LOS ANGELES — When the first generation of Vietnamese refugees began arriving in Orange County decades ago, many of them harbored a longing to participate in the political process.

"Coming from living under communist rule, being civically engaged and getting to vote meant so much to them — that's why they had a strong interest," said Mary Anne Foo, executive director of the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance.

But there was a problem.

In the 1970s, '80s and part of the '90s, the county's voter registration materials and ballots were not printed in Vietnamese, which meant that many immigrants could not vote unless they got help translating the documents. So the community devised a solution: "ballot parties."

These events, organized by political and neighborhood groups — as well as activists and candidates — were typically held in parks and community centers and might feature live music and food. Some gatherings were partisan, others not, but they all included people to translate English-language election documents. And they helped mostly older constituents make sense of their choices.

"It's an age-old method, but it was one that was refined by the Vietnamese community because of the language issue," said Louis DeSipio, a political science professor at UC Irvine. "It was a resource for the community that was not necessarily candidate-driven — it was community-driven."

The homegrown get-out-the-vote practice, birthed out of frustration, helped elevate the county's large Vietnamese American community into a powerful voting bloc. This election, their votes will be coveted in several races, among them the battle for Congressional District 45, which pits Rep. Michelle Steel, the Republican incumbent, against Derek Tran, a Vietnamese American Democrat. The district includes the largest number of people of Vietnamese descent outside of Vietnam.

While the goal of the ballot parties wasn't to seed future candidates for elected office, they empowered Vietnamese Americans to get politically involved. People like Lan Nguyen.

Nguyen, a longtime political activist, is running for mayor of Garden Grove, a city that is 44% Asian, with most of those residents Vietnamese. Some of his earliest political activities were organizing ballot parties about 25 years ago. He described them as a key part of the community's political ground game.

"That is a really good operation — we're proud of it," said Nguyen, 60, who is vice president of the Garden Grove Unified School District's board of education. "No one can outdo that."

UC Berkeley demographics and policy researcher Karthick Ramakrishnan noted that similar gatherings have been held in Washington and Oregon, and not just for people of Vietnamese descent, explaining that such meet-ups have tended "to generate more benefit for older Asian American voters," as well as "immigrant voters that didn't grow up in America and are less familiar with the political system here, and may be less likely to get news coverage."

Nguyen and others said ballot parties are far less prevalent now, and some political players sought to downplay their influence.

"It was more prominent 20 years ago, 10 years ago — I think now the community is a lot more sophisticated politically," said Phu Nguyen, a community activist who serves on the Fountain Valley School District board of trustees. (None of the Nguyens in the story are related.)

Still, the vestiges of the grassroots gatherings live on, including via events recently held by several nonprofits. Even if they are not inspired by ballot parties, the get-togethers bear an uncanny resemblance to them.

The social justice organization VietRISE, for example, hosted the Little Saigon Community Festival at a Santa Ana park on Sept. 21. Tracy La, executive director of the group, said about 800 people attended, many of them Vietnamese, taking in live music and indulging in boba and other treats. There were groups on hand to register people to vote — and Vietnamese, Japanese and Spanish translators to help.

"A lot of people feel — at least what we heard — that there are not many places like this where they can come together alongside their community," said La, whose group is supporting two local measures in Santa Ana. "It was a very welcoming space to talk about these topics."

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Lan Nguyen, who immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam in 1980, recalls that the ballot parties began as small, informal events that focused on municipal elections.

But the endeavor eventually expanded to national ones, he said, and segued to include "Rock and Vote" gatherings for Vietnamese Americans in the 1990s. The events, which he said were styled after the Rock the Vote efforts of the same era, registered voters amid a convivial, music-filled atmosphere. It was, he said, "The concept of having a concert, and people coming, people sharing their ideas, and then registering to vote."

And the efforts endured because of community leaders, DeSipio said.

"There was a continuing civic infrastructure between elections that sustained it as well, [led by] local intellectuals, local Vietnamese media, community leaders and professionals in the community that had some status in Vietnam," he said. "...The leaders were tactical; they wanted to use their voice and get people engaged when they thought their voice would have influence."

Then, in 1992, a bill was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush that required municipalities to provide multilingual ballots and voter information. In Orange County, that meant producing ballots in Spanish and Vietnamese. But the change didn't necessarily obviate the need for the community's parties: Nguyen said that early attempts at translation by the county were often poor or incomplete.

Even in jurisdictions where there is a mandate to offer translated voter materials, Ramakrishnan said, "Language assistance isn't always consistently provided." And even if it is, he said, "For a lot of immigrant voters, they appreciate having the extra time and help from friends and family members to make sense of the ballot."

The personal touch of ballot parties may have helped contribute to a voting preference among Asian Americans in California: they are, said Ramakrishnan, more likely to vote absentee versus the general population. Ramakrishnan, founder of AAPI Data, a publisher of demographic data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, said that from 1996 to 2022, 45% of Californians who voted did so by mail. Among Asian Americans, the figure was 62%.

Though ballot parties are less prevalent, they live on, in a way — and VietRISE isn't the only group holding similar events. Member organizations of the newly formed Asian American Initiative, whose groups cater to the county's Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese populations, among others, have held voter information and registration events in recent months.

"This started in the Vietnamese community, but what we are seeing is these ballot parties are starting to occur in all the Asian communities," said Foo, whose group is part of the Asian American Initiative. "Because as people get more civically engaged, they really want to understand."

Southland Integrated Services, a health and social services nonprofit formerly known as Vietnamese Community of Orange County, decided to offer voter registration at its recent quarterly health fair. The result: almost 300 people — nearly all Vietnamese, most of them seniors — showed up for a nonpartisan program that organizers had expected to draw 50. More than 200 attendees registered to vote, said Tricia Nguyen, chief executive of the organization.

"All of our staff was helping them through the process," she said. "The seniors loved it. They didn't have to do any hard work."

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On a recent weekday afternoon, Lan Nguyen, the mayoral candidate, strode through a Garden Grove neighborhood of American flags, Donald Trump flags and cars with stickers championing a favorite sports team or gun. He wore a mesh-vented sun hat and a smile that grew more wry with each door knock.

One man cut off Nguyen at the start of his spiel to ask if he was a Republican. When Nguyen assented, the man pledged to vote for him, no questions asked. But another resident behind a screen door made her mouth into a tight thin line while Nguyen spoke about his candidacy. If he left any campaign literature, she told him, it would immediately be thrown in the garbage.

"I don't take it personal — if it happens you smile, say, 'Thank you,' and walk away," he said later.

In a neighborhood where many of the residents who answered the door were white, some seemed oblivious to the durable political force that Nguyen had helped shape in the Vietnamese American community — and now hopes to harness at the ballot box next month.

Still, in a small way, he said, as a person of Vietnamese descent running for elected office, his mere presence on people's doorsteps could lead to a better understanding of his community and its political clout.

"It helps break down the barriers," Nguyen said. "I really want the general community to understand the dynamic in the Vietnamese community."

Dynamic, indeed. Three other mayoral candidates he's facing also are of Vietnamese descent.

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