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Students discuss the VKC flag controversy

The Vietnamese Student Association held a panel discussion to debate whether the Vietnamese flag should be removed.

Kate Mather

Issue date: 4/22/08 Section: News
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Students, faculty and community members met Monday evening to discuss the recent controversy surrounding the Vietnamese flag hanging outside the Von KleinSmid Center, giving various student groups the opportunity to articulate their concerns.

Approximately 70 people attended the discussion, where presidents of both the Vietnamese Student Association and the Vietnamese International Student Association stated their positions on VKC's display of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag, which many students and community members said is representative of Communist Vietnam.

"VSA is not asking for the university to just take down that one flag, because we do understand that the international Vietnamese students are represented by that flag and we do not have the right to ask the university to take down a flag that represents someone else," said Chris Tran, president of VSA and a senior majoring in psychology. "But we feel as though we, as Vietnamese Americans, are not represented by that flag."

Tran said one of his goals for the meeting was to educate the community on what VSA wants the university to do: either display both the Freedom and Heritage flag and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag at VKC or remove all of the flags from the building.

Vu Nguyen, president of the VISA and a doctoral candidate for computer science, said the removal of all the flags would detract from the international experience at USC.

"Recently USC has attracted the most international students compared to other universities in the nation," Nguyen said. "Hanging the flags out here is the way USC recognizes the diversity and different perspectives of the student body."

Nguyen said the Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag should remain on display to represent international students because it is the official national flag of Vietnam and is recognized by both the United States and the United Nations.

"The Vietnamese flag with the red background and the star in the center is the official national flag of Vietnam and is a national symbol for us Vietnamese students coming from Vietnam," Nguyen said. "We don't see any other flag better representing us than the flag on VKC."
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Viewing Comments 1 - 8 of 8

P.

posted 4/22/08 @ 6:38 PM PST

According to this article on Daily Trojan couple weeks ago: http://media.www.dailytrojan.com/media/storage/paper679/news/2008/03/27/News/Activists.Want. (Continued…)

Tram Pham

posted 4/23/08 @ 3:41 AM PST

There must be a representation for each international student in this university. Therefore, flags is the first and the best choice, marking that students throughout the world are attracted to the USC. (Continued…)

Tram Pham

posted 4/23/08 @ 3:48 AM PST

the president of VISA, Vu Nguyen, really had a point in his words. I totally agree with him

Michael Tran

posted 4/23/08 @ 8:36 AM PST

I support the yellow flag with three stripes. Like our American flag, it represents freedom and democracy that we all believe in. On the other hand, the communist flag to Vietnamese American people is as the Nazi flag to Jewish people. (Continued…)

Tony

posted 4/24/08 @ 3:59 AM PST

The red-yellow Vietnam flag is the official flag and it represent International Vietnamese students.

The yellow flag with three stripes flag represent Vietnamese American students, but it is only a community flag only, therefore it does not deserve a place where all national flags waving. (Continued…)

anonymous tran

posted 4/27/08 @ 5:21 PM PST

in response to tram, there must be representation for ALL students, not just the international ones.
regarding the purpose of the flags to represent international nations recognized by the UN: then why isn't the Armenian flag up there and why is the Taiwan flag up there (as i understand Taiwan is not UN-recognized). (Continued…)

Grad Student

posted 4/28/08 @ 9:40 AM PST

The Vietnamese-American community and their flag can best be described as a club. And since no other club gets to have their flag displayed, I see no reason to display theirs. (Continued…)

PhuongNam

posted 5/01/08 @ 12:14 AM PST

USC is a private institution. They reverse the right to hang any flag they think is appropriate in serving the school mission and purpose.

However, the Vietnamese student community at USC comprises of over 1000 Vietnamese American, with VSA - founded over 30 years ago- as their representative; and 20 Vietnamese International Student, with VISA, founded recently, who raised their voice to "protect our flag" that represents a communist state. (Continued…)

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