Oct
2
A Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian Testimony: In Search of the “Place” in Displacement
Filed Under 2009 | 25 Comments
A Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian Testimony: In Search of the “Place” in Displacement
*This documentary was produced/directed by Rojelio Vo, Long S. Le, and Aaron Hedge. The documentary is based on the lived-experience of a Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian, Khanh Le.
Documentary Featured on Visions – Channel 13/ABC
Interview with Visions will be posted at: http://www.visions.abc13.com/. Segment 2, September 5, 2009
“If the individual black self could not exist before the law, it could, and would, be forged in language as a testimony at once to the supposed integrity of the black self and against the social and political evils that delimited individual and group equality.” - Professor Henry Louis Gates
Khanh Le is a Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian, fathered by an African American serviceman during the Vietnam War. Khanh has no information about his father, and his mother abandoned him when he was an infant. He was raised by a surrogate family. As a “half-breed” black child (con den lai) and a child of the enemy (con cua ke thu), Khanh did not exist before the law in Vietnam. His displacement experiences entail physical, cultural, psychological, and intellectual of which he suffered humiliation and discrimination. His search for a “place” came in 1986 when he arrived to the U.S. through the Orderly Departure Program (ODP). The ODP allowed Amerasians to bring their mothers but restricted surrogate or extended family members. Thus, at the age of ten, Khanh came to the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor, living with foster families and later in sheltered homes for Amerasian young adults.
Coming home to their fathers’ country, Amerasians had escaped the “dust of life” (bui doi), referring to their lived experiences in Vietnam as the poorest of the poor. Yet, after arriving to the U.S., many Amerasians felt that once again they had been abandoned. That is, the U.S. was only responsible to get Amerasians here and not responsible for whether Amerasians’ adaptation would be successful. Some Amerasians couldn’t handle it – joining gangs, becoming prostitutes, committing crimes, and abusing alcohol and drugs.
For Khanh Le, he has been able to “survive twice.” His life in the U.S. has been about “living in the middle,” not (and will never be) fully accepted as an African American, as a Vietnamese, or an American. But he has been resilient. His testimony speaks of his biological father and mother, his childhood in Vietnam, his experiences in foster homes and shelter homes in the U.S., his attempts of balancing various cultures, his relations with his common-law wife and her family, his relations with his daughter, his Katrina experience, and his thoughts about one day returning to Vietnam.
The documentary was conducted in Houston – two weeks after Khanh Le evacuated from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005. The documentary was recorded live at Hong Kong City Mall in the office of BoatPeople SOS which was initially the key outreach center for Vietnamese Katrina evacuees.
The Vietnamese Amerasian Experience
The term “Amerasian” was coined by Pearl S. Buck in 1964, referring to Korean children fathered by American servicemen during the Korean War. The term today has come to apply to the more than 2 million displaced mixed-race children born in such countries as the Philippines, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Estimates of Vietnamese Amerasian children born to U.S. soldiers/civilians and Vietnamese mothers during the Vietnam War range from 40,000 to 100,000. Contrary to the image of Amerasians being the product of Vietnamese bargirls’ one-night stand with young American soldiers, a study for the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement found that most mothers were poor young women who worked on or near U.S. bases in order to contribute to the support of their families. When they became pregnant, these mothers attempted to create a support system for their children, but such a system was tested when the fathers were departed back to the U.S. Moreover, the stereotype that mothers of Amerasians were prostitutes made in difficult for them to go home in which their families or neighbors would look down on them; and in a patrilineal society if they were not married their children would be stigmatized from birth.
For Pearl S. Buck, the Amerasian represents “neither East nor West purely, he will be rejected of each, for none will understand him. But…if he has the strength of both his parents, he will understand both worlds, and so overcome.”
There are indeed stories of living in and making sense of both worlds, as illustrated by Brandy Lien Worrall’s “Stories from Home.” Brandy is a second-generation Vietnamese American college student at UCLA, who was born and raised in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania and whose father was an American serviceman during the Vietnam War. On the one hand, traversing different worlds – her biracial/bicultural identity and her mother Vietnamese identity – led Brandy to learn Vietnamese. “Now when I talk to my mom in Vietnamese…[I remember] when she said sadly, ‘I wanted you to learn Vietnamese, so you can love me better,’ I knew what she was talking about.” On the other hand, her mother confessed to Brandy that she had “abandoned” Brandy’s older, half-brother, Hieu, when she came with Brandy’s father to the U.S. in 1971. “Hieu’s cries of his sister [Hieu’s younger sister and Brandy’s older, half-sister] leaving him and going to America, of she being the one who was allowed to be known in the face of his mother’s new lover [Brandy’s father]…[Hieu was] brave when that man became his mother’s and sister’s ticket out of Vietnam and away from him.” At the age of twelve while living with his grandparents in Vietnam, Hieu committed suicide.
Originally, the term “Amerasian” was to carry a positive connotation because it raises American cultural consciousness about the displacement of countless mixed-blood children. In reality, most Vietnamese Amerasians were “abandoned” by their American fathers, and some were also abandoned by their Vietnamese mothers and subsequent caretakers. For years after the Vietnam War, the U.S. government saw Amerasians as Vietnam’s responsibility and took no interest in what became of them. As noted by Kien Nguyen’s The Unwanted, most people knew Vietnam through movies – like Apocalypse Now, Platoon, and Born on the Fourth of July – which gave the impression that U.S. involvement ended after 1975, but that life for Amerasians after the war was as profound as the war itself. Meanwhile, the new communist regime saw Amerasians as “children of the enemy” (con cua ke thu) in which history classes and texts decried America’s role in the destruction of Vietnam. Mothers of Amerasians were denounced for having consorted with the enemy and, in turn, most destroyed any pictures, letters, or official papers that contained information of their children’s fathers. Notwithstanding, many along with other “collaborators” of the former “puppet regime” were sent to and given little to start a new life in desolate, remote, and sparsely populated “New Economic Zones.”
