On May 20th, 2021, Tampa city hosted the event to celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month. I was honored to be there to share our Vietnamese Culture and appreciate the new life, freedom, and opportunities that I had received.
However, I was so disappointed and felt betrayed when seeing the background of a quilt with many flags representing the minorities in the United States behind the podium. In there, a bloody flag of the Vietnamese communist was there. My heart bled. I wanted to cry and took off that shameful flag out from the quilt. The Vietnamese Americans are former citizens of the Republic of Vietnam – or South Vietnam. We still respect our Yellow flag with three stripes and use it to represent us as the symbol of our freedom and heritage.
I asked one of the organizers about the decision to use that communists’ flag. He told me that is officially the flag of Vietnam. But I tried to explain to him that the communist flag does not represent us because we were refugees. The Vietnamese Americans have formed our communities in America by Vietnamese refugees after the Vietnam War in 1975. We have never accepted the new communist regime and its flag and fight relentlessly to make local governments recognize our yellow flag. On October 28th, 2004, Governor Jeb Bush declared that the Vietnamese Freedom and Heritage (VFH) flag (yellow with three red stripes) is officially the symbol of the Vietnamese Community in Florida.
I submitted a complaint and offered to donate the VFH flag and sew it over the Vietnamese communist flag.
It has been almost twenty days, but nothing happens.
I wonder if Mayor Castor is ignorant or clueless. Does she expect the Vietnamese communists from Vietnam to come here casting their vote for her next Mayor-election term? Or does she know that the Vietnamese Americans, who were refugees escaping from that Marxist country, will legally vote her out?
Ann Nguyen
