HISTORY

Founded in 2018, VietRISE is a community organization based in Orange County, California. Our mission is to advance social justice and build power with working class Vietnamese and immigrant communities in Orange County, CA. We build leadership among our communities and work toward systemic change through organizing, shifting narratives, cultural empowerment, and civic engagement.

As an organization based in Orange County, home of the largest Vietnamese population in the world outside of Viet Nam, we know how important the work that we do here and the narratives that come out of this region are within the Vietnamese diaspora. We recognize that our struggles and the health and safety of our communities across the country and the world are interconnected, and we are committed toward ensuring immigrant justice, housing justice, and democracy for all through our local work. 

Since 2018, we have engaged over 10,000 Vietnamese residents of all ages in cities across Orange County in six field campaigns, trained young Vietnamese Americans in civic engagement and organizing, and led unprecedented immigrant justice community mobilizations in “historically conservative” Little Saigon, Orange County alongside multiracial and cross-cultural alliances.

In 2019, we launched Bring Human Rights Home, an immigrant justice campaign to address ICE’s immigration enforcement in Little Saigon cities, call attention to the violence committed against refugees in ICE’s migrant prison camps at the border, and to hold accountable, through policy and narrative, the Vietnamese elected officials who have colluded with white supremacist hate groups to advance an anti-immigrant agenda in Orange County. 

Tracy La
she/her
Executive Director

Allison Vo
they/she
Youth Organizing Coordinator

Vincent Tran
he/him
Community Engagement Coordinator

Lena Tran
she/her
Community Organizer