Goodbye, Saigon

by Nina Vida

Little Saigon, Westminster, California, 1993. Two female refugees - one from the ravages of wartime Vietnam, one from a more personal sort of hell - join together to forge an independent future in the violent, volatile world of Little Saigon. Brash, fast-talking, self-promoting Anh, a diminutive Vietnamese beauty, supports her ever-extending family on tips from a coke-snorting, gambling lawyer. When he disappears, she finds in his place his secretary, Jana, a tough, self-sufficient Anglo who needs money as desperately as Anh does. Together they set up a bogus law practice in Little Saigon. Anh supplies the clients, Jana plays lawyer, and business thrives until the vicious Nep gang wants a piece of their action. As Anh teaches Jana the ways of Little Saigon, a free-for-all cartoon of capitalism imposed on rigid and archaic traditions, we relive Anh's days as a young woman struggling through the relentless horrors of war. And when a vet who knew Anh in Vietnam comes to lead her into a ne