February 04, 2019

PIVOT Stands with Delegate Kathy Tran and Her Efforts for Women’s Health

February 04, 2019/ Josie Nguyen

February 4, 2019

PIVOT recognizes that abortion at the later stages of pregnancy is one of the most divisive issues in American politics generally and in the Vietnamese American community specifically. Even though third-trimester abortions are rare and performed primarily to protect the mother’s health, it is also when the balancing of the mother’s life and the sanctity of another life is at its most difficult. For these reasons, PIVOT believes that we must engage in this difficult conversation in a constructive way, not simply to score political points or to carry out personal attacks.

February 01, 2019

Paying Forward

February 01, 2019/ Josie Nguyen

January 22, 2019
Nguyen Minh Nguyet, PIVOT member

Last week, at the dinner table, my grandson, Hung, talked about his classroom fundraising for his school trip to Washington, DC in April. Hung is 13 years old, an 8th grader. His group of four close friends are all very excited about the project. They plan to sell baked goods. Ray's mom will help him make chocolate chip cookies, Marc plans to bring pies, and Sam's mom will make Japanese rice balls.

December 06, 2018

Victims of War, and Now Victims of the Trump Administration→

December 06, 2018/ Josie Nguyen

December 3, 2018
Eric Tang and Viet Thanh Nguyen (published in The New York Times)
What is an appropriate punishment for a crime? The plight of thousands of Vietnamese refugees convicted of crimes in the United States and now threatened with detention or deportation demands an answer to this question.

For most of the four decades since the Vietnam War ended, refugees fleeing the Communist government in Vietnam have been treated differently from those refugees from most other countries. If they committed felonies, they would not be deported.

November 26, 2018

Proud to be an Immigrant: Fighting Back Against Public Charge→

November 26, 2018/ Josie Nguyen

November 26, 2018
Samantha Dang is an Associate Professor of Law at the Irvine University College of Law. As refugees from Vietnam, her family, like many others, made countless sacrifices to provide for their basic needs and establish a foundation for their future in America. They worked in many jobs AND used public assistance to survive and thrive in America.

Read more about Professor Dang’s family story, and why she’s fighting to protect thousands of families, like hers, that would otherwise fall victim to the proposed public charge.

November 25, 2018

PIVOT Fall 2018 Newsletter

November 25, 2018/ Josie Nguyen

November 25, 2018
During this season of thanksgiving, we are thankful for the hard work that PIVOTers and our allies have carried out to take back our democracy. The 2018 mid-term election was the focal point for the Resistance in general and for PIVOT in particular, and the results more than met our expectations and validated our approach. Control of the House of Representatives will enable Americans to stop the march toward single party autocratic rule by Trump and his supporters. Taking back governorships and control of state legislatures hold out hope that we will be able to prevent gerrymandering and other voter suppression activities for 2020 and beyond.

November 20, 2018

AAPI Voters in 2018 Congressional Elections: Bigger Impact than Anticipated→

November 20, 2018/ Josie Nguyen

November 20, 2018
Sono Shah
Heading into the midterms, our analysis at AAPI Data found 27 congressional districts in 11 states where Asian American & Pacific Islander voters could have maximum impact in 2018. We identified these districts as places where AAPIs represent at least 5 percent of eligible voters, and where the Cook Political Report had declared the race to be competitive.

How did these races turn out, and can we declare that AAPIs were likely influential those races? One way to answer this question is to compare the margin of victory for the winning candidate, and compare it to the AAPI share of the voting-eligible population.

November 15, 2018

I Love America. That’s Why I Have to Tell the Truth About It→

November 15, 2018/ Josie Nguyen

November 15, 2018
Viet Thanh Nguyen, as published in Time Magazine
Love it or leave it. Have you heard someone say this? Or have you said it? Anyone who has heard these five words knows what it means, because it almost always refers to America. Anyone who has heard this sentence knows it is a loaded gun, pointed at them.

As for those who say this sentence, do you mean it with gentleness, with empathy, with sarcasm, with satire, with any kind of humor that is not ill humored? Or is the sentence always said with very clear menace?

October 24, 2018

Public Charge Information

October 24, 2018/ Josie Nguyen

October 24, 2018

One of our members, Linh Chuong, created these infographics to explain the proposed public charge rule and how important it is for us to all submit our comments to oppose it. Please disseminate.

PDF versions are available here and here.

Vietnamese PDF version is available here.

October 23, 2018

PIVOT's Orange County Voter Guide for the 2018 Midterm Elections

October 23, 2018/ Josie Nguyen

October 23, 2018
As part of our efforts to flip Orange County Blue, we put together a voter guide of candidates whom we believe share our progressive values. The guide was sent to Orange County voters and published in local Vietnamese newspapers.

October 18, 2018

My Take: Am I a burden on America?

October 18, 2018/ Josie Nguyen

October 18, 2018
David Duong, PIVOT member
I grew up in an immigrant family: We were poor and on welfare.

My family immigrated to Holland, Michigan, from war-torn Vietnam in 1991. Our story relied heavily on the generosity of the American people and her government. Our plane tickets from Vietnam to America were purchased with a loan from the government that my parents paid back in monthly installments of $50 over five years.

For 1.5 years, we rented a home that was government subsidized. We were nourished because of the multi-colored food stamps that my mother used at Meijer. I received free hot lunches from Van Raalte Elementary school. Medicaid helped pay for our visits to the doctor. After my sister was born, through the Women, Infants, & Children (WIC) food subsidy program my mom bought fresh fruit, milk, cereal and cheese for our family. Looking back, I wonder what we would have done without these critical government subsidies. We were a burden on America during our initial three years here — my family was a public charge, we used public resources.