Echoes of Little Saigon

The following visual narrative about the history of "Little Saigon" in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia is based on personal interviews with community members from the Vietnamese diaspora, supplemented by academic and archival research. The oral histories and documentary material below were produced in a 2014 graduate studio led by  Dr. Elizabeth Morton ; the videos were created by Judd Ullom as an outgrowth of that course. Dr. Morton is now actively collecting new oral histories, and we invite you to get in touch to contribute your own story.

Little Saigon refers to the Vietnamese ethnic enclave in the Clarendon neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia, which served the large refugee population that immigrated after the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

The neighborhood became a vibrant hub of Vietnamese commerce and social activity, and reached its peak during the late 1970s to mid 1980s. The opening of the WMATA Clarendon Metro station eventually sparked new development, resulting in higher rents, and businesses closed or relocated, notably to the nearby Eden Center.

Nam Viet is the last remaining original Vietnamese business in Clarendon at the time of writing (2014), and redesign of this project (2022).

Toward the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s, immigration from Vietnam to the United States increased considerably. Before 1975, only about 15,000 Vietnamese immigrants lived in the United States. By 1980, about 245,000 Vietnamese lived in the U.S., with about 91 percent of that population arriving in the previous five years (Barringer et al. 2006).

Until the mid-1900s, Clarendon was Arlington County’s premier downtown shopping area and a bustling streetcar suburb (Ehrenhalt 2012). However, during the 1960s and 70s, competition from regional shopping malls and strip shopping centers caused downtown Clarendon to decline. Many businesses relocated, leaving behind vacant storefronts (O’Connell 2003). The historic building stock suffered from neglect, and by the mid-1970s, construction of the WMATA Clarendon Metro station began to tear up the streets and sidewalks. These conditions resulted in cheap, short-term commercial leases, which the Vietnamese refugees seized as an opportunity to open businesses to support their families. In light of the disruptive Metro construction, rent fell as low as $1.50 to $5 a square foot in some buildings (Arnett 1989, Drummond 1989), making this area relatively affordable for the recent immigrants.

The “Little Saigon” neighborhood was generally considered to consist of the blocks in the immediate vicinity of Wilson Boulevard between Washington Boulevard and Highland Street.

The first Vietnamese business, the Saigon Market grocery store, was established in 1972 by a former employee of the Vietnamese Embassy, and a second grocery store, Vietnam Center, was opened by the Vietnamese wife of a CIA employee (O’Connell 2003, Meyers from O’Connell 2003). Soon more Vietnamese people began to open shops and restaurants in Clarendon, and the area was transformed into the hub of the East Coast Vietnamese community (Wood 1997). Known to the Vietnamese customer base as “Little Saigon,” “Wilson Boulevard,” or simply “Clarendon,” people came from as far away as North Carolina and Tennessee to find staple goods and to connect with others from Vietnam (Bich 2014, Nyugen 2014, Dinh 2014, Cook 2014). Weekends were the busiest shopping days, and the businesses were crowded with customers who made the area a weekly destination (Net and Rose 2014). Refugee assistance groups and churches organized trips that brought immigrants from Alexandria and elsewhere to Clarendon to shop (O’Connell 2003).

Shops opened to sell specialized goods to the Vietnamese community. Major attractions included the Vietnamese grocery stores, which sold ingredients unavailable in American markets, like fish sauce, rice paper, quail eggs, pomelo peel, star anise, canned oyster mushrooms, and egg roll wrappers, as well as delicacies like dried sharks fin (Cook 2014, Davis 1980, Woodruff 2014).

A popular drink served in the cafes was iced coffee made with sweetened condensed milk and crushed ice (Do 2014). Jewelry stores, fabric stores, and department stores soon opened to sell goods popular with Vietnamese shoppers.

The Vietnamese refugees came to Little Saigon for more than just groceries; the neighborhood became the place where they could receive news of Vietnam and of friends and family (Bich 2014). Many people had left Vietnam suddenly without communicating their travel plans to anyone (Bich 2014, Nguyen 2014). Several stores had bulletin boards where messages were posted by refugees who were hopeful they could learn the whereabouts of those they had lost touch with from Vietnam (Bich 2014, Nguyen 2014). Many people also used the boards to make appointments to meet people in Little Saigon (Nguyen 2014). Shipping services in the neighborhood gave immigrants the chance to send packages to Vietnam, which was difficult elsewhere (Dinh 2014). Little Saigon served as a social setting for interacting with other members of the community, with entertainment like live Vietnamese music performed in cafes (Bich 2014, Cook 2014). People would frequently visit Little Saigon for cuisine such as phở, a traditional Vietnamese soup, or spring rolls, which couldn’t be found elsewhere at the time.