As for Amerasians, they were routinely humiliated and discriminated against: ‘You go back to America, you dirty American. You lose the war already, go back.’ Consequently, most Amerasians were kicked out or dropped out of school and were kept from jobs, forcing them to the streets. Thus, Amerasians were called the “dust of life” (bui doi), an expression referring to the poorest of the poor in Vietnam. Amerasians without stable, continuous family or surrogate support experienced various mental-health problems. Moreover, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office’s study, 48 percent of Amerasians had less then five years of schooling in Vietnam, while 39 percent had 6-8 years, 13 percent had 9-12 years, and none attended college. Researchers on Amerasians also found that the overwhelming majority of Amerasians are virtually illiterate and arrive with no transferable job skills. Thus, the implications are clear: Amerasians are a high-risk population and would require more intensive special services than any other Southeast Asian refugee group. This would help to prevent Amerasians from falling into a cycle of poverty, gang membership, and welfare dependency in the U.S.
While clearly Amerasians have a lot of strikes against them, it is noted that Black Amerasians in contrast to White Amerasians have experienced heavier doses of discrimination and hardship. A black Amerasian female, named Pha, testified to that:
“I didn’t go to school [in Vietnam], I was embarrassed of my skin…the students always insulted me, called me ‘black girl.’ People always talked bad about me because I was black…My family didn’t love me, they didn’t love my mother. Before [the fall of Saigon] it was not so bad, but after ’75 [under communist rule], the family didn’t want to keep me at home. They were sacred of the VC [Viet Cong], they wanted to send me away where nobody could see me.”
According to Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde, “Vietnamese, much like other Asian groups, look down on dark skin, which equate with the lower peasants class or ethnic minorities.” As a result, Black Amerasians often exhibit more anger, anxiety, depression, and self-hatred. In fact, during the Vietnam War, in 1972, the Martin Luther King Home for Children, established by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was being built in Saigon. Such an effort was due to the noted problems of racism, which made it difficult for children of African American servicemen and Vietnamese women to get an education, job, or even to build friendships. However, the funding to operate the Martin Luther King Home for Children was not sustainable. Although there is great diversity among Amerasians (e.g., height, physique and skin color, and variety of personal histories), they see each other as their tightest bonds.
The opportunity to put back the “place” into displacement came in 1982 when Amerasians were qualified to enter the U.S. That is, the first U.S. Amerasian Act of 1982 allowed Amerasians to qualify in the first preferential category of immigrants as children of U.S. citizens, but did not establish their U.S. citizenship. Family members of Amerasians did not receive preferential immigrant status. Thus, Amerasians had to choose between emigrating to the U.S. or to stay with their families in Vietnam. Though through the Orderly Departure Program (ODP), Amerasians were able to bring their mothers, while others came alone or as unaccompanied minors. According to the U.S. State Department, approximately 4,500 Amerasian children and about 7,000 accompanying immediate relatives came to the U.S. through the ODP from 1982 to 1988.
But it was not until the Homecoming Act written in 1987 with broader provisions for Amerasians to emigrate with their extended (or surrogate) family members that a significant number of Amerasians found a way to their fathers’ country. Yet the Homecoming Act can only be considered a success if success is defined narrowly by the numbers moved here. By 1994, about 28,000 Vietnamese Amerasians and about 67,000 of their relatives had arrived to the U.S. But the U.S. government closed the program the same year due the prevalence of fraud in which the program was used to traffic Vietnamese or “fake” Amerasians into the U.S. In large part, the problem was due to the fact that the registration process relied solely on the Vietnamese government to generate applicant lists. Moreover, the Vietnamese government imposed “official” fees (e.g., obtaining government forms in order to get a permission to leave) and “unofficial” fees (e.g., bribes to local officials to get included on an interview list and transportation costs to the interview site in Ho Chi Minh City). A 1992 report by U.S. General Accounting Office which was based on Amerasians’ interviews at the Philippine Refugee Processing Center (approved Amerasians and family members were housed at the Center for six months before arriving to the U.S.) found that the median “official” costs were about $350 and median “unofficial” costs were about $250. By comparison, Vietnam’s per capita income in 1990 was $230.
Many Amerasians could not meet the above fees due to remote location in rural areas, illiteracy, homelessness, and poverty. This created exploitation and victimization opportunities, including “traffickers” who hoped to immigrate to the U.S. by claiming to be relatives. With underfunding and the problems seriously underestimated, the U.S. embassy and consulate officials could not put in place a new system of processing, protecting and securing the emigration of Amerasians to the U.S. For example, they could not persuade the Vietnamese government to allow Amerasians to register directly with the Orderly Department Program in Vietnam, knowing that “fraud” would have to require the complicity of local Vietnamese government officials. As a response, U.S. officials began to implement more stringent measures to prevent fraud from occurring. But such measures resulted in a high rate of rejection among applicants with risks that valid applicants have been turned away.
Although the homecoming program closed in 1994, there was still processing of Amerasians to the U.S. However, the number was relatively low. According to U.S. Office Refugee Settlement, only 67 Amerasians and their family members arrived in 2003 compared to over 17,000 in 1992. Meanwhile, Time Magazine in May 2002 reported that more than 100 files of Amerasians may have been unfairly rejected by the U.S. resettlement program because they either had submitted falsified applications or had been involved in previous fraud cases. In part, because Amerasians were not seen as “victims of fraud” there was no more new processing of Amerasians by the end of 2003. With time the political support for Amerasian resettlement program was plagued by immigration fraud, as well as the cynical views by some US officials toward anyone claiming to be Amerasian. By some accounts, about 500 to 10,000 Amerasians are still in Vietnam.
