Taking a cue from voter education campaigns that mix pop star glamour with political awareness, a coalition of Vietnamese American groups is sponsoring a Rock the Vote concert targeting the nation's largest Vietnamese emigre community.
The effort is the biggest ever undertaken to register new Vietnamese American voters. It also is the first major event to come out of the political movement sparked by the huge anti-communist rallies in Little Saigon earlier this year.
"There's a collective awareness now. Everyone senses the dynamic that this is the time for our voices to be heard," said attorney Van Thai Tran, project chairman and a member of the Vietnamese American Voters Coalition.
The daylong music concert, set for Oct. 17, stars some of the hottest acts in the Vietnamese pop world. It takes its name from MTV's prominent voter awareness campaign.
Orange County is home to the largest community of Vietnamese immigrants in the country--an estimated 200,000. About half are citizens, and only 35,000 of them are registered to vote, said Nhi Ho, one of the coordinators on the project.
The registration drive will focus on younger people. Exit polls conducted by the Los Angeles-based Asian Pacific American Legal Center during last year's election showed that Vietnamese youths, 18 to 25, made up only 3% of those registered.
"This is something new and different to the Vietnamese community," said Radio Bolsa disc jockey Viet Dzung, who is helping organize the concert. "We wanted to attract the attention of the public and specifically the younger generation, which is the MTV generation."
Organizers already have approval to use the name and logo of the nonprofit Rock the Vote, which is based in Culver City. They still must decide, though, whether to use the Anaheim Convention Center or the Santa Ana Stadium for the daylong concert.
So far, 80 acts, including pop singers Y Lan and Linda Trang Dai, have agreed to appear, said Dzung, and organizers are hoping to get a total of 150 performers. All musicians are donating their time, Dzung said.
Public service announcements will air this weekend on Vietnamese media outlets, and the coalition plans to kick off its voter registration drive next weekend throughout Little Saigon.
"We wanted to get a head start on the year 2000. Next year will be very busy with elections and we wanted to be ready," Dzung said. "We also wanted this concert to reunite all the factions that came together during the protests."
