It's not as big an ethnic milestone as Barack Obama's victory in the presidential election, but congratulations are in order for Louisiana Republican Anh Cao, who recently became the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress. Cao defeated the scandal-plagued Democratic incumbent William Jefferson, who is under indictment for a a variety of crimes.

Interestingly, Vietnamese-Americans are among the few minority groups who generally don't vote Democratic (Republican identifiers outnumber Democrats by 2-1 in the Vietnamese community). Cuban-Americans and Russians are among the other exceptions. Almost certainly, the experience of living under communism accounts for the similar political orientations of these three otherwise disparate groups. That experience tends to make them more hawkish on foreign policy and less supportive of government intervention in the economy in the domestic realm. The article about Cao linked above notes that his father was imprisoned in a communist "reeducation camp."