There is a consensus that the Homecoming Act was about a philosophy of ‘let’s get them here,’ and not on successful adaption of Amerasians – who are known to be at high risk of becoming permanently underprivileged. That is, the “welcome mat,” without genuine services and opportunities to “make it” in America, resulted more often than not in Amerasians being “abandoned” or “disenfranchised” again.
Scholars like Robert McKelvey and John Webb found that Amerasians, compared to their non-Amerasian siblings and like-aged Vietnamese immigrants, report more traumatic childhoods and less education in Vietnam; and once settled in the U.S., Amerasians report more present use of alcohol, hospitalizations, and continue to suffer more symptoms of trauma and depression than their counterparts. Similarly, Fred Bemak’s and Rita Chi-Ying Chung’s survey completed in 1992 found that some 14 percent had attempted suicide and 76 percent wanted, at least occasionally, to return to Vietnam. Importantly, Amerasians’ cognitions about their biological American father were significant predictors of both psychological distress and self-destructive behavior. In the same survey, most Amerasians were eager to find their fathers but only 33 percent knew his name and only 3 percent found their fathers. Interestingly, on the one hand, Amerasians in Vietnam who had high hopes for their future lives in the U.S. were generally less depressed than those with low expectations. On the other hand, when these Amerasians were subsequently reevaluated in the U.S., those who had high hopes for a better life in the U.S. were much more depressed than those who had expected little or had no high hopes.
Initially, Amerasians were dispersed to 50 cities or cluster sites across the U.S., encompassing 31 states with then 10 percent going to California. The cluster sites were managed by non-governmental organizations, and who were under contract with the U.S. government. However, most cluster sites were quickly overwhelmed. For example, a cluster site – the Welcome Home House in Utica, New York – was awash in scandals and whose residential director and most of the staff have either been fired or quit by fall 1992, according to accounts in Thomas Bass’ Vietnamerica: The War Comes Home. Moreover, many Amerasians felt really out of place in the initial cluster sites – because of cold weather and separation from relatives and friends. Thus, many undertook “secondary migration,” particularly California and Louisiana which have warmer climates and larger concentrations of Vietnamese. However, most Amerasians are not fully integrated into the Vietnamese American community, either culturally or economically. As testified by Luong Huong: “Vietnamese here, especially the higher-educated Vietnamese, do not allow their children to make friends with black Amerasians like me.”
Amerasians typically receive about eight months of government assistance along with the expectation to improve English proficiency and some job training. But because many lack family support, their priority was to find jobs to support themselves and find affordable housing. Most often they worked in low-paying jobs, lived in poor neighborhoods, and were not able to obtain health care. Due to the lack of English proficiency and inability to pass the required interview and civics test, more than 60 percent of Amerasians have not been naturalized. In 2003, a Citizenship Bill was proposed in order to establish citizenship status for Amerasians, which would make them eligible for federal and airport-security jobs as well as work on Gulf Coast shrimp boats that requires 75 percent of such jobs be filled by citizens. The bill did not pass.
Perhaps under different settlement policies, Amerasians might be making more advancement and might already be reaping the benefits of American citizenship. Instead, many (and, by some accounts, disproportionately Black Amerasians) are still struggling daily against poverty, mental health, social isolation and discrimination. On the one hand, there is an agreement of “too little and too late.” That is, when U.S. soldiers do not bear the responsibility for their children, it is the responsibility of the U.S. government to welcome their Amerasians and their mothers who wanted to come to the U.S. during and after the war. According to Robert McKelvey’s The Dust of Life, “the decision to bring the Americans home, in their teens, twenties, and thirties, was the right thing to do” but “the harm has been done, and Amerasians’ potential for growth and development has been severely limited by time and neglect.”
On the other hand, Amerasians are survivors or have survived twice; though surviving twice implies those who did not survive, as noted by Trin Yarborough. In fact, Amerasians have started to carve out a cultural identity for themselves based on survival, fellowship, and pride. “Amerasian Voice” has emerged to promote and preserve the human rights of Amerasians both in the U.S. and in Asia. Amerasians are holding themselves accountable for their own advancement, but they are not about to excuse governments’ practice of neglect regarding Amerasian issues. Through Amerasian Independent Voice of America, they are advocating for the U.S. government to allow the remaining Amerasians in Vietnam who want to emigrate to the U.S. They are also calling for the passage of the Amerasian Paternity Act that would grant citizenship to Amerasians born in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or Thailand.
Lucious, Bernard Scott. “ In the Black Pacific: Testimonies of Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian Displacements,” in Wanni Anderson’s and Robert Lee’s Displacements and Diasporas (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press), 2005.
- What is “black testimony” and how does it relates to Vietnamese Afro-Amerasians?
- What is “colorism” and how does it relates to Vietnamese Afro-Amerasians?
- What is “contact zones” and how does it relates to Vietnamese Afro-Amerasians?
- Explain Vietnamese Amerasians within the corporeal context.
- Explain Vietnamese Amerasians within the national context.
- Explain Vietnamese Amerasians within the international context.
Aug
4
Historicizing Vietnamese America
Filed Under 2009 | Leave a Comment
Historicizing Vietnamese America.