Little Saigon offered a variety of business types and styles. Some businesses developed the ambiance of a flea market or bazaar since it was common for multiple businesses to operate within a single building. The My An Fabric store had multiple businesses within the same building, including a billiards and arcade game room and a small cafe (Priest 1987). Cafe Dalat served only as a restaurant with high ceilings, dark interior with little decor, and symmetrically lined tables, which allowed the waitstaff to serve customers within just minutes of ordering (Woodruff 2014). Some residents recall the over-sized suitcases on display, often pouring out onto the sidewalk, at the Pacific Department Store (Woodruff 2014).

While some Vietnamese residents came to Little Saigon just to shop, many lingered inside the businesses and enjoyed the sense of community (Breyault and Goldschmidt 2014, Bich 2014). Festivals and events were held throughout the year to celebrate holidays, such as the annual Moon Festival (Jordan 1991). For 19 years, successful restaurateur Nguyen Van Thoi hosted an annual Tet dinner at his Nam Viet and My An cafes for American prisoners of war from the Vietnam War (Estrada 2005).

The cafes and businesses were appealing to non-Vietnamese customers, too, who have recalled experiencing their first bowl of phở, vermicelli noodle bowls, spring rolls, crepes, and other traditional dishes here (Woodruff 2014).

Vietnamese families continued to settle in the area, but not without struggles. For some, language barriers were an issue. Children entered behind in classes and enrolled in English as Second Language (ESL) programs in school (Nguyen 2014). Restarting careers and finding work could be difficult, too. Vietnamese professionals with impressive resumes, some of whom had earned advanced degrees at American universities, had to take odd jobs in landscaping, child care, housekeeping, or hourly part-time jobs instead of full-time work in order to get by (Bich 2014).

Various assistance efforts aided some of the Vietnamese immigrants. Refugee assistance programs like the Mutual Assistance Association Consortium represented and helped refugees from all countries in Northern Virginia. Arlington County government created a new multicultural program coordinator position to handle the influx of immigrants (Bich 2014). Buddhist temples and church groups also provided support (Bich 2014). Kim Cook established the Vietnamese Resettlement Association in Falls Church and Khuc Minh Tho founded the Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (O’Connell 2003, Workman 1993).

Vietnamese entrepreneurs faced many hurdles as they tried to succeed in Clarendon. Little Saigon establishments were typically family-owned and operated, but they also employed immigrants from Vietnam from outside their family and had agreements with area families to sell their homemade items, like food, in their shops (Nguyen 2014). Because many banks wouldn’t lend to them, Vietnamese entrepreneurs had to borrow money from friends and family to start their businesses, often at a higher interest rate than the standard commercially available. Some business owners experienced bureaucratic hurdles because they didn’t understand the business licensing and regulations, and were fined (Arnett 1989). For many Vietnamese, it was important to have the real and cultural value of tael available (Cook 2014); however, to raise capital, some had to sell off much of their family’s gold and jewelry (Arnett 1989). Others relied on traditional Vietnamese practice known as “hoi,” informal lending clubs set up by local entrepreneurs (Workman 1993).

Over time, the Vietnamese-American business community increased its influence. For example, Toa Do, who worked his way up from his first American job as a messenger to a systems analyst and then an independent consultant, became the first Vietnamese person to have a seat on the Arlington Chamber of Commerce (Workman 1993). The Clarendon Vietnamese Retail Business Association was formed by Kham Dinh Do, proprietor of the Dat Hung jewelry store; the association tried to organize the Vietnamese business community and advocate on behalf of their interests as Arlington County government was planning for the development of Clarendon (Hsu 1989).

Click on the points on the map to see the Little Saigon establishment, the present-day establishment, and a historical photograph.

The next time you visit Clarendon, look out for this series of storefront stickers in the following establishments to see and hear more about Little Saigon. Each sticker includes a QR code (scannable from any smartphone) that connects users directly to a short documentary like you see above featuring a specific chapter of Little Saigon’s history. Each chapter of the story is told exclusively through the voices of those who participated in this cultural preservation oral history project—those who lived, shopped or owned a business in Little Saigon. The establishments on which the stickers are posted were almost all occupied by Vietnamese businesses. Archival photographs, paired with the oral history excerpts, show you what these businesses looked like inside and out. Go back in time and experience Little Saigon Clarendon for yourself!

