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The Vietnam war officially ended in 1975. But here in the United States, where there was a significant Vietnamese refugee immigrant population, the war continued for a few more years. It’s first known casualty was 27 year old Lam Duong, the founder of the first Vietnamese youth center in the U.S. Because he was seen as a communist sympathizer, he earned the ire of segments of the Vietnamese population in San Francisco, where he lived. On July 21, 1981, he was gunned down in front of his apartment building. A few days later, an anti-communist organization calling themselves the Anti-Communist Viets Organization, took credit for Lam’s murder. To this day, no one has been charged or convicted of the crime. And, since Lam Duong’s murder, several other Vietnamese American journalists were murdered. A climate of fear pervaded throughout the Vietnamese community, that still persists to an extent today. In 2009, San Jose’s first Vietnamese American Council member faced a recall effort by anti-Communists because she did not support naming a business district Little Saigon. Now, a new documentary, exploring this struggle within the Vietnamese immigrant community, will screen at this year’s Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. The film is called Enforcing the Silence, and its director Tony Nguyen now joins me in studio.

GUEST: Tony Nguyen, Director of Enforcing the Silence

The World Premiere of Enforcing the Silence is this Saturday April 30th at 5 pm at the Laemmle Sunset, part of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. The film’s website is www.enforcingthesilence.com.

The film festival started on April 28th and goes through May 7th. Venues include:

DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA
7920 Sunset Blvd (at Hayworth, One block west of Fairfax), West Hollywood, CA 90046

LAEMMLE’S SUNSET 5
8000 Sunset Blvd (at Crescent Heights) West Hollywood, CA 90046

CGV CINEMAS
621 S. Western Ave (at 6th) Los Angeles, CA 90005

Download the film festival schedule here: http://asianfilmfestla.org/2011/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/2011_Program-Calendar-Art_WEB_f55.pdf

Find out more at www.asianfilmfestla.org