Tomasko, 31, a freelance software consultant in Chicago, understands why people appreciate the ease of the apps, which typically only require you to know someone’s username in order to send money. But she realized that keeping money in the apps could be risky and means losing out on the interest from a high yield savings account. She now immediately transfers any payments out of the apps and encourages friends to do the same.
A woman walks past a “1975" installation in the parking lot of Asian Garden Mall as the sun sets behind it in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminster, Calif., April 21, 2025. The display marks the year of the fall of Saigon. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)A woman walks past a “1975" installation in the parking lot of Asian Garden Mall as the sun sets behind it in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminster, Calif., April 21, 2025. The display marks the year of the fall of Saigon. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Large U.S. and former South Vietnamese flags fly in the wind in the parking lot of Asian Garden Mall in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminster, Calif., April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)Large U.S. and former South Vietnamese flags fly in the wind in the parking lot of Asian Garden Mall in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminster, Calif., April 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)Anton Le, who was 5 years old when he and his family arrived in the U.S. from Vietnam via the Philippines, plays with his son, Kevin, while waiting for his order outside a café in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminster, Calif., April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Anton Le, who was 5 years old when he and his family arrived in the U.S. from Vietnam via the Philippines, plays with his son, Kevin, while waiting for his order outside a café in the Little Saigon neighborhood of Westminster, Calif., April 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)For those who lived through the war, the 50th anniversary marks a time of mourning as they remember what they lost — their homeland, their past lives, even their identity. Five decades later, the pain is still raw. One man still can’t bring himself to say much about the family he had to leave behind. Others were barely toddlers when they arrived in a foreign land.
The day Saigon fell — April 30, 1975 — is referred to by the older generation as “Black April” or “National Day of Resentment.”
But for their children and grandchildren, many with scant knowledge of the war, the anniversary is a time to honor the resiliency of an immigrant community and to celebrate the accomplishments of a population that started as refugees and now has become an influential part of California and U.S. society.GRANT: My ability to gauge what’s entertaining, I used to be very proud of it. In the old days, my old career, I used to say, “I’m not so proud of my acting but I’m proud of the fact that the films I’ve done, on the whole, have been entertaining and I’ve been good at choosing them.” And then, suddenly overnight, I became very bad at choosing them. I don’t know, I lost the zeitgeist, I suppose. That can happen. Now, I feel like I’ve found something again. If the character amuses me and I think I’m going to enjoy being that person, then I tend to do the job. Sometimes, when actors are enjoying it, it works.
GRANT: Yes, I’ve got nothing else to go on. And I’m not the lead character, the film doesn’t rest on me. I don’t have to worry that much if it does well, medium or badly. I just go by: Do I think I’m going to have some fun in this?GRANT: The big shift was after “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” That was sort of officially the end of romantic comedy for me. Nothing much happened after that in showbiz terms. I went off and did political campaigning and I was quite happy, in fact. But in drips and drabs, strange little projects, like the Wachowskis’ “Cloud Atlas,” then Stephen Fears came along with “Florence Foster Jenkins” and “A Very English Scandal.” “Paddington 2.” These interesting, complex, often not very nice, narcissistic weirdos started to emerge from the woods.
GRANT: Looking back, I was very lucky. I had Richard Curtis on the one hand, who is not only a gifted comic writer – he can just do flat-out comedy like “Black Adder” – but he’s an unrecognized dramatist. Those comedies are based on pain. The comedy is there to deal with pain. It’s people with unrequited love, lost love, bereavement, brothers with mental illness — proper pain. So I was lucky with him.And I think I was very lucky with Marc Lawrence who just had a wonderful gift for the celebration of life. He actually likes people, which is so weird. So films like “Music and Lyrics” have a very sustaining and uplifting buoyancy to them. He’s an unrecognized talent.