All You Need To Know About Vietnamese in California

In the 1970s and 1980s a large number of Vietnamese refugees fleeing from conflict in their homeland settled in an area of Westminster and Garden Grove referred to as “Little Saigon.” This influx of new immigrants spurred the construction and development of a variety of Southeast Asian businesses, restaurants, and …

The oldest, largest, and most prominent Little Saigon is centered in Orange County, California, where over 189,000 Vietnamese Americans reside. With other Southern California counties, this region constitutes the largest Vietnamese American (VA) population outside of Vietnam.

Economic and social factors, many then moved to warmer states, such as California and Texas, with larger Vietnamese communities, better jobs, and social safety nets. Though Vietnamese immigration has continued at a fairly steady pace since the 1980s, the pathway to immigration for Vietnamese today has shifted entirely.

California is a familiar state for many overseas Vietnamese as well as Vietnamese people because it is the state in the US with the largest number of Vietnamese people living. The number of Vietnamese living in California accounts for nearly 40% of the total number of Vietnamese residing in the US.

Little Saigon is located approximately 45 miles (72 km) south of Los Angeles, California. “Little Saigon” is a spread-out community containing a mixture of Vietnamese and Chinese-Vietnamese businesses. It is estimated that over 4000+ different businesses exits in the complex which encompasses over 3 square mile.