ABSTRACT
Cities abound with diverse neighborhoods that offer up their own distinctive attractions – be they ethnic restaurants and shops or outdoor markets, street fairs, or music venues. Neighborhoods are places that reflect the cultural forms of the people who inhabit and visit them. But that statement is only partially correct, as Karin Aguilar-San Juan shows us in this reading on two Vietnamese neighborhoods in the United States. Space is not simply a “container” that houses a community but is an active element in the creation of community itself. Place, she argues, is a constitutive element of the community-building process. In order to demonstrate the relationship between place and community, Aguilar-San Juan focuses upon place-making activities that influence, and in turn are influenced by, community building in two very different Vietnamese enclaves: Little Saigon in southern California’s Orange County and Fields Corner in Boston.
