Black Lives Matter Movement Stirs Painful Divide In Local Vietnamese-American Community

One of the burning issues of the day is playing out painfully among Vietnamese-Americans in New England: Which side of Black Lives Matter should the community be on?

Some see the movement as a rightful denunciation of structural racism and police brutality. Others in traditionally conservative Vietnamese-American communities in Dorchester, Quincy and Manchester, New Hampshire, regard BLM and their supporters as unpatriotic and dangerously leftist.

BLM’s detractors include a Vietnamese immigrant named Bao Chau Kelly of Hooksett, New Hampshire. She is a pro-Trump activist who has recruited a small but vocal group of Vietnamese-Americans to attend “Blue Lives Matter” rallies in support of police and flood social media with messages attacking Black Lives Matter as a violent anti-American ideology. They have excoriated Vietnamese-Americans who embrace BLM, including Massachusetts Rep. Tram Nguyen of Andover.

Earlier this summer Nguyen released a video on Facebook explaining why she thought it was important to support Black Lives Matter. Her video included a reference to Asian-Americans’ heightened fears following a string of reported verbal and physical attacks across the U.S.

“We can’t fight against racism directed towards our community while standing complicit in a system that disproportionately discriminates, devalues and criminalizes and brutalizes our Black friends and neighbors,” she said.

Nguyen told WGBH News she knew that some among the area’s estimated 30,000 Vietnamese-American residents would react negatively to this message. However, she said she did not expect it to lead to “personal attacks” and what she called “vile anti-Black rhetoric.”

Read the rest of this story at WGBH’s website.