Madison’s concluding remarks:

Well, what an exciting meeting! I didn’t even think that a little small proposal can generate so much excitement! I feel like I’m back in my campaign months, about two years ago!  Anyway, I just want to, again, thank you everyone for coming out, I just want to provide some closing comments tonight.

 As we all know, and we heard very repeatedly tonight that we came from a refugee community. I was part of the boat people. So, the name Little Saigon, Saigon, all that, both names mean a lot to me, as well as Vietnamese American, as well as Vietnamese because truly, every one of us are Vietnamese. We can’t hide that, right, and so I just wanted to be a little bit more frank with you. When I campaigned a year and a half ago, one of the things that I would like to do is to build the first Vietnamese community center here. And we are in the process of doing that. The second thing that I said I was going to do is how can I help the small businesses here in District Seven, to develop more. Obviously, we all know that a lot of us own very small businesses here on Senter Road, on Tully, on Story.  And so that’s my intention, to create this proposal. The proposal has nothing to do with our political affiliation, it has nothing to do with our political agenda, what it has everything to do with the economic development that we can continue to strive.  So I hope that, sometimes, when it comes to really hard, making hard decisions, that we can put our own political agenda aside, and think about the goodness of the community, and how we can help each other, because this is our second home now, how we can make each other to make this a better place to live. Because when we leave, we still have our children and our children’s children to take over. So again, I ask that we put our political agenda aside, and look for the common good of the community. Now again, let me stress that there isn’t a name that is designated to this area. The name “Vietnamese Business District,” let me say that in Vietnamese, Khu Thuong Mai Cho Nguoi Viet, is a direct translation that I did from Vietnamese to English.  And that’s a direct translation. So there’s no name. We hear a lot about Little Saigon tonight. Which is fine, we’re not object to that, no one’s object to that, I’m not object to that. But what you need to understand is the protocol that’s going to take place after tonight’s meeting. Right? When we proposed a business district here, in the city of San Jose, we have a process that we go through.  The people who are doing business on Story Road right now, the merchants, and the people who live within one thousand feet of this area, will have the biggest input, in regards to what the name will be.  Now, even if all of you, let’s say a hundred percent of you including myself, like the name Little Saigon. Right? But since we don’t live there, we live about three or four miles down, our input is not going to make that much of a difference. I want to be very frank with you so that you’re not surprised at how the process is going to work, and what the turnout’s going to be like.  So, in the next couple months, what we’re going to do is we’re going to canvass the area again, pass out the names that are suggested today, and, in the next few weeks, we’re going to solicit names from the businesses on Story Road, to see what the names are. Let’s say we come up with four names. Vietnamese Business District, Vietnamese American Business District, Little Saigon, and Saigon Town. Now, we’re going to take those four names, we’re going to pass it out to all the merchants who are being impacted by this project. That means that the merchants and the people who live within the area, they will get to vote.  Because at the end of the day, we live in a democratic society.  Everyone has a voice, we have freedom of speech, that’s the reason why we came to America, is to have that freedom of speech. So those people are going to give us the name. Whoever guy come up with the most votes, that’s what the city council is going to take into consideration. It’s the most fairest way on how we’re going to achieve this resolution.  So, I just want to be very, very frank with you, and this is probably the only opportunity that I have, to explain how the process works. But again, if you have any questions, feel free to call my office, feel free to call any of the staff who are here tonight, and we will continue to have this kind of outreach with the community. So again, I thank you for coming tonight, and I hope you have a great night. Thank you very much.

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Note: Madison's closing remark is transferred into English text by My Phuong Le, now a member of the San Jose Voters for Democracy. Another version in Vietnamese is edited by Phu Le Ph.D., if you need the Vietnamese version please sent email to viettrade_net@yahoo.com. This video clip is video graphed and stored for San Jose city personal database by Hoang Hoa for Tiengdanweekly, a weekly paper in San Jose.