FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Inside the Banh Cuon Saigon restaurant at the Eden Center, the delicious aroma of Vietnamese cuisine mingles with the sound of the Vietnamese language.
“It’s like my home, it’s like my country,” Suong Nguyen said. “I can smell, I can see the Vietnamese people every day.”
It’s been more than 30 years since Suong Nguyen and her family came to the United States. With the help of her friend, Denise Nguyen, she tells the story of how she came to Eden Center.
“She was a refugee who escaped Vietnam because her husband was a prisoner for 14 years, he had been a fighter pilot in the war and was captured,” Denise translated.
“Suong arrived here and she said it felt like heaven,” Denise continued. “One of the first jobs she applied for was here at Eden Center and, six years later, she opened her restaurant right here.”
Nearly 30 years later Suong continues to serve her native country’s cuisine at Eden Center. She is just one of the hundreds of stories like this at the Eden Center. People who fled their homes and built a new life at the shopping center. Denise Nguyen knows so many of these stories and she loves to tell them.
“It means a lot to me and it’s the closest way to connect to my heritage,” Denise said.
The Eden Center hasn’t always been the hub for Vietnamese culture. That used to be Little Saigon in Arlington. In the late 1980s, the redevelopment of the Clarendon section pushed the people and businesses out. That's how Eden Center became the hub.
This year, the city of Falls Church began to look at a future Small Area Plan around Eden Center. That got Denise got concerned.
“It would impact the businesses and the Vietnamese community most and yet they’re not there to represent themselves,” Denise explained.
But what is a Small Area Plan?
“A Small Area Plan is to take stock of what’s there, what’s working well, what do we want to support and what do we think might happen over the next 20 years, 30 years, and so on,” Falls Church city planner Paul Stoddard explained.
Stoddard explained the new Small Area Plan will look at the needs of the area. What does that look like for new housing, roads, infrastructure, and other vital parts of growth for the area. He believes a large focus will be on preserving Eden Center.
“The Falls Church intention is that Eden Center will be there long term, so the plan needs to show how it’s going to support that,” Stoddard said.
But not everyone is convinced. Some worry the history of Little Saigon will repeat itself.
“I was shocked, you know why? Because this will impact everyone,” Suong Nguyen said back at her restaurant.
To help Suong Nguyen and the other business owners get a seat at the planning table, Denise and a group of young Vietnamese Americans formed the Viet Place Collective.
“We see ourselves as a facilitator and translator to try and better explain what a Small Area Plan is to business owners and then better explain to the city what the needs are of the community,” Denise said.
The group has spent the past few weeks engaging with the city of Falls Church. The hope is that as plans go forward, so does Eden Center, as a place where all Asian cultures can find home away from home.
“What makes Eden Center is the Vietnamese people — so what our demands focus on is preserving the people,” she said.