anti-Communist

His community was bound together by family, tradition and staunch anti-communist sentiment — which, in a few years, fueled a controversy that foreshadowed a political shift in Little Saigon.

Longtime residents of Little Saigon were incensed and organized anti-communist protests.

For much of his professional career, Gurr was a closeted gay man, coming of age during the 1950s era of Joseph McCarthy and the Lavender Scare, the anti-communist purge of LGBTQ+ people from the U.S. government.

That generational divide was evident in many of the conversations I had with shoppers and business owners in Little Saigon, where the Republican Party has long held sway for its traditional anti-Communist stance and where support for Trump remains strong among older Vietnamese immigrants, even as many of their children reject the GOP.

In moving his antihero between Vietnam and 1970s California, home of self-obsessed good vibrations, conflicted refugees and rabid anti-communist reactionaries, Nguyen reveals a series of rich dichotomies.