Partnerships

JHU Critical Diaspora Studies

UEC Fellows

SBAN

Workshops & Teach-Ins

Eden Center Tours

Conferences & Speaking Engagements

History of Viet Place Collective

About VPC

Our Work

Photo by VPC

Viet Place Collective is an all-volunteer grassroots organization that aims to build power across generations to uplift and uphold the Vietnamese community's legacy in the DMV. VPC formed in Dec. 2022 in response to a redevelopment plan by the City of Falls Church over concerns about displacement of the majority-Vietnamese small businesses of Eden Center, the largest Vietnamese cultural and commercial hub on the East Coast and the cornerstone of our community in the region. We’ve championed the importance of preserving a cultural hub, recognizing the Vietnamese community's history of displacement as part of a greater trend of gentrification nationally. Within just a year, VPC's advocacy has improved conditions at Eden Center, brought Vietnamese voices and an anti-displacement toolkit to the City’s plan, and raised the City's standard for equitable outreach to impacted populations.

Photos by VPC

Photo by Valerie Plesch

Our vision is a thriving “third space” for the Vietnamese and larger Asian American community in the DC Maryland Virginia (DMV) area – one that preserves the legacy of our elders and empowers generations ahead. Blending our diverse expertise in research, urban planning, advocacy, creativity, and community outreach, we bridge the policy and programming gap between the communities we love and the levers of power in local/state government, nonprofits, and academia. We do this by advocating for our communities’ needs, raising the profile of Vietnamese small businesses at Eden Center through tours, hosting and facilitating educational workshops, and speaking at conferences and other events. See examples of our work below.

Advocacy and Reports

Born from the City of Falls Church’s lack of equitable community outreach, VPC organized to ensure that the small businesses at Eden Center and the greater community understood and could share their feedback on the City’s official guidance for future redevelopment in the area (East End Small Area Plan). In 2022 and 2023, VPC advocated for multilingual feedback surveys, public Listening Sessions, and pop-ups at Eden Center, resulting in the City’s most equitable planning process to date. To bolster our organizing, VPC also has produced reports containing actionable recommendations for the City to better support our community.

Based on our conversations with Eden Center business owners and referencing the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network Toolkit, VPC outlined recommendations for changes to the SAP that would protect and bolster the Vietnamese small businesses and greater community in the area. In June 2023, Planning Commissioners and City Council Members voted to approve the SAP, with the following revisions from our recommendations:

Added primary goal: “Prioritize anti-displacement strategies to promote the longevity of small businesses in the Eden Center.”
- Creating a Vietnamese Cultural District, potentially named “Little Saigon”
- Honorarily name a section of Wilson Boulevard as “Saigon Boulevard”
Added anti-displacement toolkit, including the following strategies:

Legacy Business Preservation Program
Vietnamese Outreach Specialist
Construction Disruption Mitigation
Neighborhood Business Incubator

Suggestions to improve parking at Eden Center, while expanding public transportation options

Read the full report

Following our win with the revised East End SAP, VPC consulted with subject matter experts and Eden Center business owners to identify specific strategies to implement, strengthen, and fund the anti-displacement toolkit codified in the SAP. We met one-on-one with City Council members and participated throughout the City’s budget process to advocate for our funding recommendations to support Vietnamese small businesses. VPC is currently collaborating with the City Manager’s Office to hire a Vietnamese Outreach Specialist at the City, which would help business owners navigate anti-displacement and small business programs, and build relationships with them and the greater community. Read one-pager

Partnerships

JHU Critical Diaspora Studies

Photo by Matthew Gonzales

VPC has partnered with Johns Hopkins University Critical Diaspora Studies to develop knowledge and document historical patterns of land dispossession and displacement of communities of color in Northern Virginia. Our first project, The “Disappearance” of Little Saigon Clarendon, empirically examines the causes of Little Saigon Clarendon’s slow displacement and critically analyzes how each stakeholder’s action- or inaction- led to the demise of the area’s first Vietnamese community hub.

UEC Fellows

The University of Maryland Urban Equity Collaborative explores the nuances of organizing an intergenerational Vietnamese community, and the power of highlighting shared cultural values to encourage action in the fight to maintain our collective spaces.

