I am community activist who have been involved in the Vietnamese American community for many years, and throughout these many years, there are just a few individuals who stood out as someone I deeply respect and admire, and Phu Nguyen, the candidate for the California State Assembly 68th district in 2010, is one of them.
I’ve known Phu Nguyen for more than 8 years now, and have never met anyone so humble, and yet so capable as a community activist in my entire life, and trust me, I don’t take words like these so lightly. As a fellow political activist when it comes to human rights, Phu has shared with me a lot of his wisdom and thoughts about Vietnam as well as the Vietnamese American community.
During the time as the President of the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California (UVSA), he was instrumental in making the decision and pushing UVSA to donate half of the proceedings of the yearly popular Tet Festival back to the community, and to this date, some $100,000 are donated yearly to non-profit organizations that benefit the community. His work on making the Tet Festivals so well-organized was so successful that the city of Garden Grove awarded the organization with a five year contract. As a leader, I see that many, many volunteers looked up to him and followed him, for he was a great leader that believed in the best in you.
During the Third International Vietnamese Youth Conference in San Diego, Phu was one of the main people to push for the idea to build a Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of North America, to allow Vietnamese youths across the entire nation to work together on common causes. It was under his leadership travelling across the country to unite key VSAs on both sides of the coast that make up uNAVSA as it is known today. I was there at the first uNAVSA conference in Boston in 2004, when Phu Nguyen was elected as the first uNAVSA president. Today, uNAVSA continues the philantrophic work that we have instilled through the collective philanthropic project that each year donates a large sum of money to a selected non-profit.
I had the chance to join Phu Nguyen on tons of community events, from the yearly Black April commemoration, to the several uNAVSA conferences as well as the international Vietnamese youth conferences in San Diego in 2003 and Sydney in 2005, to the Freedom March in Washington, DC in 2005. I watched Phu Nguyen as he co-hosted the Vietnamese youth TV show “Generation Next” on SBTN where he discusses topics such as human trafficking, the Vietnamese bilingual programs at UCSD and promoting political involvement among the Vietnamese youths. The list of activities go on and on, frankly there is so much that he has done, that I can’t even remember!
What I love most about Phu is that despite his leadership, he is a very humble and loving person who is fair to everyone and treats you with the utmost respect. I know that Phu will be a perfect candidate for this community, and not only represents the finest that the Vietnamese American community has to offer, but also the best candidate for the greater Orange County region! I can’t imagine anyone better suited to move our community forward, and wholeheartedly support Phu Nguyen.
While I no longer live in Orange County, I continue to work hard on his campaign, building out his original website, producing the Vietnamese slideshow that is currently airing on Vietnamese TV, and on more than one occasion, have travelled down south to participate in canvassing along with my parents. Like so many volunteers who have been touched by Phu, we do it all without pay because we believe in him. Please join me in endorsing Phu Nguyen for State Assembly. Repost, tweet, facebook this, spread the word and make sure to vote for Phu Nguyen on November 2nd 2010. Checkout the slideshows that I have produced below for him and remember to visit www.votephu.com.
Minh T. Nguyen
PS: despite having the same last names, we are not family related.