Word: trans
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Truong Van Tran is proud to be an American. So proud that the Vietnamese refugee, 37, chose to give his two children not the ancestral surname of Tran but a certifiably American one, that of the first President of the U.S. At home in a gated community in Orange County, Calif., Tran expounds on what it means to be an American: "Freedom in this country means I can say what I feel...
...phone rings. It's a producer from Roseanne who wants Tran to be a guest. But he has to check his schedule first. He's not working, but he's still busy with media requests. Sometimes he does four interviews a day. No, the press doesn't really want to talk about the time in 1997 when he had to spend 20 days in jail for hitting his wife (he's sorry and admits he learned that in America, you're not allowed to beat your spouse). And no, the media don't want to interview him about the time...
Last Friday a crowd estimated at 15,000 gathered around Tran's store, Hi Tek, an electronics-cum-video-rental outlet in a cramped minimall in Little Saigon--the unofficial name of Westminster, which lies about an hour south of Los Angeles. The demonstrators unfurled signs declaring, OUR WOUNDS WILL NEVER HEAL! BE AWARE! COMMUNISTS ARE INVADING AMERICA. They are not angry about some controversial video (the rental shelves carry nothing questionable; the most popular tape, Tran says, is a martial-arts epic in which a student of Buddha's sends a monkey angel from heaven to fight evil...
...riot gear arrested nearly a dozen protesters after 300 people stormed barricades to attack Hi Tek during Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. Some activists vowed to set themselves on fire, emulating the suicidal monks of the 1960s. Last week's larger but more peaceful crowd chanted slogans criticizing Tran as the sounds of mortar blasts and machine-gun fire boomed from loudspeakers. An elaborate shrine of candles, flowers and incense rests in front of two mock coffins bearing American and Vietnamese war victims. All that's missing is food vendors. Nope. Here comes someone hawking doughnuts and soymilk...
...chose Hepatitis B because it is an important disease that affects a lot of people and has long-term consequences," Tran said. "It is also preventative by vaccine and behavior modification...