UC Irvine | Raising a new generation of Vietnamese leaders

By UC Irvine School of Social Sciences

When Tracy La ’17 took the podium at a high school mentorship event several years ago, she didn’t know she was changing at least one student’s life.

“That was the first time I had ever seen a Vietnamese American woman like me, at a microphone, using her voice to speak out about immigrant rights in Orange County,” says Chloe Lynn Võ, who was in the audience that day.

Võ became one of many young people whom La has mentored through VietRISE, the advocacy organization that she co-founded to engage Vietnamese Americans in local politics to shape their communities around issues that affect their lives.

The impact of La’s leadership can be felt across Little Saigon and the five Southern California cities it spans. She has helped enact rent control, provide legal support to immigrants facing deportation, and advocate for residents affected by the recent chemical leak in Garden Grove.

“In the beginning, we were very much focused on turnout and civic engagement among 1.5 to second- generation Vietnamese Americans, to get them more active in local government and to create a program to get young people to care about advocacy,” says La. “But VietRISE quickly evolved into fighting to change systems.”