Vietnamese Note Rift Between War Experiences and History

In ninth grade, Daisy Nguyen was so excited when the boy next door asked her to go out for ice cream and a movie.

That Saturday, as she was getting all dressed up for her big night, another friend came by to ask a simple question: “Did you hear?”

“Yeah, we’re going out!” Nguyen said.

“No,” her friend replied. “He’s dead.” He had been shot in the neck by the Communists, and choked on his own blood.

The Vietnam War had finally become personal for Nguyen, who grew up in Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) at the height of the conflict.

But that was only the beginning. It seemed every day, she would hear that another classmate or neighbor or relative had been killed in the war.

“Death had become just a fact of life,” said Nguyen, who now serves as the director of computing research facilities in the University’s computer science department.

The Vietnam War holds a pivotal place in any retelling of the 1960s, with tremendous ramifications on the political and social strife of the time. But many Columbians of Vietnamese descent described a disconnect between their personal knowledge of Vietnam and the history they’ve been taught in the United States.

Daisy’s daughter, Stephanie Davis, CC ’09, noticed the difference between her mother’s “graphic” retellings of the war and the “cold” descriptions in textbooks.

“That’s the nature of a history book,” Davis said.

Like other Vietnamese, Davis had another resource—her family background—to learn about the war. And while she admits that she didn’t often broach the topic with her mother, she was nevertheless influenced by her mother’s experience. Despite her liberal leanings, for instance, Davis has inherited a staunch anti-communist stance. “It ruined the economy [of Vietnam], it ruined my mother’s childhood,” she said.

Other Vietnamese described similarly strong political leanings.

Andre Le, Business ’09, recalled the now-infamous 1999 protests in his hometown near Orange County, Calif., known as Little Saigon. A Vietnamese video-store owner infuriated thousands in the community after hanging Vietnam’s official red-with-a-yellow-star flag. Anti-communists cling to the old South Vietnam’s yellow-with-three-red-stripes flag.

Chanel Tran, CC ’11, felt the same tension in her family. “I’ve heard stories of a relative who joined the North, and is now ostracized,” she said.

Le found such behavior hypocritical—many Vietnamese came here for civil liberties, including free speech, he reasoned, so why should they deprive others of it?

Thy Tran, TC ’08, is an international student who grew up in Hue, Vietnam. During the two years she’s spent in America, she said she has been saddened by the young Vietnamese who judge Vietnam through their parents’ eyes rather than seeing it for themselves.

“They say, ‘We oppose communism,’ but they don’t know what communism means,” she said.

Chris Nguyen, SEAS ’10, thinks any debate about the Vietnam War in the United States is polarizing because of the charged place that it holds in American history.

“When I tell my friends that my dad served in the war, the first question is always, ‘Which side was he on?’” he said. “It’s like I’m not supposed to say the wrong answer, I have to pick sides.”

When she was younger, Nhu-Y Ngo, CC ’09 and president of the Vietnamese Students Association, lived near a kid who loved war history and inevitably asked her which camp she supported in the Vietnam War.

“So I had to decide without really knowing,” Ngo said.

Vietnamese also expressed ambivalence about the role of the United States in the war.
Karen Pham Van, Math ’08, grew up in France after her father fought briefly for the South Vietnamese army and then escaped the country.

“My dad resented America for getting involved in something that was clearly none of their business,” she said. “It was something to be settled among the Vietnamese.”

While that was a common argument among American anti-war activists in the ’60s and ’70s, many South Vietnamese embraced American aid and still believe they could have won the war if America had stuck around.

Daisy Nguyen remembered the frustration she and other South Vietnamese felt toward the apparent stalemate after they had expected the American army to roll over North Vietnam.

“It seemed like America was fighting with two hands behind their back,” she said.
It wasn’t until years later that she realized why America’s hands were tied—it had to answer to international criticism, as well as the divisive protest at home.

Some Vietnamese said they were surprised at the remorse among Americans more than 30 years after the fighting ended.

“I know a few veterans in my apartment building,” Thy Tran said, “and when they met me, they asked where I’m from, and the first reply was: ‘We apologize.’”

Van said she and her father ran into several Americans, including veterans, outside of a bar in 2003.

“We’re sorry,” the watery-eyed men said after learning that the two were Vietnamese.
“You don’t have to apologize to me,” her father said.

Van said her father was “weirded out by the whole thing” because they had never experienced such an “outpouring” in Europe.

She said that in her view, Americans are more scarred by the war than the Vietnamese.
“The war is like a sore in America’s memory,” said Van, who has lived in New York for eight years, and visited Vietnam several times. “That’s weird in my perspective because they didn’t lose as many people. Maybe it was just that they lost the war, but in Vietnam, which was murdered massively by war, people are not as emotional or scarred when they talk about it.”

But Thuan Nguyen - who spent five years, 11 months and 26 days in a re-education camp - was emotional when he reflected on the war. He and his daughter Elizabeth, CC ’09, have demonstrated against the Vietnamese government and advocated for improved human rights and democracy in Vietnam.

Yet his reason for going into combat reveals that the Vietnam War has been oversimplified as merely an ideological battle.

“We fought because the North attacked us,” he said. “We had to defend ourselves. We didn’t think about politics.”

Daisy Nguyen similarly concluded: “I don’t care about communism or non-communism. I just don’t want war.”

lien.hoang@columbiaspectator.com