UVSA SoCal meeting with officials

Over the past weeks, Vietnamese Americans across the United States have had the privilege of being part of the exceptional exercise in the organization and mobilization of our community. The petition drive spearheaded by Saigon Broadcasting Television Network (SBTN) on February 8^th has sparked a collaboration effort of numerous organizations and Vietnamese Americans nationwide.

Here at Southern California, in an effort to support the struggle for democracy and human rights by youth activist in Vietnam and to join in solidarity with Vietnamese communities around the world supporting the democracy movement, the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California have joined hands with other youth organizations in mobilizing the community by gathering over 4,000 signatures in the course of 2 days to petition U.S. President and Congress to speak up against the human rights conditions in Vietnam.

As of today, thousands of people have signed on to the House Resolution 484 and over 115,000 people have signed on to the White House’s petition. Both petition and House Resolution 484 call on the Government of Vietnam to unconditionally release all human rights and democracy activists, prisoner of conscience, including song writer and singer Viet Khang, Ms. Bui Thi Minh Hang, and 17 Vietnamese Catholic youth and more.

Among the invitations, I’m delighted to be one of the few that was invited for the “White House Briefing with National Vietnamese American Leaders” to represent UVSA in a gathering with officials from the Obama’s Administration, young Vietnamese leaders, a panel of human rights and global partnership experts.

With that said if you had a chance to speak to the officials from the Obama’s Administration or President Obama himself, what questions would you like to ask relevant to this democracy movement?

If you have the questions in mind please email me at Billy.Le@uvsa.org before Monday morning as that will be the day our Vietnamese communities will come to speak with the White House staff.

Thank you everyone for your effort in this movement and being part of the UVSA family.

Sincerely,

Billy (Vu) Le