For Seattle’s Vietnamese community, the intersection of home and hope is Little Saigon.
The corner of 12th and Jackson is home – but the people who have called it home have changed over the decades. On the northeast corner, a marker commemorates how this part of Seattle was once a hub for Black Seattle where jazz clubs opened their doors to everyone when much of the city at a time when redlining and sundown laws enshrined segregation by race. Some of us have spoken to elders who know the neighborhood as “Indian Country” and remember what it was like before I-5 tore it apart.
During World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt, invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and using an executive order, decimated the Japanese American community that once lived here.
Displacement, underinvestment, and neglect have been the common story of these blocks of Seattle, in large part because of who has called this place home. It’s always tended to be the most marginalized and precarious communities in the city.
Today, the Vietnamese-American community is the latest diaspora making the area around 12th and Jackson home, and like the communities before us, it doesn’t take much to see the pattern of underinvestment and neglect repeating itself. Local media can’t help itself to use Little Saigon in an annual puff piece to fire up the fear machine before elections to remind voters it’s time to renew the City’s “law and order” commitment to give us unimaginative, one-dimensional public safety that rarely achieves the “compassionate” goals our city claims to value.
The visible neglect of Little Saigon is hard to look at and harder to change, yet Friends of Little Saigon (FLS) is seeking to do exactly that. FLS recently launched “Phố Đẹp (Beautiful Neighborhood),” an inclusive framework to public safety that started with visioning meetings and outreach to community members, small businesses, residents, and local organizations to foster long-term change through placemaking and place-based solutions.
After a year of collecting data and anecdotes, FLS launched the Little Saigon Safety Plan at a community kick-off in February 2025. The meeting brought together local government partners into the room with small businesses, residents, and community organizations to take shared ownership of this safety plan. Some of the actionable steps include coordinating social service providers to better support people who are struggling with homelessness and addiction, increasing lighting and public art in Hoa Mai Park, advocating for more frequent neighborhood trash pickups, and creating a Little Saigon business coalition.
A group of community members have committed to accomplishing small steps in the near term, also called the 100 Day Challenge. Over the next two and a half years, the rest of the actions identified by the Little Saigon Safety Plan will be executed by community stakeholders to cultivate safety and vibrancy in Little Saigon.
We are cleareyed that this is not work that will be simple or have easy solutions, and it will require ongoing and long-term commitments, advocacy, and a bigger imagination for what will help this community thrive and be safe.
We will prioritize a housing-first ethos for our unhoused neighbors, appropriate services for people experiencing substance-use disorder, physical environment improvements like lighting or improving cleanliness to enhance safety for pedestrians and residents, and growing neighborhood activation to bring more people to the neighborhood. This requires investments in building the capacity of the neighborhood and its people, and partnerships with our local government.
For a diaspora like the Vietnamese/Vietnamese-American community, the feeling of home and the feeling of safety is something we’ve been seeking for generations. April 30th marks the fall of Saigon, with this year being the 50th anniversary of this historic event that caused 2 million people to flee an authoritarian government. This event was the precursor to many of our families arriving in the Pacific Northwest and carving out the area around 12th and Jackson as a cultural home, a place where we can shop, gather, worship, and celebrate, where we can find ingredients to recreate dishes cherished by elders and the young.
Despite the struggles and challenges, Little Saigon is a place with vibrancy and meaning for many Vietnamese-Americans and the AANHPI community. This is where culture makers are creating third spaces like the Little Saigon Creative, new ways to celebrate Vietnamese and the broader Asian-American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI) culture and identities through CID Block Party by Drag & Drop Creative, and neighborhood businesses like The Boat (James Beard Award nominated) cementing Vietnamese cuisine as among the best in the world and making the neighborhood a dining destination for the region.
These are all things that are making this neighborhood safer and more vibrant, but there’s more work to be done and we need ongoing commitments of resources – not just for the Vietnamese community, but also to adequately fund the services and systems that will assist those currently struggling with homelessness and/or addiction. We need allies to support the Phố Đẹp work, and to think of Little Saigon often by coming to FLS/neighborhood events and supporting the diverse businesses here year round. We call on everyone to come see the magic, innovation, and love we experience in the neighborhood for themselves, because this is a home worth fighting for.
Join for the world premiere of Saigon to Seattle at Hoa Mai Park on Saturday, May 3rd, more information here: http://flsseattle.org/saigontoseattle.Follow Friends of Little Saigon (Facebook, Instagram) and subscribe to our newsletter to get updates on the neighborhood, our work, or to learn more about the businesses and events in Little Saigon: https://flsseattle.org/get-involved/.
Vy Nguyen
Vy Nguyen is an elder millennial born and mostly raised in the Pacific Northwest. She serves on the board of Friends of Little Saigon and has spent her career working to close opportunity gaps, improve the quality of life for working families and households, and more recently, advancing the green economy for the region. An enthusiast for walkable neighborhoods, delicious eats, and carfree living (all things that make a neighborhood vibrant!), you might spot her on adventures on her e-bike or in search of a little treat.
