San Jose City Councilmember Lan Diep, speaks to the attendees of a community event commemorating the 44th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon and end of the Vietnam War on April 30, 2019, in San Jose City Hall Rotunda. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)
“Black April is not a time for glorifying successes and contributions to America. This is about why do we exist in America at all? It’s because we rejected Communism. That reason still exists and we should be calling the world’s attention to it.”
— Lan Diep, former San Jose City Council member, on the 50th anniversary of the April 30, 1975 fall of Saigon, the former capital of South Vietnam, to communist forces. San Jose is home to the largest Vietnamese population in a single city outside Vietnam, but Diep said while the community has succeeded in the U.S., many still dream of seeing Vietnam freed from communism.
Originally published at Bay Area News Group