The Seattle City Council could vote as early as Monday on a resolution to recognize the former flag of South Vietnam as the flag of the city’s South Vietnamese community.
KUOW reports a committee will take up the matter today and if it passes, the full council could vote June 22.
Most Vietnamese Americans are intensely anti-communist and seeing the flag of Vietnam brings back bad memories of the post Vietnam war country many of them and their families escaped.
For Kim-Long Nguyen, seeing the flag of the former South Vietnam makes him feel “very peaceful” whereas the current flag of Vietnam to him looks like “blood.”
A previous push for this by the Vietnamese Mutual Assistance Association in 2004 did not pass out of concern it would hurt relations with Vietnam.
You can read more of Nguyen’s thought on importance of this to the Vietnamese community on KUOW.