Vietnamese-Americans Face a Hard Choice in Presidential Election

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AS IT IS

Vietnamese-Americans Face a Hard Choice in

Presidential Election
October 27, 2016

Vietnamese-Americans are the sixth-largest immigrant group in the United States.

Many of them take part in political activities and events. In recent years, there has been
a split between older and younger Vietnamese-Americans.
Old or young, many Vietnamese-Americans say it is dicult to choose which
presidential candidate to support.
VOA recently spoke with some of these voters in Orange County, California. e area is
home to one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the country.
Little Saigon is a part of the county where many Vietnamese-Americans live and work.
Many people there are talking about the presidential election. Some of them say they
will not be voting for the candidate they like. Instead, they say they will be voting for
the candidate they dislike the least.
Leslie Le says he is voting for the Republican candidate.
Between the two devil(s) I choose the lesser one. ats Donald Trump.
Le was a colonel in the army of South Vietnam before eeing to the United States. Like
many of those who came to the U.S. aer the end of the Vietnam War, he has voted for
Republicans in every election since he gained U.S. citizenship. But this year, it took him
a long time to decide.
It is very dicult this time because [there are] two bad candidates.

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He says Trump never thinks before speaking about what hes thinking, and he (has)
changed policies a lot. He plans to build a wall between (the) United States and Mexico,
and he (says he will force) the Mexican government to pay for it. Its not reality, so what
he said is just his imagination.
Le does not like Trump, but he says the Democratic Party candidate is more dangerous.
Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, she must be capable to tell what information is
classied, related to national security and which information is OK to transmit over
private server email. If shes not capable to do that, she cannot be a president.
Mike Nguyen says he believes in the Republican Partys economic policies. He says he
votes Republican because of the partys policies, not because of Donald Trump. He says
he wants to give money back to the people who create jobs.
Dzung Do is the managing editor of the Vietnamese-language newspaper Nguoi Viet.
He says he understands why older Vietnamese-Americans have supported Republicans.
During the Vietnam War, the Republicans were very aggressive where the Democrats
was anti-war. So [with] that kind of thinking they think Democrat(s) was responsible
for the loss of Vietnam.
Do says some older Vietnamese do not believe a woman should lead a country.
How about girl leader? No. No way.
But, Do says Republican Vietnamese-Americans are reluctant to say they support
Trump.
He says some older Vietnamese-Americans are changing their support to the
Democratic Party.
People live here longer, especially old people, he says. ey get benets from social
programs. When they rst came here, they thought that they might do something to
change Vietnam. (But) now they see the relationship between Vietnam and the U.S. (is
getting) warmer and warmer.

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Younger Vietnamese-Americans hold dierent views than their parents and

grandparents. Many of them support Clinton, including Viet Tran.
Anyone who has served in politics for 20, 30 years will have some skeleton(s) in the
closet.
closet I mean, the only things thats been mentioned about her, nothing is really that
outrageous,
outrageous nothing that hasnt been done before by other politicians. I mean, I think
people are just more harsh on her because shes female.
Hetty La is also voting for the Democratic Party candidate.
I would say Clinton is the better candidate for president.
Hugh Tra supported Bernie Sanders -- an Independent Senator who competed in the
Democratic Partys primary elections -- until Sanders ended his candidacy.
I will be supporting Hillary. She has adopted a lot of Bernie Sanders policies and
implemented a lot of progressive platforms into her personal platform.
Leslie Le says If you dont vote for anybody, you indirectly vote for the bad one.
But Dzung Do believes that some Vietnamese-Americans will not mark their
presidential ballot this year.
Im Christopher Jones-Cruise.

Correspondent Elizabeth Lee reported this story from Orange County, California.
Christopher Jones-Cruise adapted it into VOA Special English. Mario Ritter was the
editor.
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Words in is Story
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reluctant adj. feeling or showing doubt about something

skeletons in the closet idiom things in a persons past that they want to be hidden
outrageous adj. very bad or wrong
harsh adj. unpleasant, severe
adopt v. accepted, taken on
progressive adj. characterized by modern or new ideas
platform n. a set of policies that a party says it will support

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