Yen Ngoc Do

Đỗ Ngọc Yến (1941 — August 17, 2006) was a Vietnamese American journalist and newspaper publisher. He was the founder of Người Việt Daily News, the oldest and largest Vietnamese-language daily publication in the United States.

Born in Southern Vietnam, Yến emigrated to the United States by the fall of Saigon, ultimately settling in Southern California. He has been praised for his leadership of the Người Việt newspaper and as an effective community leader for Little Saigon, Orange County. Journalism professor Jeffrey Brody has called Yến both a "pioneering journalist" and "the intellectual voice of Little Saigon".

Biography

Early life Yến was born in Saigon in 1941, the middle child of five siblings. His family was originally from Nam Định before moving to South Vietnam and sold French floral funerary wreaths.

After placing 20th in a exam taken by 3,000 applicants, After a self-study program, he obtained his diploma at the age of 22. In addition to providing information on topics aimed for American immigrants such as driver's licenses, taxes, and voting, he published translated post-war Vietnam stories and news from Vietnamese exiles.

Tony Lam, a former Westminster City councilman, regarded Yến as "instrumental in working on getting the community on the right track". The Orange County Register calls Yến "one of Little Saigon’s most respected community leaders" The New York Times similarly has praised him as a "guiding force in the assimilation of refugees after the Vietnam War".

Người Việt has become the largest Vietnamese-language publication in the US. Ben Brazil of the Los Angeles Times writes that Người Việt continues to report based on Yến's ethos on the coverage of Vietnamese communities. As of 2019, his portrait is hung up in a hallway in the Người Việt office.

Personal life

In 1963, Yến married Lã Phương Loan, a schoolteacher, in Saigon. He had four children.