This powerpoint was given at the UNAVSA’s 6th Conference in Atlanta, Georia on July 31, 2009. Please click on the picture below to download the presentation
May
10
Narrating the Vietnamese American Experience
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Narrating the Vietnamese American Experience*
* A version of this article will appear in the Encyclopedia of Asian American Folklore (Greenwood Publication)
The starting point of Vietnamese American experience is often linked to the mass refugee exodus following the Fall of Saigon on April 30th, 1975. However, to be sure, there was a pre-1975 Vietnamese immigrant experience. This immigrant group consisted largely of Vietnamese who came to the United States as students, professionals, and war brides. According to the U.S. census, from 1951 to 1975, this group totaled a little more than twenty thousand.
A study by academic Pham Vu utilizing oral interviews and printed materials found that some of the pre-1975 immigrants, particularly those who were students, acted as agents of change. These students promoted a better understanding of Vietnam as a country rather than merely as a war, and expressed a range of views from criticizing American policy in Vietnam, which had uprooted a large numbers of Vietnamese villagers, to espousing American support for Republic of South Vietnam against communist rule in the north.
One of those students was Nguyen Dinh Hoa, who memorized his life experience into two time periods, pre-1948 and post-1948, signifying the year he came as a student through the U.S. consulate in Hanoi to obtain a Ph.D. in English education. After receiving his doctoral degree, Hoa returned to Vietnam in 1957 to serve as chairman of the English Department at the University of Saigon. In 1965, he came back to, and remained in, the U.S. to develop one of the first Vietnamese Studies programs, promoting the Vietnamese language and literature. He also published English textbooks for Vietnamese speakers, which were in high demand among the post-1975 Vietnamese refugees. According to Hoa’s memoir of his cultural odyssey, by the time it was possible to provisionally return home, his memories of Vietnam were so strong they compelled him to return in 1994, which was very meaningful because he found he had not outgrown his past.
Another student was Nguyen Long, who attended Berkeley from 1968 to 1973, completing his Ph.D. work in Political Science. Prior to 1968, Long, as a student activist championing progressive politics, led protests against the Ngo Dinh Diem government (1955-1963) and the Nguyen Van Thieu government (1967-1975). He continued his activism in the U.S., participating in anti-war demonstrations. Long returned to Vietnam in 1973 and saw no reason to become a refugee in 1975, believing that patriotism and nationalism, as espoused by the Communist Party, would allow for a coalition government to rebuild a better Vietnam. Instead, he discovered life under communist rule was a nightmare and the conditions were near-slavery. Thus, Long was now willing to risk death and escaped successful by boat in 1979. Initially, he believed that the U.S. should withdraw its forces to allow Vietnamese to negotiate for peace on their own. However, in his memoir of daily life under the Vietnamese Communists, Long came to realize that such an approach was too simplistic.
Cultural and Intellectual History of Vietnamese Americans
The above experiences, on the one hand, as shared by a number of the pre-1975 immigrants, clearly antedate the narratives of the Vietnamese refugees following the Vietnam War. However, on the other hand, such experiences were neither necessarily unique only to the pre-1975 Vietnamese Americans, nor were they disconnected to the refugee exodus after the fall of Saigon. Rather, the pre-1975 experiences open possibilities of memorializing and/or archiving them as anchors to the Vietnamese American cultural and intellectual history. That is, the “birth” of Vietnamese American experience is related to American involvement in Vietnam. Moreover, its cultural and intellectual history is about assertions and negotiations of the right to “place-making” and for “memory work” in order to bring about desired change and to revise distorted histories, both in the U. S. and in Vietnam.
In fact, there has been an imagination, where Vietnam should seek diplomatic relations with the U.S. so as to achieve independence, dating back to Bui Vien’s mission in 1873. According to a well-known biography which was first published in Saigon in 1945, Bui Vien, an official of the Tu Duc’s court (1848-1883), was believed to have been sent to the U.S. to request an intervention by the Grant Administration against French intrusion in Vietnam. However, due to political circumstances, the U.S. government was not in a position at the time to assist. Although there is no historical documentation to support that such visit actually took place, this fable has had the power to explain the events that came after it, according to academic Wynn Wilcox.
That is, in 1950 the United States had granted the recognition of the Associated State of Vietnam in which a year earlier, the non-communist government of Bao Dai was able to negotiate for independence for the whole Vietnam within the French Union. When the Geneva Accord of 1954 partitioned the country into two ideological halves, the U.S. singularly allied with non-communist Vietnamese leaders to secure the survival of the Republic of South Vietnam. Thus, the historical vision of a political relationship between the two countries was finally inaugurated. By 1967, when the alliance was at a crossroad, President Lyndon B. Johnson invoked Bui Vien’s mission to reiterate that: “[W]e know our destination. We established it years ago…together, with courage and unflagging devotion to the duty we share, we will make it.” With the communist takeover in 1975, the US and South Vietnam once again shared the same destiny, that is, as losers of the Vietnam War.
While the U.S. began to study the lessons of and going beyond the Vietnam War, the initial wave of refugees – about 130,000, of which many were members of the former South Vietnamese government and military armed forces – began to reconstruct their new home as “Little Saigon.”
The use of “Little Saigon” not only suggests an explicit cultural and ideological reference point but also a community-driven, bottom-up approach which expresses needs and desires that were quite different from U.S. resettlement policy. Initially, the objective of U.S. resettlement policy was to “assimilate” Vietnamese refugees to only take on an American identity and to discourage them from forming their own ethnic communities. As such, Vietnamese refugees were systematically dispersed across the states to avoid burdening local governments’ budgets and to prevent Vietnamese from clustering into large geographically ethnic enclaves.
