The U.S. Department of Commerce last week awarded a $2.5 million grant to a Vietnamese-owned business incubator based in Garden Grove, Calif. The award marks the first federally funded project focused on the Asian-American business community in Orange County.

The E-Business Development Inc. Incubator, a 30,000 square-foot complex, will assist Asian-American businesses in economically troubled cities overcome language and cultural barriers in order to expand into mainstream markets. The organization aims to create at least 500 new jobs.

Assistant Secretary of Commerce David Sampson presided over a ceremony with other senior federal officials, Garden Grove's mayor Lynn Dangtu, founder and chief executive officer of the incubator.

For Dangtu, the day was recognition for years of hard work on behalf of struggling Asian-American business owners.

In 1999, while working with Little Saigon Small Business Development Program as consultant and lecturer to hundreds of Vietnamese businesses, Dangtu began lobbying the federal government on behalf of the incubator.

A year later, the Department of Commerce agreed to become the incubator's first financial partner and the city of Garden Grove donated 3.2 acres of city property valued at $3.3 million.

The incubator's space is scheduled to be completed in 2004.