PALM BEACH, Fla.—A group of Vietnamese Americans who fled communism lauded President-elect Donald Trump’s Election Day victory as a win for their pro-America, anti-communist efforts.
“I feel safe. I feel happy. ... It’s my dream, and it’s fulfilled, after four years of working for this,” said Lapson Luu, founder of Vietnamese Americans for America First, which held a Victory Night party at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort on Nov. 6.
Luu granted The Epoch Times exclusive access to the celebration, which about 150 people attended a day after Trump’s landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Luu’s group, known as VAFAF, has grown to 500 members and gained attention from many, including Trump. Not only do ladies from the group show up en masse in eye-catching red gowns, but also, the group raised money and used social media and in-person networks to boost Trump’s campaign. In addition, the group has repeatedly gathered at Trump properties.
More than 80,500 people subscribe to VAFAF’s YouTube channel. The group’s mission: is to support Trump and educate others about his “America First” policies, which are based on the principle that the United States keeps its own interests paramount.
The former president has met with Luu about a half-dozen times, she said, emphasizing how much respect he has shown her. Luu, who is petite at 4 feet, 11 inches, said the 6-foot-3 president-elect leans downward so he can speak with her at eye level.
“He wants to know how his policy helped you,” she said.
Luu rejects mainstream media characterizations of Trump as “racist.”
“I’m a minority. If he’s a racist, he won’t talk to me. But every time he sees me, every time he sees me and my two other friends, he always says, ‘These are the good people, the Vietnamese,’” she said.
The VAFAF website features a customized video of Trump thanking the group for its “tireless” work last year. In the video, Trump said the Vietnamese community has strongly supported his candidacy from the start of his foray into politics in 2015. “You have always stood by me and I will always stand by you,” Trump said, reiterating his stance against Marxists and communists. “Thank you for everything you’ve done.”
Holly Ngo of Fountain Valley, Calif., stands at the Mar-a-Lago Club, in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 6, 2024. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
In interviews with The Epoch Times, Luu and other party attendees passionately described their love for America, their opposition to illegal immigration, and their gratitude to Trump for his commitment to stopping censorship and other communist-like tactics that have crept into the United States—echoing concerns that other immigrants from communist countries, such as Cuba, have expressed in past interviews.
Holly Ngo of Fountain Valley, California, who left Vietnam and became a U.S. citizen more than 30 years ago, said, “What we are seeing right now is exactly what I saw then,” under the Vietnamese communist regime.
“So, for example, you know, you don’t have free speech. ... Censorship was terrible. That’s exactly how communists did it to their citizens,” she told The Epoch Times.
“It scares me. We left the country because of that; we don’t want to see the history repeated. It’s really threatening. And once they can control you, they control you all the way around.”
Another VAFAF member who became a citizen decades ago, Hung Nguyen, said he sees communism taking hold “step by step,” adding that media are used to spread propaganda and children are indoctrinated with anti-American principles in school. His wife, Betty Nguyen, said: “I love Trump because Trump loves America. ... He protects the U.S.A., protects our border.”
Betty and Hung Nguyen attend a Vietnamese Americans for America First celebration in honor of President-elect Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 6, 2024. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
All three said Trump’s win left them feeling confident he would keep his promises, including reversing the trend toward socialism and communism.
Luu said that if the election had a different outcome, the Victory Party would have changed markedly. Nevertheless, Luu planned it five months in advance based on her belief that Trump would prevail. Even if he hadn’t, “we would still want to celebrate our journey,” she said.
It began on the night of Nov. 3, 2020. Luu and millions of Americans were watching election results on TV.
“I guess you all remember, right?” she told her audience at the dinner, recounting how she was holding a bottle of Trump-branded wine, ready to pop it open and enjoy a celebratory drink “because the map was all red,” signifying the many states where the Republican presidential candidate, Trump, had secured more votes than his Democratic opponent, then-candidate Joe Biden.
But Luu said she fell asleep when several states suspended vote counting.
In the middle of the night, Luu awakened. She thought she was dreaming when she saw “the map was fading; the red color was fading.”
Over the next few days, Democrat blue began to replace red on the map, and Biden was declared the winner.
Luu said she burst into tears and that she felt “sad and depressed for months.”
But she realized that “being sad would not help; being depressed would never be a solution,” she said.
So Luu took action. She did everything she could to support Trump, she said, including using social media to combat what she considered misinformation and promote his policies; she formed VAFAF.
Vietnamese Americans for America First attend a victory night celebration in honor of President-elect Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 6, 2024. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
On the night of Nov. 5, Luu burst into tears again after seeing Trump declared the president-elect.
“Same tears, but different meaning: tears of happiness, tears of victory, and tears of joy,” she said.
She said people cast “votes of love” for Trump.
Based on the latest figures available early on Nov. 7, Trump had garnered 72.6 million votes and 295 Electoral College votes, far outpacing Harris’s tallies.
“With love, we have beliefs. With beliefs, we have strength,” Luu told the Mar-a-Lago Grand Ballroom audience, who cheered hearing her remarks. “We pray we will overcome our difficulties. ... We will achieve victory. The victory we have right now is the victory of love—the love of this country!
“We should not vote for someone because we hate the opposite side. This country is so grateful to have the love of President Donald J. Trump and, you know that President Trump is so grateful to have the love of God.”
The Mar-a-Lago Club of Palm Beach, Fla., on Nov. 6, 2024. (John Fredricks/The Epoch Times)