However, many of the first wave refugees saw the dispersion as a major obstacle in adjusting because it prevented ethnic support and a sense of belonging. In fact, after a few years, government-created diasporas were reversing, as Vietnamese themselves sought for the presence of a Vietnamese community in order to cope with being physically, psychologically, culturally, economically, and intellectually displaced. In many respects, Vietnamese secondary migration, including those of the latter waves of refugees, were driven by “geographical mobility,” moving to places that had public assistance benefit levels, lenient public assistance eligibility requirements, low unemployment rates, or ethnic communities with dense cultural and social networks.
Gradually, Vietnamese refugees have been able to put back the “place” into displacement – although not always having a defined plan of action, never “silent” or merely “surviving.” Contrary to the initial prediction by some American scholars that Vietnamese refugees were psychologically unprepared to start life anew, the refugees’ experiences of traumas from war and escape have in many ways instilled a sense of invulnerability and the attitude of “nowhere to go but up,” which encourages Vietnamese refugees to take risks and become innovators in their respective occupations.
An empirical study by Paul Starr and Alden Roberts in 1982 found that many Vietnamese refugees saw past personal difficulties as having ‘inoculated” them against the negative, and instilled the attitude “that which does kill me, strengthens me.” Other studies found that many Vietnamese refugees possessed a great degree of optimism, expecting their lives to improve markedly within five years, including occupational advancement, income, and overall quality of life.
Also contrary to assimilationist perspective, the robust social mobility of the first generation of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants has been correlated to the cohort’s ability to retain aspects of Vietnamese culture. That is, in making places for themselves, many Vietnamese refugees and immigrants have retained Vietnamese cultural ideals of the family such as “hieu” (filial piety) and of the community such as “nghia” (the obligation to participate rather than withdraw from societal affairs).
For example, empirical studies by Minh Zhou and Carl Bankston have found that younger generations of Vietnamese Americans in marginal socio-economic environments who have strong adherence to traditional family values, strong commitment to work ethic, high level of Vietnamese literacy, and a high degree of personal involvement in the ethnic community tend to disproportionately have high grades, to have definite college plans, and to score high on academic orientation. Importantly, these Vietnamese cultural ideals co-existed with views that the American way of life was modern, scientific, and progressive.
Consequently, the bicultural patterns have caused observers to describe the first generation of Vietnamese Americans in various ways, including eclectic, adaptable, resourceful, practical, passive, indirect, and resilient.
The above characteristics have assisted, to a considerable degree, with the adjustment of the subsequent waves of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants, who, relative to the first wave, possessed a lesser degree of “anticipatory socialization of American life.” Subsequent waves include “boat people,” who began their journey in the late 1970s as a result of the new government’s discriminative policy toward the “corrupted, westernized” culture of southern Vietnam, including abolition of “bourgeois trade,” creation of new economic zones, and military draft of young men. However, such journeys were subjected to violent acts by pirates, such as rapes, murders, and pillaging. Thus, the acronym “RMP” was stamped on many refugees’ files. It has been estimated that the death rate was about 15 percent of the total number of people arriving at the refugee camps in Southeast Asia, or rougly 220,000 deaths.
“Boat people” were more likely to be Viet Hoa (Chinese Vietnamese or Vietnamese Chinese), males, Buddhists, less affluent, less proficient in the English language, and less educated. Still, this group was relatively young and had been urban workers in Vietnam. They were able to maintain strong family ties and kinship networks, and, while they did not necessarily assimilate as quickly as many of their first-wave cohorts, they showed a rather gradual improvement on a number of socio-economic indicators. The adjustment of many was exacerbated because they were sponsored by the first wave refugees. Moreover, when confronted with language barriers and lack of employable skills in the mainstream, a great number turned to family-run businesses, marketing themselves to the growing Vietnamese communities across the states. As a result, Vietnamese Americans have had one of the highest growth rates in small businesses among Asian Americans, which helped to solidify the many “Little Saigons” across the U.S. as vibrant ethnic enclave economies.
Another wave consisted of individuals who came through government sponsored programs, namely the Orderly Departure Program (ODP), Humanitarian Operation Program (HO), and U.S. Homecoming program. Individuals who came via ODP, which began in 1984, were those permitted to enter via sponsorship of relatives in the U.S. Like “boat people,” earlier ODP immigrants over time have improved their socio-economic situations.
By contrast, later ODP immigrants and those under HO – who were former South Vietnamese political prisoners for whom the U.S. government negotiated with Vietnam for their emigration to the U.S. starting in 1989 – have been struggling to climb out of the poverty line. This group relative to other waves was older and had a different adjustment difficulty because they were survivors of torture. Unlike earlier groups and younger cohorts, this group did not perceive positive overall well being that could buffer against psychological distress.
Another group that faced serious adjustment difficulties has been that of Amerasians – individuals fathered by a U.S. citizen in Vietnam during the war – who came under the Homecoming Act implemented in 1989. These individuals differ drastically from other Vietnamese refugees and immigrants on measures of alcohol use, number of hospitalizations, years of education, childhood trauma, and perceived effects of trauma.
From 1975 to 2002, a totaled of 759,482 Vietnamese arrived as refugees, while 412,449 arrived as immigrants from 1951 to 2002, according to the U.S. census. Today, Vietnamese immigrants, particularly through the family unification program, make up the vast majority of foreign born Vietnamese entering the U.S. According to 2008 census numbers, there are 1.6 million Vietnamese Americans and – despite the different migration vintages – they are making considerable progress.
Studies using the data from census have shown that Vietnamese foreign born entering the U.S. in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000-2005 have seen an increase in terms English proficiency, proportion of college graduates, the number of owner occupied housing, family median income, naturalization, and voting; in addition, Vietnamese have seen a decrease in public assistance and poverty rate. However, relative to other non-refugee Asian foreign born who enter the U.S. in the same time period, Vietnamese Americans are more likely to be in poverty, to be uninsured, to be institutionalized, and to reside in the poorer inner-city neighborhoods.
