We hope you’re enjoying the summer season! We are excited to announce our upcoming summer community picnic at Garden Grove Park, and we can’t wait to see you there! As we reach the halfway point of the year, we’ve accomplished so much together. Our spring field program has successfully wrapped up, and we’re excited to welcome two new additions to our team—shoutout to John and Ann for their fantastic contributions as Administrative Interns!
Mark Your Calendar & Get Involved
Saturday, August 2nd @ 5-7PM: Tự Lực School for Organizing Open Mic Night
Join us for an evening of art, food, and storytelling, hosted by the 2025 Tự Lực School for Organizing cohort. Over the past month, these youth from high schools across Little Saigon have been learning about Vietnamese history and language, organizing theory, and the local political landscape. They gained collaboration and planning skills as they prepared for this event.
Following the theme Unbounded by Lines: Empowerment through Shared Stories, the cohort will showcase their art and encourage you to bring yours as well!
Sign up for a performance slot at bit.ly/vrartist25
Location: VietRISE Office
RSVP at bit.ly/openmic25
(This event is free and open to all ages)
OC Community Self-Defense Coalition: Training for ICE Patrols
The OC Community Self-Defense Coalition is committed to defending our communities against immigration enforcement by patrolling our Little Saigon & Little Arabia neighborhoods, documenting abductions, and providing resources for people to defend themselves. Volunteer trainings are announced weekly and training is required for all interested folks to begin patrols/outreach.
Fill out our interest form to get notified of the next training: tinyurl.com/occsdc-patrols
Summer Community Picnic
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Join us for a day of building community, celebrating the Class of 2025, and learning about the connections between Vietnamese history, current struggles against colonialism and displacement, and what it means to build people power. With the 80-year anniversary of Viet Nam’s August Revolution coming up, we’ll be diving into some of the historic events that took place during this period in 1945.
Resources
GGUSD Family Helpline
The Garden Grove Unified School District (GGUSD) has established a hotline to connect immigrant families with bilingual support (in Spanish and Vietnamese), social services, legal resources, and access to trusted organizations, as well as food resources.
📞 (714) 663-6257
🕗 Available Mon–Fri, 8am–4:30pm (except holidays)
🌐 Korean & Arabic support available upon request
NDLON Legal Hotline for Day Laborers
The National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) has launched a hotline to connect day laborers and their families with legal resources and mutual aid.
📞 If you know a day laborer who was detained in Orange County, call (626) 799-3566.
Support for Vietnamese Community Members in the Immigration System
This online guide is for Vietnamese community members in OC facing deportation or supporting loved ones through the process. It includes info on legal resources, record requests, and advocacy efforts.
Our staff have been working with and providing accompaniment to community members facing detention and deportation, as Vietnamese community members across the country have reached out with questions about their case as immigration enforcement increases nationally. We share information about the history of deportations to Viet Nam from the US, review potential pathways for community members to defend against deportation, and connect people directly to pro bono attorneys.
Note: This guide is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice.
Campaign & Program News
Tự Lực School for Organizing: Visit to GGUSD School Board Chambers
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Thank you to GGUSD Trustee Walter Muñeton for giving our youth cohort a behind-the-scenes look at how school boards operate. By learning about his experiences and engaging in a mock Board of Education meeting, they deepened their knowledge of civic engagement and how young people can create positive change in their school communities.
VietRISE Summer Yard Sale
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This past Saturday, VietRISE hosted our very first fundraising event in our new office space – and it was a success thanks to you! We’re deeply grateful to everyone who showed up, volunteered, and contributed. Your donations help us secure this space for the long term and allow us to grow our programming and continue sharing it with other grassroots organizations fighting to make our communities a better place to live.
If you couldn’t make it but want to donate to VietRISE to help us achieve our mission, make a contribution here!
Features
LA Public Press: ICE enforcement affects Vietnamese, Cambodian communities in SoCal
Southeast Asian immigrants are deported at 3-5 times the rate of other communities due to prior criminal convictions. In LA and Orange County, businesses are seeing 70% revenue drops as vendors stay home.
COMMUNITY HIGHLIGHTS
We welcomed two Administrative Interns: John and An!
Over the next few months, they will be supporting VietRISE with our daily operations. Thank you to everyone who applied for this program; we’re looking forward to developing more internships so young people in Little Saigon can grow their skills in nonprofit and advocacy work!
An is a rising sophomore at UC Riverside, majoring in Political Science with a focus on Law and Society. She looks forward to learning more about grassroots organizing and being part of projects that uplift the Vietnamese and immigrant communities in Orange County!
John is a rising junior at UC Irvine, majoring in Cognitive Science. He is excited to learn about how a non-profit operates and to help create lasting impact for communities he deeply cares about.
Don’t hesitate to say hello if you see them at our upcoming events!
Thank you for being a part of our community,
– The VietRISE Team
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