Seeing Red

Eyes on the Old Flag

Hoang Van Tiem, bishop of the Bui Chu diocese in Vietnam, was not scheduled to stop in St. Paul during a 2003 tour of Asian Catholic communities in the United States. Among those who lobbied the bishop to add the city to his itinerary was Tuan Pham, who flew to meetings in Texas and California to plead St. Paul’s case.

At those meetings and later, Pham says, the bishop stressed that he was under orders not to engage in any activity that might be perceived as a political statement against the ruling Vietnamese regime, whose attitude toward the church was frosty at best. Except inside a church, he could not be seen or photographed with the Yellow Flag of the former Republic of Vietnam—a beloved symbol to many Vietnamese who fled the country after Saigon fell.

On December 17, 2003, with Pham serving as his driver, the bishop arrived at St. Paul’s Vietnam Center for a private function. The Yellow Flag was flying above the center. Though the bishop said nothing about the flag, he did say that he couldn’t go into the building and asked to go to Pham’s home. That was all he asked, Pham emphasizes, insisting that what happened next wasn’t the bishop’s idea.

Wait a minute, Pham said. Leaving the bishop in the car, he ran into the Vietnam Center and explained the problem to Yen Van Pham (no relation), executive director of Vietnam Social Services of Minnesota and a Vietnam Center official. Yen Pham arranged to have the flag lowered while the bishop entered the building, then raised again. The down-and-up maneuver was repeated after the function when the bishop left the building. Problem solved. Or so the principals thought.

When word of the incident got out, some members of the local Vietnamese-American community, including the defendants in Pham’s defamation suit, took offense on behalf of the Yellow Flag. As they portrayed it, the flag had been dishonored, bowing to the Communist regime in the old country. Trying to dowse the flames, Vietnam Center board chairman Pham Van Vy (or Vy Pham, also no relation to Tuan Pham) published a letter of apology in a Vietnamese newspaper a week after the bishop’s visit.

To no avail. Demonstrators staged protests at the Vietnam Center and the State Capitol. For the first two months, attorney Rosha says, the protesters focused their anger only on Yen Pham and Vy Pham, demanding that they be stripped of their positions.