Notwithstanding, given the expectation that Vietnamese refugees and immigrants were to experience downward assimilation or segmented assimilation because of the “hour-glass economy,” Vietnamese Americans have been able to achieve a considerable degree of “place-making” in the American mosaic.
No less important, Vietnamese Americans have been able to make cultural statements through “memory work,” signifying their identity to themselves and others. For example, Vietnamese Americans are attempting to be the first Asian American group to establish a million dollar endowment at the Smithsonian Institution. Thus far, an exhibit, “Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon,” which was opened at the Smithsonian in January 2007, has plans to travel to fifteen cities. The overall mission of the Vietnamese Heritage Project at the Smithsonian is to tell “the story of challenge, sacrifice and change – an ongoing journey that is changing the face of America.” However, the project has created discussions and inroads of inquiry. That is, whether or not marketing the Vietnamese American Experience as a part of American Heritage would continue to marginalize the “missing” voices and narratives of the former South Republic Vietnam. This is evident in the teaching of the Vietnam War on college campuses, where there is still a dominant emphasis on the American perspectives about the lessons learned.
Within the community there has been an effort to rewrite the Vietnam War, extracting the lessons of the past in order to build a better future along with the need to maintain an impartial objectivity. Moreover, there has been an ongoing documentation of Vietnamese American achievement called Ve Vang Dan Viet (or The Pride of the Vietnamese), which currently has a five volume edition. The “Ve Vang Dan Viet” is now being utilized by Vietnamese American newspapers, organizations, and bloggers. In many respects, “Ve Vang Dan Viet” is an ideological statement, declaring the superiority of a democratic way of life which has allowed Vietnamese refugees and immigrants to fulfill their full potential. Meanwhile, life under communist tutelage has not released the full potential of the Vietnamese people in Vietnam.
Myers, Jessica. 2006. “
Pho and Apple Pie: Eden Center as a Representation of Vietnamese Ethnic Identity in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area, 1975-2005.” Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts 1 (2): 279-311.
- Describe the different waves of Vietnamese immigration and how they affect the development of the community.
- Describe the social, cultural, and political dynamics of
Collet, Christian. 2008. “
The Viability of ‘Going it Alone’: Vietnamese Americans and the Coalition Experience of a Transnational Community.” Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts 1 (2): 279-311.
- Describe the “toggling” strategy in Vietnamese American campaigns.
- Should Vietnamese Americans “go it alone” or should they more actively engage inpanethnic and cross-racial coalitions to address the mutually shared problems of structural discrimination and economic inequalities?
- Kelly,
- Nguyen, Hoa Dinh. From the City Inside the Red River: A Cultural Memoir of Mid-Century
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18
Assessing the Anti-Communist Identity
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Assessing the Anti-Communist Identity
As a professor of Vietnamese Studies courses, one of the toughest topics to articulate to my students is the anti-communist ideology and identity in the Vietnamese American community.
That is, much of what is associated with the anti-communist identity are the recent protests by members in the community who believe that the heritage symbols of their refugee experiences are being attacked.
The most recent protest was against a Vietnamese American art exhibit called “F.O.B II: Art Speaks” that uses the communist flag as a statement to launch a discussion about freedom of expression. For example, one of the art works was an interactive voting booth that allows visitors to decide which flag represents them: the flag of the former Republic of South Vietnam, the official of flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, or create their own flag using crayons. The exhibit was in Santa Ana (CA), which opened at the beginning of this year but was forced to shut down earlier than scheduled due to community protest.
Interestingly, the exhibit’s organizers, many of whom are part of the so-called 1.5 generation of Vietnamese Americans who were born in Vietnam but mostly grew up in the US, stated that their display was a direct response to an earlier protest last year. That protest was against Nguoi Viet Daily News’ publication of an image of a foot spa painted with the colors of the South Vietnamese flag. There was “this prevailing fear round the Vietnamese community after the foot bath incident…the community was on this slippery slope, and we were not progressing toward having open dialogue and being more tolerant of different political views,” said one of the organizers. Although the exhibit’s organizers and advisory board members attempted to be “sensitive enough for the community,” they wanted “to confront the fear head on.” At least implicitly, the “F.O.B II” was to “test” whether the community is ready to respect the freedom for which it claimed to seek when they left Vietnam.
It has been said that people with extreme preferences and views (both left and right) are always disproportionately represented in community politics. So much so that too often the consequence is “clowns to the left and jokers to the right” in which such politics seems distant from the views of ordinary folks.
Perhaps because I am also a “1.5er” whose personal politics is progressive but who also considers himself as anti-communist, I don’t see the above generational politics as being irrelevant. In fact, I see generational politics as the “Achilles’ heel” to the Vietnamese American community development.
The question then is how to frame generational politics in a way that can produce optimal outcomes for the community.
Contextualizing the anti-communist identity
It has already been observed that Vietnamese refugees are able to do what F. Scott Fitzgerald stated as the test of a first-rate intelligence. That is, as noted by writer Andrew Lam, the first generation has “the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
In other words, Vietnamese refugees have not abandoned the ideological struggle for a unified non-communist, democratic Vietnam. Yet, at the same time, they have continued to interrelate new and old cultural ways in order to build a new place for the family and community. In effect, new ways of doing things that have proven to be successful will be a reference for others to emulate.
Similarly, while many Vietnamese refugees are intolerant of the communist regime or those who they perceived to have directly sustained or apologized for communist rule, such anti-communist sentiment does not necessarily breeds intolerance of attitude toward other dislikes.
