Los Angeles officials have backtracked on a decision to rename April 30 “Jane Fonda Day” because it coincides with the anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
The actress and well-known anti-Vietnam War activist was recognized last month by Los Angeles County in honor of her “tireless and important climate activism.”
However, the move was widely criticized by Vietnamese-American lawmakers who immediately began pressuring officials to rescind the recognition.
Fonda, 86, was harshly criticized and nicknamed ‘Hanoi Jane’ after posing for photographs with North Vietnamese army soldiers sitting on their anti-aircraft guns in 1972 during the Vietnam War.
She was also interviewed for communist radio broadcasts during the war, and some American officials called her protests treason.
The actress and well-known anti-Vietnam War activist was recognized by Los Angeles County in honor of her ‘tireless and important climate activism’
Fonda visits an anti-aircraft position in North Vietnam in this July 1972 photo.
Actress Jane Fonda, seen next to a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun surrounded by soldiers and reporters, sings an anti-war song near Hanoi during the Vietnam War in this July 1972 file photo.
Janet Nguyen, whose parents were imprisoned after the city fell, were imprisoned after trying to escape the country.
Nguyen eventually arrived in California, where she became a state senator, counting Cal matters that April 30 was “a day we cried.”
She told the outlet, “I begged them to, you know, if you’re not going to rescind that, at least change the date.” April 30 is not the day.’
Nguyen was outraged by Los Angeles County leaders’ decision to rename the day after Fonda, and immediately began putting pressure on the leaders.
Tri Ta, a member of the California State Assembly, was equally upset after learning of the measure.
Ta and fellow Assemblywoman Stephanie Nguyen wrote a letter signed by nearly all Republican members urging officials to reverse the decision.
Her letter said: “This honor for Ms. Fonda is an affront to the service and sacrifice of the American and South Vietnamese soldiers who gave everything for the cause of freedom.”
Ta told Cal Matters, “I was really upset because (Black April) is a really sad day for almost all Vietnamese Americans here.”
Fonda at the Hammer Museum Gala in the Garden held at the Hammer Museum on May 4, 2024 in Los Angeles
Horvath, left, presents Jane Fonda with a proclamation that April 30 is “Jane Fonda Day” in Los Angeles County.
On Friday, Los Angeles County officials announced they were changing the date, saying in a statement: “Out of respect for the community voices who have spoken, we will be making a motion at our next regular Board meeting to make Jane Fonda be on April 8 as part of Earth Month.’
Just the week before, Lindsey P. Horvath, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, welcomed Fonda to a board meeting to celebrate the move.
She said: ‘Jane Fonda’s activism knows no limits. Where Jane focuses her passion and her heart, great things happen.
‘Starting today, we proudly proclaim April 30 each year as ‘Jane Fonda Day’ in Los Angeles County, in recognition of her incredible contributions to entertainment, environmental sustainability, gender equality, and social justice.
“Let us continue to engage in service and advocacy for social and environmental justice, following Jane Fonda’s example of using our voices to make a difference in the lives of others and protect our planet today and for future generations.”
Accepting it, Fonda said: ‘This is so beautiful, I feel so honored and grateful. Thanks to Lindsey and the Board of Supervisors.
‘I’m a little shocked, I can’t believe there is a Jane Fonda Day. This is wonderful, thank you very much.’
In this file photo, two U.S. Marines support a wounded soldier as he leaves a building that was attacked, February 6, 1968 in South Vietnam.
The body of a slain comrade is carried to an evacuation helicopter by soldiers of the US 1st Cavalry Division in the Ia Drang Valley early in the week of November 15, 1965.
Fonda has repeatedly apologized for photographs of her with anti-aircraft guns, saying her actions were in protest against the US government and not US troops.
Referring to the infamous image in his 2005 memoir, ‘My Life So Far’, he said: ‘Someone leads me to the gun and I sit, still laughing, still applauding.
‘It has nothing to do with where I’m sitting. I barely even think about where I’m sitting.
‘The cameras flash. I get up, and as I start walking back to the car with the translator, I realize the implications of what just happened.
‘Oh Lord. It will look like he is trying to shoot down American planes! I plead with him: “You have to make sure those photos are not published. Please, you can’t let them be published.”
‘I’m sure they will take care of it. I do not know what else to do. The Vietnamese may have had it all planned. I will never know.
‘If they did, can I really blame them?’ The buck stops here. If I was used, I allowed it to happen. It was my mistake and I have paid and continue to pay a high price for it.”
In 2015, 50 veterans protested his appearance at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Maryland.
The large group held signs that said ‘Forgive? Maybe. Forget? Never’. Fonda later told the crowd, “It hurts me and it will take me to my grave that I made a huge, huge mistake that made a lot of people think I was against the soldiers.”
