In Little Saigon, this newspaper has been giving a community a voice for 40 years
WESTMINSTER, Calif. - The stories, spread in front of him in hot metal typeset, told of families stranded at sea, of sturdy ships rescuing rickety boats, of the hundreds drowned - all in the desperate struggle to get to America.
The articles brought news of people driven from Indochina by decades of war, and as he read them, his hands began to ink in accent marks over the words that needed them, so that their emotions burst forth, forming the narrative for the pages of his refugee newspaper.
The year was 1978, when typewriters offered only English-language fonts. Yen Ngoc Do, sporting thick glasses, pored over each line, wanting to make sure the Vietnamese printed correctly. Nguoi Viet Daily News appeared once a week, those early issues splashed in red and black ink and selling for $6 for a three-month subscription.
In the tradition of community journalism, Do served as founding editor, publisher and circulation manager. Going door to door, he distributed 2,000 copies of what would become the largest Vietnamese-language publication in the United States.
Nguoi Viet, meaning "the
