Đức Quan Thánh Temple, Westminster威斯敏斯特关圣庙（小西贡）

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

United States · California · Westminster · In the Bolsa Avenue area of Little Saigon, Orange County

Coordinates

33.74397, -117.96866 Map ↗

First built

Founding date not established by reliable documentation; currently unavailable

Overview

Little Saigon in Orange County is the largest Vietnamese American community in the United States, a substantial part of which consists of ethnic Chinese (Minh Huong people and those of Teochew and Cantonese descent) who left southern Vietnam after 1975. This temple is named in Vietnamese "Đức Quan Thánh" (Lord Guan the Sacred Emperor) and is dedicated primarily to Guandi, belonging to the tradition of Guandi worship that the Vietnamese Chinese community brought with them from Vietnam — Chinese temples in southern Vietnam were mostly administered by native-place associations (bang), with Guandi, Mazu, and Bổn Đầu Công as the three principal deities. Geographic databases register its religious affiliation as Confucian, a common classification for "Three Teachings" sites in the Vietnamese context, though its actual religious content still belongs to Chinese popular religion. Because reliable documentation is lacking on its founding date and the community responsible for it, no inference is made in this entry.

Highlights

• A Guandi temple of the Vietnamese Chinese community in Little Saigon
• Reflects the temple tradition of Chinese native-place associations in southern Vietnam
• Registered as Confucian, though actually popular religion