In fact, like other immigrant groups, Vietnamese refugees have further developed self-expression values, such as tolerance toward “outgroups,” support for gender equality, emphasis less on materialist values, support on environmental activism, and high levels of negative views toward authoritarian governments; whereas those with survival values tend to have the opposite preferences on these topics. My research on Houston’s Vietnamese community using the Houston Asian Area Survey shows that the older generations, with time, are more likely to support gays in the military, to approve relatives marrying non-Asian, agree that there is too little done to protect the environment and to make improvements for the poor, and to volunteer for a non-Asian charity. Moreover, when I compare Vietnamese immigrants to other Asian immigrants of the same age and time in the U.S., Vietnamese immigrants have a better score on these indicators.
However, for a number of Vietnamese American studies scholars and activists, the anti-communist identity should be viewed through a critical theory perspective. In critiquing, they conclude that such ideology and identity are impediment to community development, community organizing, or transnational collaborative exchanges.
For example, scholar Linda Vo states:
Homeland politics is still of primary importance, and adopting anti-Communism ideologies is mandatory…These men understandably have a difficult time forgetting the past, for they committed their younger years fighting in the war…only to be relocated to another country where they face social, economic, and political displacement…[whose] peers have moved on with their lives, busily pursuing the American dream, their wives have become independent, their children disrespectful…a new generation is coming to terms with this history [the Vietnam War and its aftermath] in their own ways, extending themselves beyond the ’survival and silence’ mode of their parents’ generation.
In a commentary, a group of critical scholars argued that, while anti-communist leaders are right to point out the lack of freedom of speech and human rights in Vietnam, such “focus is compelled very much by an obsession about a war that ended long ago, and blinds us to many other problems today…[with] nothing to say beyond blaming communism.”
Is the critical perspective right about the effects of the anti-communist identity?
On the one hand, when anti-communism is viewed within a period of time and within the construction of symbolic meaning, the unit of analysis would be of individuals persistent about their identity. That is, the inability of particular group to let go of the past, which is highlighted by their protests against the naming of a Vietnamese American business area as “Vietnam Business District” or the opening of a Vietnam’s consulate office in or near their community. From this view, the culture of anti-communism is unprogressive.
On the other hand, when anti-communism is viewed across time and through the process of “meaning making,” the unit of analysis is a practice or a pattern of activities carried out by individuals acting in context. In this way, the anti-communist identity is subject to being produced and reproduced by individuals in order to reach some form of optimal outcome.
For example, “fighting communism” in general is no longer pursued by military means but by peaceful means, such as utilizing the political process and lobbying for human rights and democracy in Vietnam. Moreover, the anti-communist identity has also been redefined by the “normalization” between the U.S. and Vietnam and the greater internationalization of the latter. As a result, activities relating to Vietnam now include travels, work, volunteering, commerce, social connections, and retirement. In fact, a study conducted in 2000 showed that 60 percent of Vietnamese Americans said they would return to live in Vietnam if the country was free and democratic.
It is also probable that in the near future building relations with private entities – including academic, cultural, and economic – who are more or less “independent” from the state will be accepted. There are now a number of Vietnamese Americans who are on the front line of this movement.
For example, scholar and community activist Le Xuan Khoa noted that overseas Vietnamese “haven’t really been calm and objective enough…in reviewing the past to learn new lessons,” while the communist government “has changed its attitude toward Vietnamese refugees, from denouncing them as ‘traitors’ to ‘an important resource’ for the development of the country.” However, Khoa also recognized that the communist regime has yet to admit their past mistakes. That government’s policy toward the overseas communities remains simply a strategy “designed by the winners trying to convert the losers to their side” but as such contributions by overseas Vietnamese are “directed only toward in improving the lives of people in the country and facilitating the process of change, not to support the government or regime.”
Among those who have who worked in the Vietnamese state sector, some have been able to reconcile their working relationship with the one-party state and their belief in “development as freedom.” For example, Dr. Do Duc Cuong, who had been a banking expert in the US, was to be honored by a state-run newspaper’s Vietnam Glory Award for Viet Kieu who have made outstanding contributions to Vietnam. In an interview which appeared in the state-run newspaper, Do stated that he was willing to work for any bank that met three requirements: “First, it had to have flexible leaders who are open to discussion and opinions that are not their own. Secondly, it had to have a good strategy for healthy competition, and thirdly, there could be no embezzlement or corruption within the organization.” Also in the interview, Do declined accepting the Vietnam Glory Award, citing that his contribution to his homeland was not to seek any official recognition.
Notwithstanding, for many Vietnamese refugees, any activities that are thought to directly sustain or apologize for communist rule in Vietnam are still subject to harsh criticisms and protests.
Overall, persistence and change are part and parcel of the anti-communist identity. Clearly, what persists is the belief that Vietnam should be a non-communist, democratic nation and that the heritage symbols of the former Republic of South Vietnam must be commemorated and honored. Meanwhile, what is subject to change is how to make Vietnam into a “free and democratic” nation.
The social action of the anti-communist identity
Often overlooked is that group identity does have certain functions which contribute to the group’s mobility.
For example, the common experience of being “pushed out” by communist rule can be a powerful motivational force in making resources available to members of the group, and such force can be an effective method to mobilize for collective action. That is, group solidarity can further facilitate sources for mutual assistance, information channels, patchworking and credit associations, fundraising, and organized demonstrations to make policy claims.
There is also strong evidence to suggest that the anti-communist identity through active engagement in protests/demonstrations has encouraged the first-generation of Vietnamese Americans to register, to vote, and to bloc vote for Vietnamese candidates on both local and state levels. Although such activities are spurred by interests in homeland affairs, they “can facilitate first-generation incorporation, thereby helping to make newly arrived migrant groups more engaged as American citizens,” according to an empirical study by Christian Collet and Hiroko Furuya.
