In one sense, the battle over a flag and a poster that for months rocked a Vietnamese American neighborhood in Southern California is over—Truong Van Tran’s video store is gone and the mini-mall where it sat is at last empty of protesters.

In another sense, the fight races on. Protesters now seek to oust Tony Lam, a third-term Westminster city councilman and the first Vietnamese American elected official in the nation. Demonstrators have for months gathered outside his Garden Grove restaurant, claiming that he betrayed the 200,000 residents of Westminster’s Little Saigon district by not showing enough support during the protests.

In the month since Tran’s store shut down, a movement to recall Lam has gathered steam. The councilman has been reviled on Vietnamese-language radio stations, accused of being soft on communism and disloyal to his community.

“We wanted him to be there, not just make statements,” said protest leader Ky Ngo. “We will target him until we recall him. We gave him many chances.”

Lam has vowed that he will not give in to the protesters, saying he neither is soft on communism nor has ignored his constituents, pointing out that he had helped to hoist a South Vietnamese flag at the Westminster Civic Center to commemorate Vietnamese Armed Forces Day and has worked to get “Little Saigon” signs on the local freeways.

Lam was reluctant to speak much about the issue Tuesday, saying only, “It’s so divisive.” His spokesman, Raymond Luong, said, though, that “these people who are sponsoring the protests have historically been Lam’s adversaries. It is pretty obvious to everyone that the primary effect of the operation is to destroy a neutral business.”

The councilman said the city attorney had urged him and other council members not to respond to the protests. “I have repeated many times that we’ve been urged not to participate, due to the potential liability of a lawsuit against the city,” he explained.

Some worry that the recall effort might signal a dangerous split among Vietnamese American immigrants, who came to this country from both the former North Vietnam and South Vietnam.

“I think this has gone too far,” said Hoa Bui of San Jose, Calif. “It’s one thing to want to protest communism, but it’s another to make others agree with you.”

The dispute began three months ago when Tran put the display in the window of his Hi-Tek TV and VCR store. He chose to do so on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, saying that the gesture symbolized his own freedom of expression. And though the modest exhibit of a flag with a single yellow star on a red background and a poster of an old Vietnamese man might have even escaped notice in many quarters, they were to Little Saigon’s residents the most repugnant icons of what they fled: the North Vietnamese flag and that country’s late leader, Ho Chi Minh.

Former political prisoners, veterans in military fatigues, even grandmothers came in droves for months to decry the storekeeper’s display, which they saw as akin to displaying Nazi memorabilia in a Jewish neighborhood. Up to 10,000 protesters at a time descended on the shop during Tet, the Vietnamese lunar new year, bringing out some 200 police in riot gear. Fifty-two arrests were made, and the city spent more than $200,000 in police overtime.

Similar demonstrations were held in San Jose, New Orleans and Houston, where Hai Nguyen, president of the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce and leader of the anti-communist movement Diem Hong, said, “Even daughters and sons joined in on the effort—it’s not only the old people who have experienced communism but ... young people.

“Vietnam cannot avoid the democracy trend,” he said. “Everyone cannot avoid that trend.”

Approximately 385 mostly older immigrants who clearly remembered life under the Communist regime gathered in solidarity in front of the New Orleans City Hall, while a Vietnamese church band sang patriotic songs.

No arrests were made in this peaceful protest, according to community leader Kiem Do. “We want to ask the authorities to find some way to prevent such a thing from happening down here.” So far, no official action has been taken, though lawmakers including state Rep. Lewis Williard attended the rally to show his support.

“Many of my friends spent 13 to 15 years in prison camps,” Do said. “After 1975, millions fled and became boat people. We lost 300,000 at sea. For those people to have Ho Chi Minh’s picture displayed, it’s like someone waving a Confederate flag in a black neighborhood.”

Do added: “We don’t want any people like that guy in California to provoke the community. It caused fear and anger here.”

While protesters have alleged that Tran’s actions were motivated by spite toward other merchants, Tran has maintained that he was only trying to foster a reconciliatory spirit between Vietnam and American émigrés and that besides, it’s a free country.

ACLU lawyer Ronald Talmo, whose group defended Tran, found it “sadly ironic that so many of Mr. Tran’s critics left Vietnam in search of the very freedom of speech that they now seek to stifle.”

“This is my idea; I control my own ideas,” said Tran in a February news conference at the office of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. “If we are all free to express ourselves, the community will be stronger.”

Yet adherents of the spiritual group Vo Vi, which Tran had left years before opening his store, said he had been motivated by self-aggrandizement.

“He wanted to do something to get attention,” said Vinh Ly, an official with the group. “That’s why he does things. He wanted to be famous. He doesn’t care whether it’s for the right things or wrong things.”

Whether for free speech or self-promotion, Tran’s actions carried a steep price. The owner of the strip mall, enraged by the traffic-clogging protesters, moved to evict the storekeeper. And protesters said he continued to bait them, sending a fax to anti-communist groups that said, “Here, I dare all of you—if you all think you are great, then go ahead, come over to clear me out.”

On Feb. 20, police escorted Tran back into the shop to rehang his poster and flag—and discovered what they believed was a video piracy operation. On March 5, they raided his video shop, confiscating more than 17,000 video tapes and 146 VCRs. The tapes allegedly included Asian soap opera videos that was accused of illegally renting to customers, even though Tran has said that he had gotten permission from his Bay Area distributors to reproduce them. The flag and poster also disappeared during the raid—police say someone came in through a back door and took them.

Three days later, Tran’s lawyer said the store was closed for good. He pleaded not guilty to felony piracy charges and faces an April 19 court date. If convicted, he could get up to five years in jail.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese American leaders in Orange County have called on lawmakers to help fund a $3 million cultural center in Little Saigon. Modeled after Los Angeles’ Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance, its envisioned focus is Vietnam’s history of human-rights violations.