SBAN

Photo by Eman Mohammed

VPC is a proud member of the Small Business Anti-Displacement Network, a network of nonprofit advocates, policymakers, technical assistance providers, scholars, and small business owners working to prevent displacement of BIPOC- and immigrant-owned small businesses in gentrifying neighborhoods.

Workshops & Teach-Ins

Photo by Eman Mohammed

Photo by Quynh Nguyen

Photo by Matthew Gonzales

Eden Center Tours

Photo by Eman Mohammed

Photo by Eman Mohammed

Photo by Matthew Gonzales

Conferences & Speaking Engagements

Photo by Quynh Nguyen

Photo by Abbey Magnet

Photo by Smart Growth America

History of Viet Place Collective

Photo by Jenn Tran

Eden Center, a Vietnamese shopping center located in Falls Church in Northern Virginia, has for nearly 40 years been a cultural mainstay for Vietnamese people in the DC area, throughout the East Coast, and beyond. As the center of the Vietnamese community in the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia), Eden Center holds the Vietnamese-owned small businesses that keep alive a culture that is threatened with societal pressures of assimilation. When we learned in early 2022 that the City of Falls Church was planning to redevelop the area they call the “East End,” which includes Eden Center, we were concerned for the small businesses that make up the shopping center. If history is any indication, these businesses, a majority of which are Vietnamese-owned, would be at risk of displacement due to new development and a changing market commanding higher rent. Through inquiries, we discovered that the City had not done any outreach to Eden Center business owners, employees, or Vietnamese community members while they worked on their East End Small Area Plan (SAP).

Photo by City of Falls Church

Throughout 2022, we offered many suggestions to the planners to do more equitable outreach to the Vietnamese community, but they failed to follow through. Eventually, we took matters into our own hands and conducted outreach ourselves at Eden Center and online. We came together at the 2nd Community Meeting in November to push the City to do more inclusive outreach and make anti-displacement a priority of the plan. In acknowledgement of our pressures, the City released a survey in Vietnamese and Spanish and scheduled a Listening Session to solicit feedback from the community. We named ourselves Viet Place Collective in December 2022. Energized by growing support for our campaign, we focused efforts in 2023 on increasing public awareness of the history of the Vietnamese community in Northern Virginia, helping Eden Center businesses and the greater community understand the consequences of redevelopment, and engaging with City Council officials to promote our SAP recommendations. In June 2023, the City Council unanimously voted to adopt the SAP, which incorporated our suggestions to create anti-displacement programs and hire a Vietnamese Community Outreach Specialist.

Photo by VPC

Since we began, we have grown from a collective of 7 to 20+ volunteers (and counting)! As a volunteer-led grassroots organization, we will continue advocating for the City to follow through with concrete measures and funding to preserve and uplift the small businesses that make Falls Church a Vietnamese cultural destination.

Why does anti-displacement matter?

The history of the Vietnamese community in the DC metro area is intertwined with displacement (see Little Saigon Clarendon). Today, Eden Center is a thriving community hub for Vietnamese and other Asian Americans in the area, but if we allow redevelopment to happen without community input or protections, then the small businesses that give Eden Center its vibrancy will be at risk of displacement- mirroring the vanishing of Little Saigon Clarendon, the first community of Vietnamese immigrants established in the DMV after the Fall of Saigon. We've already seen the consequences of redevelopment and “revitalization” forcing out the Chinese community from DC's Chinatown- where the majority of businesses are international chains with their signs written in Chinese, one of the only remaining strips of Chinese-owned businesses are at risk of displacement for a luxury hotel, and the remaining Chinese residents are at risk of displacement as well. Philadelphia's Chinatown is also under threat of redevelopment and displacement from a proposed new sports arena. As such, it's crucial to prioritize anti-displacement strategies when thinking about the future of the Vietnamese small businesses and our community at Eden Center.

Is Eden Center going to be torn down?

No, there are currently no plans to tear down Eden Center, but the City of Falls Church has a redevelopment plan (see East End Small Area Plan) which would bring many changes to the area. Without the input of the business owners in Eden Center, development may cause rising rents and displacement of long-time businesses.