Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, June 29. I am Jeong Park, covering Asian American communities for The Times.
After you resist the sweet taste of bánh mì kem sữa, or milk buns, or the beautiful displays of purple orchids, after wading through smells of incense and ginseng, you will arrive at a small corner store on the second floor of the Asian Garden Mall in Westminster.
Here, the neighborhood of Little Saigon is on full display, with a twist.
A picture frame proudly declares Orange County to be “Banh Mi Republic,” with a drawing of the Vietnamese baguette sandwich. A T-shirt has a drawing similar to the logo of Café Du Monde, a French-style coffee brand adopted and beloved by Vietnamese refugees. Atop the drawing: “Cafe đụ má,” đụ má a Vietnamese profanity.
Another T-shirt shouts out “phở 20” — pronounced like 420, the number associated with cannabis — with a bowl of Vietnamese noodle soup and “fresh greens served with every bowl.” A black sweatshirt bears a duck named “Supdawk” — broken English for “what’s up, dog?” — holding a bottle of Hennessy cognac and a street sign of Magnolia Street and Bolsa Avenue, two key streets of Little Saigon.
I first stumbled upon the shop a few weeks ago, at a celebration of the neighborhood’s 35th anniversary in the mall that has long been a cultural hub for the Vietnamese American community.
I’ve seen plenty of merchandise repping Asian American identity and neighborhoods — I own a fair share of Koreatown-related T-shirts and swag — but never a physical store, especially at a place like the Asian Garden Mall, which traditionally attracts older customers.
Chris Tran, a 48-year-old Anaheim resident whose day job involves working on art toys, has run the store for six months. It’s a physical location for his “Fall and Rise” brand, which he launched online two years ago. His Instagram account, littlesaigon.official, boasts more than 50,000 followers.
The store is about “celebrating our stereotypes,” he told me when I saw him at the store Wednesday.
“Why don’t we own it ourselves?” Tran said. “Embrace it as our own.”
Tran came from Vietnam as a refugee when he was a year old in 1976. He was part of the first wave of immigrants who built Little Saigon, a source of pride and a political force.
Like many immigrants, Tran faced prejudice and discrimination growing up as he tried to hide his cultural identity and assimilate. He struggled with defining what it meant to be Asian American — not quite Asian enough, and not quite American enough.
After making his way through the street racing scene, where he was surrounded by people of all cultures and backgrounds and where he learned to embrace diversity, Tran launched the brand as his answer to what it means to be Asian American, a celebration of both identities.
His brand name, “Fall and Rise,” refers to the Fall of Saigon in 1975 but also to the rise of Little Saigon that followed.
He will never forget the fall, of course.
But “let’s all enjoy the fruits of our trauma, to the pain that we endured, and the happiness that we enjoy now,” Tran said, as he showed off a black sweatshirt with a dragon holding oranges.
Ryan Ha, a 25-year-old Fullerton College student and Tran’s nephew, works at the store. He said his job has helped him better understand the identity of Little Saigon as well as his own as a Vietnamese American.
Growing up in Fullerton, Ha only visited Little Saigon occasionally. The neighborhood had felt a bit foreign to him. But his job has given him a way to reconnect with the neighborhood.
“I want to show people you don’t have to feel like you are alienated from all this kind of stuff,” he said. “I am proud this is the culture that I am a part of, and this is uniquely something that I want to feel proud of.”
Ha sees the store as a way to bring younger clients, even those who are not Vietnamese American, to the mall, carrying it into the future and preserving its community role for another generation. That’s what Tran is hoping for himself.
After all, visiting Asian Garden Mall as a kid helped Tran connect to Asian and American cultures alike, buying hip-hop CDs and anime merchandise from gift shops.
“The way they shared with me,” Tran said. “I would like to share with others.”
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