Victoria Ngo, a child of war refugees, only began to explore her Vietnamese identity during her college years in the United States in the 1990s.
Despite growing up in a Chinese-speaking community and initially identifying as Chinese, Ngo noticed the differences between her experiences and those of the Chinese people around her.
Her curiosity about her Vietnamese heritage grew over the years, fueled in part by unanswered questions about Vietnam from her family.
While Ngo’s upbringing was predominantly Chinese, she also spoke Vietnamese and had a Vietnamese name. She realized that her experience as a refugee was deeply tied to the Vietnamese refugee wave.
Despite these connections to Vietnam, her family rarely spoke about the country or the war that had ended decades earlier.
Seeking to learn more about her family’s past, Ngo attended a conference on the Vietnam War at college, hoping to make her father proud. However, his reaction was unexpected and harsh.
Many Vietnamese families who fled their country after the fall of Saigon in 1975 share similar experiences of loss, displacement, and silence about their history.
The end of the Vietnam War marked the reunification of the country under communist rule, prompting many to choose exile over living in a unified Vietnam.
The aftermath of the war left deep scars on Vietnam, with millions of lives lost and widespread destruction across the country.
The legacy of the war, including the use of Agent Orange and unexploded bombs, continues to affect Vietnam and its people to this day.
For Ngo’s family and many others, the end of the war meant separation, displacement, and starting anew in foreign lands as refugees.
Ultimately, Ngo’s journey to uncover her Vietnamese identity sheds light on the untold stories and struggles of Vietnamese refugees and their descendants.
Her immediate family, including two aunts and uncles, a grandmother, and other relatives, all shared a two-story, 30-square-meter (323-square-foot) subsidized housing unit in Los Angeles. Her father, unable to teach in the US, ended up working as a deep-sea fisherman and taking odd jobs to provide for the family. The memories of the Vietnam they fled were seen as painful and were often avoided discussing. Many Vietnamese refugee families, including Cat Nguyen’s, carry a deep sense of loss that transcends generations. Some families find it difficult to talk about the war, as it brings up strong emotions and past grief.
Cat Nguyen, a young American Vietnamese poet based in Ho Chi Minh City, shared similar experiences of her family’s reluctance to discuss their past before coming to the US. Her family had a complex political background, with members on both sides involved in different aspects of Vietnamese politics. When Cat Nguyen’s family left Vietnam in 1975, they were uprooted and faced challenges adjusting to life in a new country.
The trauma of leaving Vietnam was compounded by the lack of acknowledgment of the refugees’ sacrifices in official accounts of the war. The 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon is celebrated differently by the Communist Party of Vietnam, highlighting the divide in perspectives on the war. Southerners who fled as refugees are often portrayed negatively in official narratives, adding to the pain and resentment felt by the diaspora communities.
Cat Nguyen also noted discrepancies in how the war in Vietnam is portrayed in American high school textbooks, highlighting a US-centric perspective that oversimplifies the conflict. This view can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and erase the agency and humanity of Vietnamese refugees, reinforcing systems of white supremacy. Despite efforts to assimilate into American society, Cat Nguyen felt alienated and struggled to maintain their Vietnamese identity in a society that often overlooked their experiences. Cat Nguyen expressed that it was after the passing of her grandmother, who taught her about her roots, that she felt a strong urge to reconnect with her ancestral homeland and heritage on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.
She has since been involved in various art projects involving poetry, performance, and filmmaking that incorporate elements of Vietnamese folklore and traditional music instruments. These projects aim to reaffirm her commitment to fighting against colonization, imperialism, and capitalism without any apologies.
Cat Nguyen also spoke about the personal strength she found in identifying with Vietnamese revolutionary fighters and the profound impact of their cause on her.
Despite her dedication to the cause, Cat Nguyen has not disregarded the suffering of her own family as refugees in the US. She recognizes the presence of intergenerational trauma that is often overlooked in Vietnam’s official history.
Similarly, Victoria Ngo, who has lived in Vietnam for over 20 years, has a nuanced perspective on the country’s history. She understands the trauma experienced by her family from the South and has dedicated her career to serving underserved and vulnerable communities through psychology and public health initiatives.
Both Ngo and Cat Nguyen, as part of the Vietnamese diaspora, offer unique insights into Vietnam’s history that go beyond the traditional narratives of North and South. Their experiences have shaped their understanding of the human condition and the necessary resources to support marginalized populations.
On the other hand, Kevin D Pham, growing up in a Vietnamese refugee family in the US, was taught to view communists negatively. However, after spending time in Vietnam and hearing different perspectives, he began to question the narratives he was raised with.
Pham’s family history includes imprisonment by communist forces, but his own experiences have led him to appreciate a more nuanced understanding of Vietnam’s complex history. He recounts his father’s unwavering patriotism for the South Vietnamese government, symbolized by the three-striped flag, which remains taboo in Vietnam today. Hubungan apa pun dengan bendera pemerintah sebelumnya, bagaimanapun jauhnya, juga telah digunakan untuk mengecam dan menjauhkan.
