Place:Westminster, Orange, California, United States

source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Westminster is a city in northern Orange County, California, known for its many Vietnamese refugees who immigrated to the city during the 1980s. They settled largely in Little Saigon, and the city is known as the "capital" of overseas Vietnamese with 36,058 Vietnamese Americans and at 40.2% (2010), the highest municipal prevalence of Vietnamese Americans. Westminster was founded in 1870 by Rev. Lemuel Webber as a Presbyterian temperance colony and was incorporated in 1957.

Westminster is bordered by the city of Seal Beach on the west, by Garden Grove on the north and east, and by Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley on the south. Santa Ana, the county seat of Orange County, is right next to Westminster on the east but is divided by a small part of Garden Grove. Westminster borders the unincorporated area of Midway City, except for a small portion where Midway City borders Huntington Beach on the south.

Westminster won the All-America City Award in 1996.

In the court case Mendez v. Westminster (1947), a Hispanic man sued the Westminster School District for forcing his daughter, Sylvia Mendez, to attend a school for Mexican children. They eventually won and thus began the process of desegregation. Sylvia Mendez was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama on February 15, 2011.

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