U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Visits UCI

Michael Marine, the United States ambassador to Vietnam since 2004, paid his first visit to Orange County, home to the largest Vietnamese population outside of Vietnam, on October 27. His visit was sponsored by the Vietnam Educational Foundation, whose board chairman is Frank Jao, a prominent member of Orange County’s Vietnamese American community.

Included in his itinerary was UC Irvine. At UCI Ambassador Marine gave a talk about current issues in Vietnam at the Cross Cultural Center.  An audio of his talk is available at: http://webfiles. uci.edu/dtsang/audio/Ad051027.mp3.  In his opening remarks the Ambassador commented on the “Asianness” of the UCI campus population and the obvious connection between UCI and Southeast Asia in general.

Before his talk Ambassador Marine toured the Southeast Asian Archive where he viewed the Archive’s web portal SEAAdoc. He also viewed A SEAA of Memories:Our Changing Southeast Asian American Communities, an exhibit featuring materials from the SEA Archive’s archival collections.  SEA Archive Advisory Board chair Prany Sananikone and board members Robert R. Jones III, Peter Nguyeãn,and Professor Linda Voõ, were also present for the tour.