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Little Saigon San Francisco, CA 94109 Last Updated: 04/19/2023 |
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With its active Vietnamese American community and its many Vietnamese American-owned businesses, the Tenderloin in San Francisco has often been referred to as "Little Saigon." For part of the neighborhood, the name is now official. | |
| The city recently recognized the two-block corridor of Larkin Street between Eddy and O'Farrell streets as Little Saigon, a designation on par with Chinatown and Japantown. City officials, Vietnamese American community leaders and neighborhood merchants are banking that the name will boost the area's reputation as a Vietnamese cultural and commercial center and will draw visitors, especially tourists. "Everyone knows if you want something Vietnamese, you come to the Tenderloin," said Kim Nguyen, project manager of the Little Saigon Project Task Force, a coalition of community organizations and institutions that lobbied for the name. "People from outside the community know the businesses are here," Nguyen said. "We have tailors, dentists, travel agents, jewelers, restaurants, acupuncturists, doctor's offices. It was already Little Saigon, just not officially. Giving it the name enhances the image." Vietnamese cultural celebrations have also been held in the Tenderloin for years. The Tet Festival, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration, drew about 20,000 people to the neighborhood in mid-January. "We are proud to have a home in San Francisco," said Phu Nguyen, task force member and commissioner of San Francisco's Immigrant Rights Commission. "Not even San Jose, with its large Vietnamese population, has a Little Saigon." San Jose is home to about 90,000 Vietnamese Americans, the largest Vietnamese population of any city outside Vietnam. By comparison, San Francisco's Vietnamese American population is relatively small at about 13,000, including about 2,000 in the Tenderloin, according to the 2000 census. But the community has made its mark on the neighborhood. There are about 250 Vietnamese American-owned businesses in the Tenderloin, said task force chair Minh Huynh, along with community groups for youths, veterans and the elderly. Eighty percent of the businesses on the two blocks of Larkin are owned by Vietnamese Americans. Some are staples, such as Tammy Pham's Kim Cuong Jewelry store, which opened 18 years ago. Others, such as David Tran's 6-month-old Camera Heaven Inc., are just getting established. "We're really just lending legitimacy to what the neighborhood has already become," said Supervisor Chris Daly, who represents the area and sponsored the Little Saigon resolution. The board passed it unanimously Sept. 23. "Certainly, the neighborhood has changed over the last 30 years," Daly said. "A lot of families from Southeast Asia have made it their home. There are more kids in the neighborhood; there's now an elementary school (Tenderloin Community School on Turk Street). Small businesses have opened up. It's not so much the name we give it, but what's been going on." The Little Saigon Project received $20,000 from the Mayor's Neighborhood Beautification Fund and raised an additional $5,000 for the first phase of its project, which consists mainly of informing the public of the new designation. Green-and-yellow banners emblazoned with "Sai Gon Nho" and its English translation, "Little Saigon," have gone up on Larkin Street. (The name refers to the capital of the former South Vietnam, renamed Ho Chi Minh City at the end of the Vietnam War.) The banner, designed by architect Ben Thanh, features a painting of a French Colonial open market built in Saigon in the early 1900s. Two 8-foot pylons, soon to be erected at Larkin and Eddy, will serve as a gateway. Directional signs will be posted along freeways and busy streets. Larkin Street has received new trash receptacles complete with a Little Saigon logo, and its lampposts have received a fresh coat of green paint. Hieu Quan has owned Thong Video on Larkin, which specializes in Chinese movies dubbed in Vietnamese, for four years. He estimates that as many as half his renters live in the Tenderloin. "It's a good idea to call it Little Saigon," he said. "It should help business pick up." Enthusiasm for the project is not isolated to Larkin Street. Tu Kim, who operates KMT Cafe on Hyde Street, hopes foot traffic will spill over onto her street. She says relatives from Vietnam want to visit San Francisco specifically to see Little Saigon. "I wish they named the whole area Little Saigon instead of just one street, but that's OK," Kim said through an interpreter. "Little Saigon is a symbol to all the immigrants who had to leave the country," task force member Nguyen Phu Bien said through an interpreter. "In a way, it's a way to stay connected with the old country." | |
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