To be sure, group solidarity can also be the source of exclusion, excess claims on group members, restrictions on individual freedoms, and “putting the communist hat on someone.” In the early 1980s, when anti-communism ran so deep, a number of Vietnamese American journalists became victims of suspected assassinations. According to media reports, from 1981 to 1990, there were five suspected assassinations, one was from Houston (TX), two from California, and two from Fairfax (VA); these assassinations were thought to be linked to anti-communist groups and of which all five murder cases remain unsolved.
For critical scholars and activists, the above calls for a new ideology, one based on progressive ideas. It is argued that a new progressive identity would prepare Vietnamese Americans for the future instead of trying to change the past. As such, a progressive ideology would facilitate coalition building with other minority groups to fight against poverty, mental illness, youth delinquency, and discrimination; in the age of globalization, it would also facilitate normalization and reconciliation with Vietnam.
To be sure, individuals personifying progressive values can bridge the generational gulf in the Vietnamese American community, as well as redefining relationship with Vietnam.
Based on two exploratory surveys I conducted in 2004 and 2005, I found younger Vietnamese Americans – those who are “consumers” of community activities – do define differently on what is “anti-communism” relative to the leaders of the community. Moreover, these young adults appear to have a great deal of trust, social obligation, concern for domestic issues, and interests of encouraging Vietnam to improve its policy on human rights.
With such views and outlooks, younger Vietnamese Americans can be mobilized by particular groups focusing on either domestic or homeland issues. And if we were to casually imply that these young individuals would one day be activists and leaders of the community, there is then support that the anti-communist identity is capable of facilitating community development, community organizing, and transnational collaborative exchanges.
However, in practice, bridging the generational gap and facilitating engagement with Vietnam is most challenging. This is because they require not only individuals who are bilingual with cultural skills, but also the understanding of the ideological struggle since 1945 from both the anti-communist and communist perspectives.
Conclusion: Anti-communist identity is what Vietnamese Americans make of it
The protest over the “F.O.B II: Art Speaks” illustrates that the exhibit’s organizers and advisory board members, who saw themselves as bridging the gap between the first and second generation, could not produce optimal outcomes.
I believe that, in part, the shortcoming is because the art exhibit was perceived to challenge, test, or transcend the anti-communist identity. The exhibit could not effectively bridge the generational politics or facilitate a dialogue on freedom of expression because it did not fully appreciate the dynamics and function of the anti-communist identity; however, for organizers, the exhibit did facilitate dialogue, which “occurred in ways that are not easily recorded or do not make good news events.”
As mentioned above, a trait unique to Vietnamese Americans is their ability to organize protests and demonstrations easily and effectively in stating their policy preference, especially on homeland issues. For some scholars, the key question is whether mobilization on homeland issues provides a foundation for subsequent political mobilization on domestic issues or whether it serves as a distraction from it.
In my observation of politics in the Vietnamese American community, there is an emerging trend in which a growing number of individuals/organizations who are able to “redefine” the anti-communist identity. That they are able to organize progressive social and political domestic agendas of which are supported by older leaders/organizations. These individuals tend to be those who are bilingual and who have both feet in the Vietnamese American community and in the social and cultural world of American society and Asian America.
Some of their progressive social and political domestic efforts can be seen in the mobilization of the San Jose’s Vietnamese community after a police shooting of a young mother in July 2003 of which a formal dialogue was created between the community and city elected officials and the police department; fundraising for Tsunami Victims in early 2005 where more than $850,000 were raised by Vietnamese Americans across state lines; the statewide effort among various Vietnamese American organizations to help their fellow Vietnamese Katrina/Rita victims establish new lives; and the Vietnamese American Heritage Project led by both young and old scholars at the Smithsonian.
There are also efforts to integrate both domestic and homeland politics. A case in point is the Viet-Vote Campaign 2003 in Boston. This campaign “worked to connect desires for Vietnamese voice, power, and representation with critical local issues ranging from crime and jobs to affordable housing and bilingual education.” At the same time, the campaign’s domestic agenda complements an overall strategy in “gaining recognition of the flag from the former Republic of South Viet Nam as the ‘official’ flag of the Vietnamese community in the City of Boston.” This dual-campaign has proven to be successful in carrying out its objectives.
The above efforts underscore the need to look at the anti-communist identity under a different framework, since the anti-communist identity is not necessarily limited in addressing the needs of Vietnamese Americans and their communities, although it can be fragile and does have negative externalities.
In sum, it is important to look at who is currently organizing (or transcending) the anti-communist identity, under what context is the person/group acting and for what purpose. Moreover, how or who do these activities include or exclude and whether they produce some form of optimal outcomes or create greater division.
Ong, N., & Meyer, D. (2004).
Protest and Political Incorporation: Vietnamese American Protests, 1975-2001. The eScholarship Repository,
- What is the difference between cultural assimilation and political incorporation?
- Explain the frequency and location of Vietnamese American protests.
- Will the second generation of Vietnamese in
Nguyen, Ngoc Bich (2006).
Immigration and Integration: The Vietnamese Experience. This presentation was made at the
- What is the difference between the overseas community in the East and the overseas community in the West?
- Explain why the overseas Vietnamese are not dupe. That they are not about to fall into the trap of the The Red Riding Hood story when the wolf, imitating the grandmother, pipes lavish praise into the ears of Little Red Riding Hood as to how wonderful she is or looks.
- Why does the success of overseas Vietnamese represent a huge challenge to the communist system in
