Tracy La is running for Garden Grove Unified School District Trustee Area 4. Her campaign website describes her as a "nonprofit director and county commissioner." That is accurate, as far as it goes.

The nonprofit is VietRise. La co-founded it and runs it as Executive Director. VietRise is headquartered in Garden Grove, putting it squarely in the district La wants to represent. The campaign doesn't name it above the fold.

VietRise has been one of the more active immigrant-rights organizing groups in Orange County since its 2018 founding. It ran the "ICE out of Little Saigon" campaign. It co-led the push for Santa Ana's Measure DD, which would have granted undocumented residents the right to vote in city elections. La herself co-authored a November 2025 article calling on elected officials to "defund ICE" as a protection for immigrant and worker rights.

That is not VietRise's only flashpoint in the Vietnamese-American community. In September 2025, the organization hosted a Garden Grove event on Vietnam's history and circulated Instagram slides headlined "The August Revolution: Vietnam's Fight For Freedom," featuring quotes from Ho Chi Minh. Westminster City Council members condemned the organization, calling it an attempt to indoctrinate young people. The Orange County School District removed VietRise from the speaker lineup for an upcoming Vietnamese American Experiences curriculum conference. The controversy was notable not just for what was said, but for where it landed — in Garden Grove, the same district La now wants to represent.

In Santa Ana, where VietRise has done most of its electoral work, the organization helped pass a rent stabilization ordinance. La was the one who spearheaded it. She previously chaired the Santa Ana Rental Housing Board and now sits on the OC Housing and Community Development Commission.

None of that is a secret. It's all in the public record. What it reflects is a specific and documented political project: VietRise has spent years building a political network across North OC — rent stabilization in Santa Ana, an immigrant rights resolution in Garden Grove, a noncitizen voting push in Santa Ana. Now its Executive Director is running for a school board seat. That is not a coincidence. That is a strategy.

Look at who is endorsing her. Alex Lee, an Assemblymember from AD-24 in the San Jose area, is on the list. Lee ran as a democratic socialist and earned a DSA endorsement. His district is about 400 miles from Garden Grove. His presence on a GGUSD endorser page is not about local ties.

Then there's Walter Muneton, the sitting GGUSD trustee for the adjacent Area 3. A current board member backing a challenger in the next seat over suggests something more organized than an individual showing civic spirit. If La wins Area 4, Muneton has a like-minded colleague. That's how blocs get built.

The Santa Ana contingent is heavy on the list too: Thai Viet Phan, Benjamin Vazquez, and Johnathan Hernandez from the Santa Ana City Council. Katelyn Brazer-Aceves, the SAUSD Board President. They are politicians from a neighboring city where VietRise has spent years building relationships.

Yesenia Muneton of Garden Grove's District 5 rounds it out. She voted yes on a Garden Grove immigrant rights resolution that VietRise championed.

La also chairs the Advisory Council for the OC Immigrant and Refugee Liberty Fund, which VietRise co-founded. That's the full picture of what she has been doing, and with whom.

The school board pitch will focus on schools. That's how these campaigns always work. But La's endorsers have a documented set of priorities that run well past classroom instruction — rent control, ICE defunding, noncitizen voting rights. School board elections are how those priorities get a foothold.

GGUSD covers a significant stretch of North Orange County. Area 4 includes communities with heavy Vietnamese-American enrollment. Whether those families see Tracy La's organizational background as a feature or a disclosure problem is the question this race will answer.

The election is November 2026. The incumbent in Area 4 is Bob Harden, who is running to keep his seat. Watch whether VietRise's role in this race gets more attention as the campaign takes shape.