We invite you to join us at the Vietnamese-owned restaurant, Alum Beer House, on Oct. 18th to celebrate the 5th anniversary of VietRISE and 5 years of building working-class and immigrant community power in Little Saigon! 🎉 During the evening, we’ll have music, speakers, an auction, awards ceremony, and delicious food and drinks. Join us to celebrate and raise funds to support the next 5 years of VietRISE!

Join us for part two of our sessions on the working class, where we will continue discussing the history of organizing among the working class in the United States. We will have discussions about class unity and building class consciousness among working class and immigrant communities in Little Saigon. Food will be provided!

In light of the recent increase in COVID-19 cases, we want to remind you that we still have free surgical and KN95 masks for anyone who is looking to restock their supply! Email indigo@vietrise.org or stop by our office between 11AM and 5PM, Monday through Friday to pick up free bags of KN95 masks. Each bag comes with 50 masks, and each person can get 2 bags of masks.

Our coalition’s agenda item to direct city staff to come back with options for placing noncitizen voting on the November 2024 ballot is moving forward with majority support from the city council! Thank you to the 50+ community members who came to make public comment. We anticipate seeing the language ready for public discussion by the council by Oct 17 or Nov 7. Stay tuned for calls to action!

On Friday, September 22, Governor Newsom vetoed the HOME Act, despite the bill passing both the State Assembly and Senate with supermajority support. We are deeply disappointed with the Governor’s veto. The HOME Act would have protected many of our system-impacted immigrant community members from being double punished—sentenced to indefinite ICE detention after and despite earning release from prison. We will not be deterred from continuing to fight alongside our communities to end ICE transfers and ensure their safe return home from prison. Read our coalition statement here as well as the statement by bill author Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo.

Throughout the last 8 weeks, our canvassing team canvassed 2,368 homes and surveyed over 760 residents across Little Saigon. We surpassed our goal of 750 surveys for CERF!

Last month we announced the launch of our campaign to urge Governor Newsom to grant our staff member, Tin, a pardon. Since his release from ICE detention in 2020, Tin has been and continues to be a force for change and transformation among system-impacted communities across SoCal. Now, Tin needs the community’s help to ensure that he can continue to stay with his family and community as he currently faces the risk of deportation to Viet Nam!

Our Executive Director, Tracy La, is featured in a video alongside other power builders in California to speak directly to the roles and contributions that philanthropy can have in supporting community organizing and power building, to explain their reasoning and motivation for focusing on building power, and to share their experiences in funding power building. Watch the video here.

The Voice of OC covered our fight as part of the Santa Ana Families for Fair Elections (SAFFE) coalition to win voting rights for non-citizen and undocumented residents in the city of Santa Ana. Read the coverage here.

Tin Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee and VietRISE’s Immigrant Justice Coordinator, has overcome a challenging life marked by racial prejudice, an abusive household, and involvement in a gang, which eventually led to a tragic incident resulting in a life sentence. However, after 22 years in prison and 10 months in ICE detention, Tin secured a commutation and a chance at a new life. Today we are fighting to keep Tin home in the United States by calling on Governor Newsom to grant Tin a pardon. Read the coverage here.

Tin Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee and VietRISE’s Immigrant Justice Coordinator, has overcome a challenging life marked by racial prejudice, an abusive household, and involvement in a gang, which eventually led to a tragic incident resulting in a life sentence. However, after 22 years in prison and 10 months in ICE detention, Tin secured a commutation and a chance at a new life. Today we are fighting to keep Tin home in the United States by calling on Governor Newsom to grant Tin a pardon. Read the coverage here.

Huge thank you and congratulations to our Community Economic Resilience Fund canvassing program youth interns! Quynh, Thu, and An spent their summer going door-to-door, making sure that the voices of residents in Little Saigon are prioritized in identifying ideas and solutions for building an equitable and environmentally friendly economy, one that increases the number of high-quality jobs. It has been a joy witnessing their growth in civic engagement and community outreach skills over the past two months. Thank you for spending your summer with us!