Note: the window stickers have been removed in several business due to renovations, but you can still access the oral histories through this StoryMap while you visit the sites. We hope to get all the stickers back soon!

Thank you to Clarendon Alliance and the above businesses for sponsoring and hosting this project!

Note: if you are reading this on a smartphone and you are in the Clarendon area, your location will be shown on the map in the following guided tour.

A Production of the Virginia Tech School of Public and International Affairs, in association with Clarendon Alliance. The videos and tour were produced and directed by Judd Ullom. The studio project was led by Dr. Elizabeth Morton.

Several accounts of Little Saigon from 1975-85 included terms like “run down” and “dirty” (Cook 2014, Dinh 2014). Many building owners did not spend money maintaining or updating their buildings because they were waiting for the Metro station to open and for new economic opportunities to be realized as Clarendon redeveloped (Currier 1990). Development didn’t increase significantly in Clarendon for the first few years after Metro opened in 1979. There were multiple small parcels of land held by absentee owners that made it difficult for developers to assemble land suitable for large projects (Priest 1987).

On November 18, 1989, the Arlington County Board unanimously endorsed Clarendon’s redevelopment plan, which envisioned high-rise commercial structures, mid-rise residential buildings, parks, and pedestrian walkways (Matthews 1989). The plan also proposed incentives for constructing buildings lower than the zoning code allowed and for carving out smaller-scaled commercial space for smaller-scaled businesses (Matthews 1989).

Eventually, rents began to increase in Clarendon (up to $25-30 a square foot in some commercial buildings), and Vietnamese enterprises were displaced from Arlington (Arnett 1989, Wood 1997, Drummond 1989). The Vietnamese population that had settled in the garden apartments of Arlington moved westward, with many settling around Seven Corners, as well as Falls Church near the intersection of Graham Road and Arlington Boulevard (Wood 1997, Cook 2014). Vietnamese-American residents dispersed along with the Vietnamese-American businesses (Wood 1990). By 1984, 60% of Vietnamese-Americans lived within three miles of Seven Corners (Andrews 1984).

Gradually, the number of Vietnamese businesses in Little Saigon diminished. Some business owners moved on to other opportunities, some relocated, and some, like the more successful restaurants like Queen Bee and Nam Viet that appealed to mainstream customers, remained (Bich 2014, Nguyen 2014, Dinh 2014).

In 1989, the Clarendon Alliance, a business association, noted that of the 76 businesses in Clarendon, between 30 and 35 were Asian-owned, and among those, most were Vietnamese-owned (Arnett 1989). The establishments included food markets, real estate and insurance agencies, law and accounting firms, and restaurants and retailers. That same year, the Mekong Center grocery store, the Pacific Oriental Department Store, the My An 1 restaurant and the Alpha Camera repair shop left the Hartford Building, which was then demolished (Arnett 1989). The owner of the Pacific renamed the enterprise Global Market and moved elsewhere in Northern Virginia; he also opened the Asian Village in Hyattsville, Maryland (O’Connell 2003, Arnett 1989). Other business owners were also able to relocate to shopping centers throughout the suburbs that offered better parking and well-maintained properties (Currier 2014).

Business remained steady for some of the establishments that remained, although the once-large crowds of Vietnamese customers dwindled and the neighborhood’s value as a community meeting ground diminished (Drummond 1989). Several Vietnamese owners were bought out of their leases to make way for new developments (Nguyen 2014). Author Alan Ehrenhalt points out that for the economically struggling Clarendon of the 1960s, “it was immigration that brought those old buildings to life…The vacant storefronts brought the Vietnamese in and set the whole process in motion. It may seem a bit ironic that the way to bring in more affluent white newcomers is to lay down a base of poorer people from other countries. But that is exactly what happened in Arlington” (Ehrenhalt 2012).

The decline of Little Saigon was noticeable. A letter to the editor of the Washington Post lamented the small business culture that was fading from Clarendon, noting the contributions of the Vietnamese people and the diversity they brought to Arlington (Matthews 1989). As described by a former customer and community activist, it was hard for these refugees to lose their community after just recently losing their country (Cook 2014). County planners noted the inevitability of pressure on the small businesses, explaining that the government had discussed plans for many years to turn Clarendon into a higher-density, mixed-use corridor (Fischer 2006).

Long-time customers and business owners had mixed sentiments about the end of Little Saigon. Some business owners expressed resentment and frustration that they were being pushed out, while others were ready for a change and knew their children didn’t want to continue the family business (Arnett 2014, Nguyen, 2014). In the early 80s, some thought that they would go back to Vietnam once the communists were gone (or eliminated) and that Little Saigon would serve as as their “temporary home” (Do 2014). With more Vietnamese businesses located throughout the Washington, D.C., and an increase in the number of Vietnamese-language media, the need for a central meeting place to learn of news from back home wasn’t as strong as it once was (Bich 2014).

