The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has moved Jane Fonda Day to April 8 from the previously proclaimed date of April 30, after backlash from critics and Vietnamese Americans upset over the date’s overlap with the fall of Saigon.
South Vietnam’s 1975 fall to communist North Vietnam, known as Black April, is observed on April 30 and is a solemn occasion for veterans of that war and the 521,100- strong Vietnamese population in California.
The board issued its original Jane Fonda Day proclamation on April 30, with the actress and environmental activist attending to be recognized for her work on behalf of women, the environment and human rights. But the move was quickly met with criticism over her outspoken opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and her trip to North Vietnam in 1972.
Assemblyman Tri Ta, a Westminster Republican, called on the Board of Supervisors May 8 to rescind the proclamation. He also wrote a letter signed by more than a dozen other legislators and sent to Board of Supervisors Chair Lindsey Horvath, saying, “The pain and hurt caused by this decision will surely cause long-term damage to the Vietnamese refugee community.”
Sen. Janet Nguyen, a Huntington Beach Republican, wrote a letter to Horvath calling the decision “alarming” and “profoundly disrespectful.”
The letter called Fonda a “propagandist who supported a communist agenda in Vietnam,” noting that the actress was infamously labeled “Hanoi Jane” by the community after her trip to North Vietnam, where she was photographed sitting on an anti-aircraft gun. The move was criticized as anti-American and pro-communist.
Fonda later apologized, saying the photographs were a “thoughtless and careless thing to have done.”
Responding to the criticism, Ms. Horvath and Supervisor Hilda Solis jointly introduced a motion to move the date.
A representative for Horvath told the Los Angeles Times the selection of the original date of April 30 was made solely based on the board’s meeting schedule.
