Press Release

Oakland CA

March 26, 2000

Protests at Pacific Bridge no longer peaceful.

Just before 4 PM on Saturday, March 25^th, a protester from San Jose who entered the gallery under the pretext of seeing the exhibition ripped one of the 35 lithographs off of the gallery wall in attempt to vandalize the artwork. The San Jose woman was escorted out of the gallery by Geoff Dorn, one of the gallery owners, and cited by the Oakland Police for attempted vandalism.

The line of so called "peaceful" protests has been crossed. The organizer of the San Jose protesters, Mr. Tran Van Loan, is either inciting people to vandalize the art work, or he has no control over the people he buses up from San Jose to protest the exhibition of portraits of Ho Chi Minh, by C. David Thomas at Pacific Bridge Contemporary Southeast Asian Art.

Although there has been considerable media coverage of the protests over the last week, some very important facts continue to be omitted. It is time that the motives and tactics of the protest organizers are made explicit.

First and foremost, the organizers of the protests are taking advantage of an exhibition of art to push a political agenda that only a small minority of the Vietnamese American community support. In the news reports the protesters have been portrayed as if they represent the entire Vietnamese American community, they don't, they merely represent a very small but very vocal faction of the Vietnamese population in the USA. This type of reporting is a disservice to the Vietnamese American community.

Secondly, Mr. Tran Van Loan, the organizer of the protesters from San Jose, is the General Secretary of The Vietnamese American Anticommunist Organizations of Northern California. He and the other people coordinating these protests have a blatant political agenda that normally does not get mainstream press coverage, but they are taking advantage of the exhibition of Ho Chi Minh portraits by C. David Thomas at Pacific Bridge to push their political agenda into the limelight.

The protest organizer's agenda is to prohibit any dialogue about Vietnam that may improve relations between the USA and Vietnam. These protest organizers have organized countless protests over the years ranging from a campaign that successfully brought the cancellation of an exhibition of art by Vietnamese and American war veterans at the San Jose Museum of Art in 1993, to demonstrations against a performance by a water puppet troupe from Vietnam at UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall.

Not all of the protesters who came the weekend the exhibition opened, nor all of the individuals who continue to protest the exhibition share the protest organizer's agenda, but it is imperative that the public realize that the protest organizers do have a political agenda.

Mr. Tran and other organizers lead the continuing protests at Pacific Bridge everyday dressed in their military uniforms from the former South Vietnamese Army. Essentially they are still fighting a war that ended 25 years ago. The protest organizer's foot soldiers now are men, women and children who suffer a tremendous amount of pain from living through atrocities committed during two long and bloody wars in Vietnam in the Twentieth century: one against the French, and a civil war in which the USA fought with the South Vietnamese against the North Vietnamese.

In the two years that Pacific Bridge has been open we have held twelve exhibitions focusing on contemporary art from and about Southeast Asia, and we have hosted fifteen artists in residence from Vietnam, The Philippines and Indonesia. Thus far six of the exhibitions have been of art from artists who live in Vietnam, with nine Vietnamese artists in residence, and two exhibitions of Vietnamese American artists' works.

Despite the fact that there have been numerous articles in both English and Vietnamese newspapers in the Bay Area and southern California about the gallery and artist in residence program the protest organizers have never before paid attention to Pacific Bridge. Take note: the protest organizers and the people protesting have never before protested or supported Pacific Bridge. This indicates that Pacific Bridge's valuable work of providing opportunities to see contemporary art from and about Southeast Asia, and promoting cultural exchange, has been of no interest to the protest organizers and protesters. The protesters have seized this exhibition as an opportunity to push their political agenda.

Mr. Tran and other protest organizers are calling the current exhibition of portraits of Ho Chi Minh by American artist and Vietnam Veteran C. David Thomas a political statement by the artist and gallery in support of communism. Given that they have labeled this art exhibition a political statement they have vowed to make their own political statement against communism everyday that the exhibition is open to the public. In addition, the protest organizers have stated publicly that they believe that the Vietnamese government has paid the artist to make his artwork and has paid the gallery to host the exhibition.

The gallery is not making a political statement. Pacific Bridge's agenda is to promote greater cultural awareness of Southeast Asia through the work of artists. And doubtful though it may be that intelligent thoughtful people would believe that the artist and the gallery are being paid by the Vietnamese government to have this exhibition, let it be known in no uncertain terms that neither the artist nor the gallery have been paid by any individual, organization nor government to create or exhibit this artwork. This type of conspiracy theory should shed light on the irrational rhetoric that is being propagated by the protest organizers.

However, the protest organizers are raising money from individuals and businesses in the Vietnamese American community to fund the month long protests. According to reports in the Vietnamese language press the different protest organizers from different communities are in disagreement about how to spend the funds that are being raised.

And so Pacific Bridge and all of the other businesses on Linden Street, an otherwise quiet dead-end street in an industrial area near Jack London Square in West Oakland, are now besieged by a loud group of people bent on making intolerant political statements. The protest organizers are hoping to create enough of a disruption for the gallery, the neighborhood, and the city of Oakland that the gallery will decide to close the exhibition early.

The protest organizers would like to censor C. David Thomas and Pacific Bridge's freedom of speech. In the past the protest organizers have successfully intimidated institutions to cancel Vietnam related programming, and other institutions continue to self-censor potential Vietnam related programming in fear that these organizers will protest them.

This situation should alarm everyone who believes in freedom of speech. In this instance the protestors are a small percentage of the Vietnamese American community, but who is to say that some other vocal minority won't target other galleries or museums or universities with similar tactics if and when such groups have personal or political issues with other exhibitions.

The protest organizer's tactics for disruption range from breaking the law to intimidating gallery visitors and neighbors to wasting the city of Oakland Police Department's time and money to inconveniencing neighboring small businesses which create jobs and revenue for the city of Oakland. In addition to the attempted vandalism of the artwork on March 25, everyday the protesters shout slogans like "Down with Ho Chi Minh" and "Down with communism" through bullhorns despite the fact that they do not have a city permit for sound amplification. The protesters also hang large banners with epithets like "Ho Chi Minh killed girls after sex" and "Gook Ho Chi Minh," and while these banners do not break a law everyone in this neighborhood finds them offensive. The protesters also park their cars in private parking lots aggravating business owners who pay rent to maintain access to the limited parking spaces.

On Saturday, March 18^th, the night of the opening, there were between 1,000 and 1,500 protesters who filled the length of Linden Street. The vast majority of these people came to Oakland from San Jose and Westminster, the two cities with the largest Vietnamese populations in the USA. Some of the protesters drove themselves; many others came on buses paid for by funds raised by the protest organizers. That night the protesters, effectively intimidated scores of people who typically come to Pacific Bridge's openings from attending. Their tactics included crying, pleading, yelling insults through megaphones, dragging an effigy of Ho Chi Minh through the street stomping and kicking it, and in several cases spitting on and pushing gallery guests.

In summary, it is essential that everyone realize that Pacific Bridge accepts the protesters right to protest within the boundaries of the laws that are intended to protect everyone's freedom of speech. Just as C. David Thomas and Pacific Bridge have freedom to make art and exhibit art in a private gallery, so the protesters have the freedom to express opposition. However, the protesters have crossed the line of peaceful protest and are now breaking laws.

The media has given the protesters an opportunity to voice their opposition to this exhibition. The media now needs to take the responsibility to report that the protesters are breaking laws, and expose the protester's agenda of intolerance.

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