found evidence of video piracy, and Tran was found guilty of this crime by Superior Court Judge Cory Cramin, who sentenced him to both jail time and community service. Tran attempted an appeal, but it was later denied.

Vietnamese American Community in Orange County

The Vietnamese American community in Little Saigon was reported to be the "ultimate anti-communist stronghold" ( Los Angeles Times Orange County Edition, 24 January 1999). Many Vietnamese American residents in Orange County have hard-felt and vivid memories of Vietnam's communist regime, human rights violations made by communist soldiers, and traumatic journeys of escape. Due to this community's strong anti-communist feelings it has been argued that displaying a poster of Ho Chi Minh in Little Saigon was the equivalent of displaying a picture of Hitler in a Jewish neighborhood.

Little Saigon has a history of anti-community protests. With crowds reaching over 15,000, the Hi-Tek demonstrations received national and international media coverage. This event was reported to be the biggest demonstration by Vietnamese émigrés since the fall of Saigon in 1975. The demonstrations are also a prime example of the strong anti-Communist feelings in the Vietnamese American Community, particularly among former South Vietnamese officials and re-education camp detainees. Similar demonstrations were held in San Jose, New Orleans, and Houston.

Chronology

From the guide to the Ly Kien Truc photographs of the Hi-Tek demonstrations, 1999, (University of California, Irvine. Library. Special Collections and Archives.)