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ANNUAL VIETNAMESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION MOVES TO MIRA MESA

ANNUAL VIETNAMESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION MOVES TO MIRA MESA

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Mira Mesa – The eighth annual San Diego Tet Festival, the Vietnamese New Year celebration, will be moving to from its usual home in Balboa Park to Mira Mesa.

2013 Tet Festival
2013 Tet Festival

Because of the preparation for the 2015 Centennial Celebration, the festival’s usual spot at the corner of President’s Way and Park Boulevard is under construction and will not be available. This year’s festival will be held at Mira Mesa Community Park, 8575 New Salem St.

The festival, which attracts 20,000 people each year, promises fun for whole the family with such activities as carnival rides and games, authentic Vietnamese food, lion dancing and firecrackers. And entertainment programs, such as the Miss Vietnam of San Diego and a Cultural Village to immerse yourself in Vietnamese culture.

Festival Dates and Hours are: Friday, Feb. 15, 2013 from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013 from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, Feb. 17, 2013 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

Vietnamese-American Youth Alliance (V.A.Y.A), a 501(c)3 non-profit, non-partisan, community-based organization, was founded in 2004 as a mean for Vietnamese-American youth to organize socially and culturally within the local communities.

At VAYA, we work to promote youth leadership, cultural awareness, social awareness, and community development. This is our mission. Everything we do reflects this mission and the values that make it possible.
VAYA’s response to UT’s insensitive pun on Pho

VAYA’s response to UT’s insensitive pun on Pho

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December 8, 2011

Tom Mallory
Web Editor
San Diego Union-Tribune
350 Camino de la Reina
San Diego, CA 92108

RE: Offensive pun on phở in your headline.

Dear Mr. Malllory:

Words cannot express how disappointed we are in the San Diego Union-Tribune’s blog post titled “Pho-King Amazing: Harbor Town Pub” by Michelle Guerin dated Dec. 7 on DiscoverSD.com and SignOnSanDiego.com.

Laying aside the problematic fact that a restaurant owner would choose to name a sandwich “Pho-King,” it is disappointing to see that an award-winning newspaper in the second largest metropolitan area in California with a large Vietnamese population would choose to do same in its headline.

The headline pokes fun at our language, a language that is spoken by more than one million people in the United States, making it the seventh most spoken language and the fifth in California. Using it in your headline is just plain crude and insensitive.

Furthermore, as a media sponsor to VAYA’s annual Tết Festival in Balboa Park, we expect the Union-Tribune to be more sensitive to the needs and concerns of our community. With more than 40,000 Vietnamese residents living in San Diego County and hundreds of phở restaurants in city, we expect more of the Union-Tribune than this.

Thank you for your attention to the issue.

Alexander Nguyen
Treasurer

Update: U-T Editor responded with an apology.

Dear Mr. Nguyen –

You’re right. That was an inappropriate headline for our site, and I apologize for any upset and offense it caused.
The editor involved also offers her apologies, and I know she feels terrible she gave offense.

In this case, it is the name of a sandwich at the restaurant. But that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable for our publication.

My editor changed that headline as soon as we noticed it but, because it was on an inside page, it wasn’t pulled down as quickly as I would like

In reviewing it again today, I thought it better to take the name of the sandwich out of the story.

Again, please accept our apologies for any offense. We strive to cover all cultures and communities with respect and that headline fell short of our standards.

Also, thanks for your message, which gave me this chance to respond.

Tom

Tom Mallory

Homepage editor

The San Diego Union-Tribune