Dispute over Viet Museum in San Jose’s History Park spills into new year over who controls it

SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) — There’s an ongoing dispute spilling into the new year over who will run the Viet Museum at History Park in San Jose, and the new year could mean big changes.

San Jose’s Viet Museum could change hands if dueling groups don’t come to a deal.

The museum in History Park shut down more than a year ago because of the dispute. Its collection includes artifacts from the Vietnam War and refugees who resettled in Northern California.

Quinn Tran is the president of the nonprofit that oversees the museum.

“The horrors of war, the horrors that people go through to find freedom and not to forget it, but to have a lesson of humanity in it. So that our children understand,” Tran said.

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She said there were disagreements among previous museum employees and volunteers about who is in charge. Tran said History San Jose, another nonprofit that manages properties within the park, closed the museum at the end of 2024 amid the dispute.

“If there are internal disputes or quarrels within the family quote-unquote, then that’s our business — let us sort that out,” Tran said.

Tran says they were given until Dec. 31 to reach a resolution.

“Nobody has the right to just go tell an independent entity and just say, ‘Hey, we’re just going to cut you out and manage your assets and manage everything.’ That is, to me, is a ethical moral insult,” Tran said.

City Councilmember Bien Doan said his office is involved, trying to mediate. He said the deadline means that History San Jose could now possibly request proposals and receive bids on who would like to run the museum.

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“Either group can bid on it just like anyone else, but we wanted to make sure it is a Vietnamese group, who has the capability to manage appropriately for the Vietnamese Museum,” Doan said.

Doan said his office filed an extension, citing the recent death of the previous museum’s president and founder, Loc Vu. Doan said he doesn’t know how long this extension will last, but that both sides have been asked to, once again, come to the table with concessions.

“Yes trying to be the mediator and you know this is about our community the Vietnamese community, and it shouldn’t be about one group or another. It should be about the community as a whole,” Doan said.

San Jose has the largest Vietnamese population of any city outside Vietnam.

Doan said this dispute does not mean the museum will be relocated or shuttered. He wants to strive for a resolution and make sure it stays exactly where it is.