Pada awal 2023, Hanni Pham, seorang penyanyi Australia-Vietnam dengan band Korea New Jeans, terlibat dalam kontroversi bendera dan menjadi sasaran kampanye online, yang dimulai ketika aktivis online menemukan bendera Vietnam Selatan dalam rekaman video yang dibuat ketika dia mengunjungi rumah kakek neneknya.
Satunya tempat umum di Vietnam di mana Anda masih dapat menemukan bendera tiga garis sejati adalah di Hanoi di Museum Sejarah Militer Vietnam yang baru dibangun, di mana salah satunya dipajang sebagai artefak sejarah.
Anggota komunitas Vietnam mengibarkan bendera Vietnam Selatan saat menghadiri sebuah upacara di USS Midway saat kapal tersebut memperingati ulang tahun ke-40 jatuhnya Saigon di San Diego, California, pada 26 April 2015 [Mike Blake/Reuters]
Namun upaya untuk mendamaikan masa lalu yang pecah-pecah Vietnam sudah berlangsung puluhan tahun.
Pada tahun 1993, di bawah Perdana Menteri Vietnam saat itu, Vo Van Kiet, Politburo Partai Komunis mengeluarkan resolusi yang menandai upaya perdamaian pertama secara resmi dengan mendorong negara untuk “menghormati perbedaan, bergandengan tangan dalam membongkar prasangka, rasa malu, kebencian, dan melihat ke depan ke masa depan”.
Kiet peka terhadap nasib pengungsi Vietnam, sesuatu yang dia saksikan dalam keluarganya sendiri. Dalam wawancara terkenal pada tahun 2005 yang menarik pujian dan kritik, dia menggambarkan 30 April 1975 sebagai “kemenangan besar” namun meninggalkan “jutaan bahagia, jutaan dalam kesedihan”.
“Ini adalah luka yang perlu disembuhkan daripada dibiarkan berdarah,” katanya.
Pada bulan November, presiden saat itu dan sekretaris jenderal Partai Komunis Vietnam, To Lam, membuat penampilan bersejarah di Universitas Columbia di AS dengan Lien-Hang Nguyen, putri keluarga pengungsi yang menjadi direktur studi Vietnam pertama di universitas tersebut dan yang telah bekerja membangun jembatan antara diaspora dan Vietnam.
Pertemuan mereka mencerminkan semangat persatuan dan penyembuhan yang lebih luas muncul di kalangan orang Vietnam yang sudah lama terpecah oleh luka-luka perang dan perbedaan politik.
Kevin D Pham mengatakan bahwa dia melihat bagaimana mereka yang memiliki pandangan kuat tentang perpecahan sejarah Utara-Selatan di Vietnam umumnya menggunakan kata “boneka” sebagai cacian, baik merujuk pada pendukung pemerintah Vietnam Selatan sebagai “boneka” Amerika atau pendukung Utara sebagai “boneka” Uni Soviet dan Cina.
Kevin Pham, seorang profesor Vietnam-Amerika di Universitas Amsterdam. Dia adalah penulis dari “The Architects of Dignity: Visi Vietnam tentang Dekolonisasi” dan co-host Nam Phong Dialogues, sebuah podcast tentang sejarah Vietnam [Courtesy of Kevin Pham]
“Ada kecenderungan di kedua belah pihak untuk melihat pihak lain sebagai boneka yang tidak dapat berpikir sendiri,” kata Pham, menambahkan bahwa hal itu menunjukkan “kurangnya rasa ingin tahu” tentang perspektif pihak lain dan telah menjadi “halangan bagi rekonsiliasi yang sebenarnya”.
“Apa yang saya dorong bukanlah kemampuan untuk memahami berbagai perspektif,” katanya.
Bagi Cat Nguyen, yang menarik adalah bahwa bendera nasional Vietnam saat ini – sebuah bintang kuning lima sudut di latar belakang merah – yang dulunya membawa kenangan menyakitkan bagi anggota keluarga yang masih di AS, sekarang menjadi sumber persaudaraan di seluruh Vietnam.
Penggemar sepak bola Vietnam merayakan kemenangan tim mereka melawan Suriah di Stadion My Dinh di Hanoi pada tahun 2016 [File: Reuters]
Hal ini dialami secara langsung ketika tim nasional sepak bola Vietnam memenangkan kejuaraan ASEAN 2024 pada bulan Januari. Cat Nguyen menggambarkan kerumunan pengibar bendera membanjiri jalan-jalan di seluruh negara untuk merayakan acara olahraga, bukan politik.
“Saya empati dengan penderitaan dari kedua pihak terlepas dari bendera mana yang mereka identifikasi, baik tiga garis atau bendera merah dengan bintang kuning,” kata Cat Nguyen.
“Semua orang mengalami begitu banyak kekerasan, dan pada akhirnya saya menyalahkan imperialisme AS.”
Cat Nguyen adalah seorang penyair Vietnam-Amerika yang berbasis di Saigon [Chris Trinh/Al Jazeera]
Penyiaran tambahan oleh Duy-Minh Nguyen di Ho Chi Minh City