Tony Lâm (born 1936) is a politician from

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. In 1992, he won a seat on the

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

City Council, becoming the first

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

ese-born person to be elected into a political office in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Prior to being elected, Lam had been living in America for 17 years, and owned the Vien Dong restaurant in Garden Grove. He was also a respected community leader, secretary of the Vietnamese Lions Club in Westminster, and the first vice president of the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce in Orange County. Although Westminster had one of the largest concentrations of Vietnamese immigrants in the United States, Lam was not primarily voted in by his fellow Vietnamese. His winning total was about 6,500 votes, but only 2,000 Vietnamese-Americans in the city were eligible to vote. His campaign had the backing of the police, the Mayor and local mobile-home owners. He defeated another Vietnamese candidate, Jimmy Tong Nguyen, for the Westminster City Council seat. In 1999, Lam bore the fury of many Vietnamese immigrants when he refused to join in demonstrations protesting against a video store that displayed a poster of

Ho Chi Minh (born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), colloquially known as Uncle Ho () among other aliases and sobriquets, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first President of Vietnam, president of the ...

and a

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

Vietnamese flag. City attorneys had advised him to "stay neutral". For this, his restaurant was picketed, and people burnt

effigies An effigy is a sculptural representation, often life-size, of a specific person or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certain ...

of him, calling him a "communist sympathizer". At the height of the controversy, the protesters raised the possibility of Lam's recall from office. Even his wife called on him to resign, but he refused. Lam served for a decade on the City Council over three terms, until he decided not to seek re-election in 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lam, Tony 1937 births Vietnamese emigrants to the United States Living people People from Westminster, California California politicians of Vietnamese descent City council members of Asian descent 20th-century American politicians of Asian descent 21st-century American politicians of Asian descent