The Grand Century mall, which is owned by Lap Tang, the developer of Vietnam Town
A Vietnamese-American official in the US has proposed establishing a commercial center called Vietnam Town in San Jose City where 85,000 people of Vietnamese descent live.
The issue will come before the city council next month.
San Jose City Councilwoman Madison Nguyen, said the time had arrived to officially mark a business place for the community.
One major Vietnamese real estate venture in the proposed town would be a 300,000-square-foot mall offering 256 businesses the chance to own, rather than just lease, retail space.t
Nguyen, who in 2005 became the first person of Vietnamese descent to be elected to the city council, plans to ask the council within the next few weeks to designate a one-mile strip along Story Road as the city’s first Vietnamese business district.
Mayor Chuck Reed backs the idea, saying designating an area that is already home to nearly 200 Vietnamese-owned businesses merely “recognizes the facts on the ground.”
Like San Jose’s Japantown and similar ethnic districts in Los Angeles, Nguyen said, the district would boost the fortunes of local businesses and promote the area as a destination for non-Vietnamese customers who otherwise wouldn’t think to visit. In the past, however, proposals to designate ethnic zones have proven controversial.
Nguyen plans to ask the city to install monuments on Story Road that would mark the boundaries of the area, as well as banners celebrating the cultural heritage of three regions of Vietnam - north, central and south.
In the last 32 years, I think we’ve done a lot for the city, economically and socially,” Nguyen said recently, pointing out a concentration of Vietnamese businesses on Story Road ranging from sandwich shops and video stores to lawyers and optometrists.
“This will help the businesses, as well as have the city recognize we are an important group.”
Lap Tang, the developer of Vietnam Town who also owns the Grand Century mall next door, said the business district proposal represented an important milestone for Vietnamese people in the US.
While there were Little Saigon districts in Orange County and elsewhere, he said, he knew of no other official district that recognized the cultural legacy of all of Vietnam.
“It is an important milestone for the Vietnamese community in America, not just San Jose, because in America we’ve never had a Vietnam Town. I want to leave something for the generation to come.”
And while Vietnamese businesses will predominate, the district will also include a Wal-Mart and a Save Mart supermarket. Nguyen said both had blessed the idea of the new neighborhood designation.
Reed and Nguyen said they didn’t know yet how much the markers would cost the city. Reed added the issue was likely to come before the full council June 5.
“I think most people are going to be supportive,” the mayor said. “We are not trying to create something that doesn’t already exist - it’s already full of Vietnamese businesses. We’re more recognizing a reality than creating it.”
However, critics say the proposed Vietnamese business neighborhood may probably cause separatism between Vietnamese residents and other ethnic groups there.
Last year, Santa Clara residents and businesses mounted a successful petition drive to block Korean merchants from declaring a section of El Camino Real as a Koreatown. The concern, residents there said, was that declaring one part of Santa Clara an ethnic enclave promoted separatism rather than the idea of a common community.
Many immigrant business owners who were not Korean also disliked the idea, fearing their businesses would be lost under the plan.
Source: San Jose Mercury News