The Clarendon neighborhood has become a mix of retail, bars and restaurants, increasing residential, and office uses. Most of the new developments have larger footprints that are not as conducive to small, independently owned businesses (Hart 2006). Today, Nam Viet restaurant is the only Vietnamese business remaining from the original Little Saigon community, although the Four Sisters Grill is a Vietnamese restaurant that opened in 2014.

In 1984, the Eden Center shopping center in the Seven Corners area of the City of Falls Church opened, bringing 20,000 square feet of affordable retail space to the area (Stadtmiller 1997). In the following years, many Little Saigon businesses relocated to Eden Center, which originally had a mix of Latino-, Asian-, and American-owned businesses (Bich 2014). Some business owners opened establishments with their own storefronts, while others rented a stall in the former Grand Union building (Bich 2014).

In 1997, 32,400 square feet was added to the Eden Shopping Center, along with an iconic clock tower; at the time it was the largest Vietnamese shopping district in the U.S. (Stadtmiller 1997, Lan Nguyen 1996). The Eden Center became a hub of Vietnamese commerce and activity. In 2007, “Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon,” a traveling Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program exhibit, was temporarily located in Eden Center to tell the story of the Vietnamese American immigration and acclimation experience in America (CNN 2007). The Eden Center is now regarded as the central place for Vietnamese services and goods in Northern Virginia, as well as the entire East Coast (Wood 1997, Meyers 2006). In 2014, the Eden Center was home to 120 stores and restaurants, almost all of which were Vietnamese.

Starting in 2014, masters students from  Virginia Tech’s Department of Urban Affairs and Planning , directed by  Dr. Elizabeth Morton , began collecting the stories of the Vietnamese community who immigrated to, shopped at or owned businesses in Arlington. Oral histories and photo documentation are now archived and available through  Arlington's Center for Local History .

Many members of the Vietnamese American community participated in this project to share their memories of this culturally significant enclave. The student team recommended the creation of a historical marker or monument to commemorate Little Saigon and recognize the contributions of the Vietnamese refugees to Arlington’s heritage and economic development.

In addition, the research team:

• Added content about Vietnamese refugees and Little Saigon to Arlington County’s Historic Preservation Plan.

• Developed a  Wikipedia page for Little Saigon Clarendon, Arlington, Virginia , to serve as an advocacy tool for a historical marker, to recognize and celebrate the important contributions of the Vietnamese community to Clarendon’s history, and to give community members an opportunity to add their own information.

• Contributed multi-media resources about Little Saigon, Arlington to an online mapping project,  East at Main , which crowdsources information for sites important to the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

The original student team consisted of Judd Ullom, Carlin Tacey, Jacqueline Canales, Andrea Dono and Aaron Frank. Ullom went on to develop the supplemental   multimedia documentary tour   that appears above. 

The Virginia Tech project benefited from the seminal research, and assistance, of local author Kim O’Connell. The oral histories and documentary research conducted by the class contributed to O’Connell’s 2016   Echoes of Little Saigon   booklet, and have also been featured in numerous other publications and  podcasts . 

Over the years, Dr. Morton has conducted and supervised additional oral histories, and in 2025 she is actively collecting more.  We are also seeking support to develop multimedia interpretation to make these new stories more broadly accessible.

Would you like to contribute your own story of Arlington's "Little Saigon" Neighborhood?

Recording oral histories: In collaboration with Arlington County, we are now seeking to broaden our collection of oral histories, which are transcribed and preserved in Arlington's Center for Local History.

If you would like for us to contact you to set up a time to record your story, please contact contact  Dr. Elizabeth Morton . Interviews typically take 45-60 minutes and can be conducted at a site of your choice, such as a library or community center. 

Put your story on the map: Do you have a short story to share about Little Saigon that you would like to add to the map?

Please press the button to add a point to the map with your story. Once you submit the form, your story will appear on the map below.

To cite this overall project, please credit: Echoes of Little Saigon Oral History Project. Directed by Dr. Elizabeth Morton.  littlesaigonclarendon.com 

To cite one of the documentary videos specifically, please credit: Judd Ullom. 2015. “Name of Video.” Echoes of Little Saigon Oral History Project. Directed by Dr. Elizabeth Morton.  littlesaigonclarendon.com