The chemical crisis that prompted evacuations in Southern California on Friday occurred at an industrial site in Garden Grove, a suburban city with a large Vietnamese American population just a short drive from Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland.
In Orange County, the city is just five miles from the Disney parks in Anaheim, but there are more restaurants with good pho in Garden Grove than mouse ears.
The population stands at about 170,000, according to 2025 census estimates, and it is culturally diverse, with 37 percent of its residents of Hispanic descent and 43 percent Asian American.
With neighboring Westminster, the city shares Little Saigon, the cultural heart of the Vietnamese American population in California. The area is home to thousands of businesses owned by Vietnamese Americans. Nearby, Koreatown is centered on several blocks of Garden Grove Boulevard.
Like much of Orange County, and as its name suggests, Garden Grove was an agricultural area throughout the 1800s and up until the 1950s. Japanese and Mexican immigrants formed the backbone of the economy.
After World War II, development boomed.
“In the ‘50s and ‘60s, all of Southern California was built with very affordable middle class homes with two or three bedrooms and one bath,” said Candace Chromy, executive director of the Heritage Museum of Orange County. “That’s exactly what these typical neighborhoods are in Garden Grove.”
Vietnamese American and Korean American immigrants moved to the area in the 1970s, Ms. Chromy said.
Aerospace has long been a major industry in Southern California, and companies started opening facilities in Orange County in the 1960s and 1970s, but “they’ve been closing the last few decades,” she said.
The chemical leak on Friday occurred at a Garden Grove location for GKN Aerospace, a British-based manufacturing company that produces jet engines and other components for military and civilian aircraft. A city planning document said that the facility originally opened in 1963.
Garden Grove is the fifth-largest city in Orange County by population. The median household income in 2024 was $92,174, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Amy Graff is a Times reporter covering weather, wildfires and earthquakes.
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