Orange County celebrates Vietnamese culture in inaugural heritage festival

Fountain Valley’s Mile Square Park rang with music, offered flashing carnival rides and wafted the aromatic smell of food during the city’s inaugural Cultural Heritage Festival from Aug. 15 to Aug 17.

Sponsored by California state senator and UCI alumni Janet Nguyen, the festival celebrated the 50th anniversary of Little Saigon, which includes parts of Westminster, Garden Grove and Fountain Valley.

“Fifty years ago, Little Saigon did not exist, there were no Vietnamese businesses, no community organizations, no elected officials. There were only refugee families carrying a lot of pain looking for a new start. Today, we stand at the heart of a community built by refugees, created by resilience, hard work and an undying belief in freedom,” Nguyen said during a commemorative speech at the festival.

Nguyen also shared her personal experience as a Vietnamese immigrant, recounting the story of her family fleeing to a refugee camp in Thailand.

“What we do today will create the foundation for the next 50 years, how we vote, how we lead and also create a future for our children,” Nguyen said at the event.

The triad of cities contains a significantly dense Vietnamese population, with Orange County’s Little Saigon considered to have the largest and most established Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam.

Vietnamese-American organizations that work to connect and unite the greater Vietnamese community in Southern California were also recognized at the event’s mainstage. These groups included the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California (UVSA), the Nguoi Viet Daily News and several Vietnamese military veterans who served during the Vietnam Conflict.

UC Irvine is home to its own Vietnamese Student Association, VSA at UCI. The UCI club celebrates students’ culture through interclub cultural showcases and promotes traditional Vietnamese pop music through their dance group, TRANCE.

Additionally, VSA at UCI works with other VSAs in the region during UVSA’s annual Lunar New Year festival, which took place in Garden Grove from Jan. 31 to Feb. 2 this year.

As part of the Cultural Heritage Festival, a historical exhibit set up in the park’s Freedom Hall contained memorabilia from the Vietnam War and cultural artifacts like formal ao dai, a traditional Vietnamese dress style worn with loose pants. The festival showcased different food vendors that offered roasted corn, spring rolls, pork barbecue, boba and more.

Live entertainment on the main stage included a lion dance performance by the Dragon Phoenix Lion Dance group, an Orange County-based nonprofit that teaches the art of traditional Vietnamese lion dancing.

Broadcast journalist Leyna Nguyen co-hosted the main stage on day two of the three-day event, introducing the lion dance group and commending their dedication to the craft.

“Some of these kids are born here, which means they have to take time out of their day, away from friends, from video games, to learn about these traditions,” Leyna Nguyen said at the event.

Irvine, while having a prominent Asian population of 42.9% residents according to the 2020 OC Census Atlas, only 3.6% of the city’s population is Vietnamese.

Still, Irvine is home to a vibrant Vietnamese culinary scene and cultural events, such as the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival. The festival celebrates both East and Southeast Asian traditions of celebrating the end of harvest season and the harvest moon and will be held at the Great Park on Sept. 26.

Earlier this year, the city of Irvine also collaborated with the Vietnamese American Arts and Letters Association (VAALA) to showcase an exhibit of archival works titled “From Saigon to Little Saigon: Reflections on 50 years of Home.”   

For updates on Vietnamese cultural celebrations, visit the City of Irvine for events in Irvine and  the Little Saigon Events Calendar

Cain Carbajal is a Features Intern for the summer 2025 quarter. He can be reached at cainac@uci.edu

Edited by Alyssa Villagonzalo and Joshua Gonzales

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