Asian Garden Mall (Phước Lộc Thọ) – Clio

            Asian Garden Mall was built by Frank Jao, the area’s premier
real estate developer, and his partners in 1986 for $15 million. The mall is a
150,000 square foot, two-story building, overflowing with shops and restaurants
that sell various goods and services, including famously cheap,
wholesale jewelry. On the lower level, stalls and markets offer a rich
variety of authentic Vietnamese food, as well as French-Vietnamese sandwiches, French
bread, and Chinese food. Hair stylists, shoe shiners, clothing
boutiques, and stores sell all types of miscellaneous items. On the upper
level, the famous jewelry center, coexists with kiosks for various
administrative services, as well as many record stores; Little Saigon has been
referred to as the “Vietnamese Nashville,” due to the critical function that music and media
production plays for the community. The exterior features neon lettering, massive windows, and generic Asian
architectural elements including, but not limited to, enormous statutes of Asian
spiritual figures and lions and sloped, pagoda-style roofs.  Though such features are not unique to
Little Saigon, the massive scale and location enhance its symbolic role, making the mall an iconic centerpiece of Little
Saigon.

            The mall was the second part of the
master plan that Jao had developed in partnership with local government officials to
cultivate culture and tourism along Bolsa Avenue. The area’s
economy was booming, already recovering from the economic decline it had
experienced in the 1970s, due to the ever-growing arrival of Vietnamese
people, primarily refugees who escaped from Vietnam following the Fall of
Saigon in 1975.  Many started successful businesses that anchored the community. By 1987 there were 3,074
Vietnamese-owned businesses in Orange County, and an estimated 20,000 to 50,000
people came to shop on Bolsa Avenue every weekend. Located between two major
freeways, several miles away from Disneyland and between Los Angeles and San
Diego, Bolsa Avenue proved to be a prime location for attracting tourists. Jao sought to further enhance its appeal. He wanted to develop a “pan-Asian” commercial center in order to maximize the potential customer base and avoid the
decline then being experienced by less inclusive ethnic enclaves. Jao began a campaign
to rebrand the area and call it “Asiantown” rather than “Little Saigon,” hence
the intentional name of “Asian Garden Mall,” rather than “Vietnamese Garden
Mall.”

            Jao failed in these efforts.
In 1988, “Little Saigon” was made the official name of the area bordered by
Westminster Boulevard, Bolsa Avenue, Magnolia Street, and Euclid Street.  Grassroots activism and pressure from ethnic Vietnamese Americans produced this result. “Phước Lộc
Thọ,” or “Luck, Prosperity, and Longevity,” is the name used by both local and
visiting Vietnamese people, who constitute the majority of the patrons at the
mall, whether intentionally or inadvertently. For both locals and visiting
Vietnamese, the mall is a place of gathering and community building, especially
for older generations. Phước Lộc Thọ is what they imagine Saigon (or, as it is
known today, Hồ Chí Minh City) would have been had South Vietnam not lost the
war. It is a site of pilgrimage, it is a place they visit in order to
experience and remember Vietnam before 1975, it is where everything is
Vietnamese and where they can be
Vietnamese. It simultaneously represents a glorious past and future, embodying
the ideal of what was and could have been. It is why Phước Lộc Thọ offers a
cultural and community experience like none other, for locals and visitors
alike.

            For
the nation, Phước Lộc Thọ is a symbol of the Vietnamese community in the
present. It is a clear example of the accomplishments of Vietnamese people, a
celebration of a community that started off as refugees and established a place
for themselves in the United States and prospered.  It constitutes a testimony to the power of
democracy, diversity, and freedom. In 2000, then-presidential
candidate George W. Bush visited Phước Lộc Thọ during a campaign tour in
California, transforming the mall into a nationally recognizable symbol of the
Vietnamese community. In 2016, a monument sponsored by the Courage
to Rebuild Project to celebrate forty years of Vietnamese American accomplishments
will be placed in front of Phước Lộc Thọ. The Mall offers an interesting
case of a site whose symbolic status outshines its physical elements.  Phước
Lộc Thọ’s status as a thoroughly Vietnamese space and what it represents to
Vietnamese locals and tourists and the United States, rather than its physical
features and history, make it a critically important landmark.

For the nation, Phước Lộc Thọ is a symbol of the Vietnamese community in the present. It is a clear example of the accomplishments of Vietnamese people, a celebration of a community that started off as refugees and established a place for themselves in the United States and prospered. It constitutes a testimony to the power of democracy, diversity, and freedom. In 2000, then-presidential candidate George W. Bush visited Phước Lộc Thọ during a campaign tour in California, transforming the mall into a nationally recognizable symbol of the Vietnamese community. In 2016, a monument sponsored by the Courage to Rebuild Project to celebrate forty years of Vietnamese American accomplishments will be placed in front of Phước Lộc Thọ. The Mall offers an interesting case of a site whose symbolic status outshines its physical elements. Phước Lộc Thọ’s status as a thoroughly Vietnamese space and what it represents to Vietnamese locals and tourists and the United States, rather than its physical features and history, make it a critically important landmark.