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Derek Tran says he’s fluent in Vietnamese. Rep. Michelle Steel’s campaign says he’s not.

September 6, 2024

Derek Tran is vying to become the first Vietnamese American elected to represent Orange County’s Little Saigon in Congress.

That uniqueness is something Tran, and the Democratic Party, often play up on the campaign trail. Tran has said he is “the only candidate that speaks fluent Vietnamese,” and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats, calls Tran “a candidate fluent in Vietnamese.”

In California’s 45th congressional district, where Tran is attempting to unseat two-term incumbent Rep. Michelle Steel, R-Seal Beach, Vietnamese fluency could be critical in reaching out to an electorate in a majority-minority district where the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam resides. But Tran’s ability to fluently speak the language has come under scrutiny after clips of TV interviews began circulating online, where he uses a translator or appears to struggle to understand a basic question asked in Vietnamese.

In an interview earlier this year with Saigon Entertainment Television based in Garden Grove, a translator stepped in to correct Tran when he misunderstood a question asking him how many years he served in the Army. Tran, instead, answered by talking about what he’s done as a lawyer.

Tran’s campaign declined to comment directly on his Vietnamese proficiency but provided a series of video clips in which Tran speaks the language.

In some of those clips, including an interview on Saigon Broadcasting Television Network, the host asks his question first in Vietnamese, then in English, after which Tran responds in English. In other clips, including an interview on Phố Bolsa TV, Tran appears to understand the question posed in Vietnamese, but he responds in English.

In another interview with Saigon Broadcasting Television Network, Tran speaks in Vietnamese without a translator for the majority of the interview while reverting to English briefly here and there — similar to a Zoom fundraiser by the Nguoi Viet Channel, where Tran speaks in Vietnamese without a translator before reverting to English.

Another clip shows reporters asking questions of Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democratic contender for U.S. Senate, at an August campaign stop in Santa Ana. One reporter asks Schiff, around the 52:57 mark, what he thought of the event, if he has any advice for Tran and whether he’ll come back to Orange County, then tells Tran, “I’d like you to translate.”

After Schiff’s response, the reporter again asks Tran, around the 54:43 mark, if he would translate what Schiff said, but a campaign staff member intervenes and says time is up. Tran, as a result, did not translate Schiff’s response.

In a recently published interview with the Los Angeles Times, which the campaign said was done several weeks ago, Tran said Vietnamese was his first language, but he has lost his childhood fluency. He uses a translator “because I don’t want any of my messaging to get lost from my broken Vietnamese,” he said.

Will it matter in November?

In CA-45, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, close to 40% of residents are Asian, and more than four in 10 of them identify as Vietnamese. The district encompasses Little Saigon, a collection of Vietnamese-heavy neighborhoods in Garden Grove, Westminster and Fountain Valley, and Buena Park, home to one of several officially-recognized Koreatowns in Southern California. CA-45 also picks up Cerritos and Artesia in Los Angeles County, both where Asian residents make up the largest racial group.

David Nguyen, a registered Republican voter who resides in Fountain Valley within the CA-45 boundaries, said he believes most Vietnamese Americans understand that there is a wide range of fluency.

“I’m in Tran’s position where I can speak Vietnamese but not as fluently as I would like,” Nguyen, 47, said. “That makes it harder to connect with older Vietnamese, but a lot of older Vietnamese are very forgiving if you make mistakes because they have children who can’t speak it fluently … they actually admire that you try.”

“As a Vietnamese American who’s also Vietnamese challenged, the definition of fluency is wide,” Nguyen continued. “I consider myself fluent in Vietnamese, but I speak it in a conversational way.”

To Long Bui, an international studies professor at UC Irvine, Tran’s comments about his Vietnamese fluency “comes off as personal exaggeration, typical of political campaigning.”

“Fluency can mean many things, including the fact that a candidate can speak in a casual conversation fluently,” said Bui, who studies generational differences around homeland politics. “But technical terms about commerce, the law, and government can be harder to express.”

While language fluency is important to the Vietnamese American community, Bui said, there are translation tools they can use.

But Steel’s campaign is attempting to paint Tran as dishonest. Lance Trover, a spokesperson for the congresswoman, said lying about speaking Vietnamese in this district is “borderline disqualifying with voters.”

“For everyone inside the Beltway who continues entertaining the DCCC’s spin that Derek Tran is some kind of star recruit, the last two weeks of stories uncovering his lies should be a wake-up call,” he said.

Orrin Evans, Tran’s spokesperson, responded: “Steel’s corruption is translatable into any language and voters see right through her attempt to distract from the fact that her former colleague and long-time ally Andrew Do is being investigated by the FBI for stealing taxpayer funds,” alluding to Steel scrubbing her campaign website of endorsements from Do, an Orange County supervisor who is facing mounting calls to step down amid allegations the nonprofit he directed millions of dollars in COVID relief funds to instead embezzled the funds meant for feeding the elderly.

The race in California’s 45th congressional district has grown increasingly more volatile as the countdown to Election Day continues. It’s one where election forecasts have begun to move toward being more favorable for Democrats: Election analyst Cook Political Report today changed its rating of the race from “lean Republican” to “Republican toss up,” and Inside Elections, a newsletter that provides campaign analysis, also recently changed its rating of the race to “tilt Republican.”

In June, Tran was criticized by dozens of local leaders and organizations for saying Steel, who was born in South Korea and grew up in Japan, “came to this country for economic gain.” Steel has said her parents fled communism in North Korea.

“Michelle still tries to run on that she’s a refugee or she tried to flee communism. No, that’s not true at all,” Tran told Punchbowl News. “She came to this country for economic gain. That’s not the same as losing one’s country after the fall of Saigon in ’75 and having no home.”

Tom K. Wong, an associate professor of political science at UC San Diego, said this is “likely not the last time” voters will see identity-based attacks as Steel and Tran continue to fight to win the support of the large Vietnamese community in the district.

Broadly speaking, Wong said co-ethnic voters value authenticity because they want to believe that a candidate is “one of us.”

“Thus, if an opponent can cast a candidate as inauthentic, this can significantly erode support among co-ethnic voters,” he said.

Voters in CA-45 are no stranger to campaign attacks based on candidates’ identities.

In 2022, the midterm race between Steel and Democrat Jay Chen was marked heavily by accusations of racism and red-baiting. After Steel had utilized campaign material that portrayed Chen, a Taiwanese American, as a communist sympathizer, an Asian American PAC rescinded its support of her.

Chen, on the other hand, was accused of mocking Steel’s accent. He had said in a closed-door meeting that people needed an interpreter to understand Steel.

Chen, a Mt. San Antonio College trustee, has publicly endorsed Tran. On X, formerly known as Twitter, Chen has repeatedly criticized Steel this cycle, alleging that she will be behind racist ads to voters in CA-45 to “scare up votes in the Vietnamese community.”

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Derek Tran says he’s fluent in Vietnamese. Rep. Michelle Steel’s campaign says he’s not.

Will it matter in November?

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