Driving into San Francisco the other night, I noticed a bunch of signs attempting to establish another ethnic community along with North Beach, Chinatown, and Japan Town: Little Saigon.
Now, I’ve never been to the city, and for all I know it’s a beautiful place. But doesn’t it still have a lot of, err, negative connotations? If you’re advertising a Vietnamese community, why use an image of a smaller version of a war-torn city under seige? Do you reach Little Saigon via the Ho-Chi-Minh Path? Or am I making too big a deal of the city’s earnest attempts to promote pho restaurants? (Which, don’t get me wrong, I support entirely. Especially if they’re called “Pho Shizzle.”)
