VABDOSS formed last October to represent Rainier Valley's Vietnamese businesses during the process of divvying up $50 million in Sound Transit mitigation funds. Nguyen's main complaint about VABDOSS smacks of an age-old predicament facing any minority group that achieves mainstream recognition. The complaint? VABDOSS doesn't really speak for the community. When a representative of a minority group becomes accepted by the general public as the voice, that voice's biggest critic tends to be its own community. VABDOSS is the Vietnamese community's symbol of success, as well as a symbol of the internal conflict that comes with assimilation.
VABDOSS Executive Director Thao Tran, a 24-year-old University of Washington grad, fled Vietnam in the early '80s by drifting in a tiny wooden boat with his father and two brothers. Now, he speaks for Rainier Valley's traditionally neglected Vietnamese refugee businesses. In one week, Tran met with four or five city officials, including new Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, to bend their ears on behalf of VABDOSS' 80 members.
Indeed, VABDOSS constituents have a lot to worry about. Rainier Valley is where roughly 40 percent of Seattle's estimated 40,000 Vietnamese live. Moreover, according to Sound Transit, around 30 percent of the buildings that Sound Transit will fully or partially destroy in Rainier Valley house Vietnamese businesses.
The group's biggest success came two weeks ago on Monday, September 11, when Rainier Valley community members elected three VABDOSS representatives to a committee charged with administering the $50 million Sound Transit payoff. It wasn't easy. At a meeting held later that week, Tran had to fight with white critics to keep his place on the committee. The critics, who shifted in their chairs at one end of a long folding table while confronting the Vietnamese at the other, complained that VABDOSS had too much power. Tran took this to mean that whites were threatened by the surge of minority strength. Given that white people traditionally get nervous when new voices are represented, his perception is understandable. Ultimately, Tran convinced them that all three VABDOSS members should remain on the committee.
However, it's not just whites who are fretting about VABDOSS. Meet Norman Le, president of the Vietnamese Community of Washington State, a nonprofit umbrella organization for about 30 social service groups such as the Vietnamese Refugee Association of Seattle. Last week, after Le heard about VABDOSS' big win in the Rainier Valley election, he fired off a letter to government officials, including Mayor Paul Schell. "The task of stabilizing our community in all aspects (not just business) due to the Sound Transit Project is too important to be handled by a single newly created organization like VABDOSS alone," he wrote.
Not only are Vietnamese people upset (as evidenced by the letter) that VABDOSS only represents businesses, they also complain that it's a puppet group planted by the city for the purpose of buying off the community's support.
VABDOSS critic Nguyen, a Vietnamese business leader, accuses the city of creating VABDOSS. "VABDOSS is controlled by Sound Transit and the City of Seattle," Nguyen says. His proof is an internal city proposal drafted last November, which recommended farming out a city or Sound Transit employee to staff VABDOSS. Nguyen says the city set up the lackey Vietnamese group to co-opt community concerns.
Special Assistant to the Mayor Trang Tu, who went to bat for VABDOSS when she worked in the city's Strategic Planning Office last November, says she'd do the same for any community group that needs help. "Do we want to have community organizations that can work and be voices for the community? Or do we have a void where there's no community organization there at all?" she asks.
Meanwhile, Tran denies that his group has inappropriate ties to city hall and Sound Transit. "There is no special relationship," he says.
Sound Transit is expected to review the steering committee selections next week for final approval.
