Monday, February 7, 2011

Report of the day's Events

Unlike last year boycott controversy, we got the silent treatment this year from the press. Except for OC Register and Nguoi Viet Daily Newspaper who had articles about our parade, the rest if the Vietnamese press did not respond to our press releases. The Vietnamese Interfaith Council were silent on our participation. There were no threats of tomatoes throwing this year either. One VP of some organization claiming to represent the Vietnamese American community of Southern California predicted that no one will show up to the panel discussion because when Vietnamese people don't like something, they will just ignore it.

We had about 60 people marching with us this year. They lined us near the end of the parade at #75. We were still waiting to march when parade watchers were walking home. Once again the announcer stumbled on our script and didn't finish reading it. They took the time to comment on the two dogs that marched with us and the two motorcycle cops instead. I didn't hear any vocal boos but the crowd didn't seem as large as last year and audience cheering us on didn't seem as large as last year. Some of our people said they heard someone shouted, "Go home!" to us. Rumor has it that even though the religious folks didn't have a press conference to denounce and boycott us, they did ask their followers to not show up to the parade.

We had an estimated 70 people to show up for lunch and the food, especially the goi/salad, was excellent.

About 60 something people remained for the panel discussion. We went over 3:30 pm and ended the program close to 4 pm. Everyone pitched in to clean up and it was fast! Thank you!

If you have anything else to report, or links to alert us of reports of the events, please post them here.

2 comments:

  1. From Nguoi Viet Newspaper:
    http://www.nguoi-viet.com/absolutenm/anmviewer.asp?a=126745

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Examiner
    http://www.examiner.com/lgbt-issues-in-santa-ana/lgbt-presence-at-vietnamese-tet-festival

    ReplyDelete