S1: Welcome in San Diego , it's Jade Hindman. It's been 50 years since the fall of Saigon. We'll talk about a four part series that explores the experience of resettlement and cultural connection. This is KPBS Midday Edition , connecting our communities through conversation. Today , April 30th , marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon , when thousands of Vietnamese fled political persecution and millions more in the coming years. San Diego was one of the first points of entry for many Vietnamese refugees escaping the Communist government. A new KPBS video series takes a look back at the events half a century ago , re-examining the historical moment and how it's reverberated across generations in the Vietnamese diaspora , including here in San Diego.
S2: April 30th means a day of remembrance to me. A day.
S3: Of mourning. Um , it's black April , so it's a day of commemoration of the sacrifices and deaths. The day that my family left Vietnam.
S4: The fall of Saigon in April of 1975 did not end the Vietnam War.
S5: It reminds me of what my parents gave up for me to have the life that I have now.
S6: They , in a way , lost their their identity , their roots and their country.
S1: The creator of the series is KPBS North County reporter Alexandra Nguyen. It is called Fall of Saigon at 50 stories of lost legacy and Identity. And Alex joins me now to talk about it. Welcome to Midday Edition.
S7: Well , thanks for having me , Jade.
S1: So to start off , can you tell us about the significance of the date ? April 30th , 1975.
S7: April 30th means something different for everyone. For some , it's the end of a long conflict. It's almost over 30 years of conflict , and for most other people , it's the start of the Vietnamese diaspora. It represents a loss , you know , a loss of identity , a loss of country , a loss of homeland , and for many , a loss of familial ties. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. And that's something that I know is tough to get beyond. Um , your series begins by telling some of the history of the war in Vietnam leading up to the fall of Saigon in 75 , but the origins of the conflict in Vietnam began. I mean , far earlier , though , right ? Yeah.
S7: I talked to a couple of historians and they said the roots of the Vietnam War began even as early as the 1800s , when it is a fight against French colonialism. And then it became a fight against , you know , ideologies between , uh , democratic ideologies and communist ideologies , especially since after World War Two , and then at the start of 1954 , when the country was split into two , you know , one , the North , led by communist Ho Chi Minh and the South is going to be a democratic republic. And that is basically the genesis of a civil war. And that of obviously is long before the Americans ever got involved , which I believe is around 1965 ish , somewhere around there. Yeah.
S1: Yeah. Well , you interviewed several former refugees who experienced the fall of Saigon firsthand. Among those was Doctor Young Tran , who was just five years old. Then. He shared some of his memories from that day.
S8: We have no clue where we're going. I just saw water and , uh. And we landed on the USS midway. It was clear as yesterday. It's hard to forget these moments. And when we landed in the midway , uh , we got off lots of refugees , lots of people standing around. On top of the midway. And I stood there and watched. People pushed these helicopters overboard into the ocean , I guess , to make space for either other helicopters or other planes to land. But right in front of me , there was these helicopters just going overboard into the ocean. It was quite an experience.
S1: I mean , I think that image of the helicopters being dropped into the ocean became a memorable image from those last days. Tell me about some of the other people you spoke with and their memories. Yeah.
S7: Yeah. I mean , imagine Doctor Trent , he was five years old and he still have this vivid memory. And a lot of people I talked to , you know , were children when Saigon fell and fled with their families or were born after the war. And they had similar stories of the difficulty of talking to their parents about what happened. And many of their parents still won't talk about it. It's too painful for them. Hmm.
S1: Hmm. You also spoke with Talha , who was just a toddler when she left with her family. Here are some of her reflections.
S3: There were definite traumas in terms of , you know , the loss of country , the exile , the confusion , not knowing where you're going to land. My my grandmother , my my mother's mother. She didn't know what happened. So after the war , she thought that we were we were dead. So , you know , not knowing what happened to your your children , your grandchild , my mother and father being disconnected in terms of communication. I think at that time period , there's a lot of sense of of worry , anxiety.
S1: You know , I imagine this trauma from violence , from separation from resettlement. I mean , it's something many families are still dealing with , right ? Yeah.
S7: I mean , one of the historians I talked to said the end of the Vietnam War in April 30th is not the end of the Vietnam War. And Doctor Jung actually talked about this. Many veterans , Vietnamese , South Vietnamese veterans still are fighting the wars. The war in their minds. I mean , they're still reliving it. And one of the young people I talked to , Dustin Nguyen , who is , you know , a community organizer and also works at , uh , council members Kent Lee office. He said it's still too painful for his mom. And , you know , he had this scholarship to study in Vietnam to reconnect with his roots. And she was still so afraid of him coming back to Vietnam that she begged him not to go. Mm.
S1: Mm. And for Vietnamese refugees that were able to get on a ship or a helicopter. Their journey was far from over.
S7: And the US at that time had this policy where they wanted to integrate immigrants into the US fabric. You know , the melting pot , so-called melting pot. So they wanted to get these families to be sponsored by families , multiple places in the US spread across the US. But as with people anywhere , they want to have a sense of community. So they kind of started reaching out , finding out where so-and-so uncle lives here. It's a great opportunity. So slowly , those communities , those people started to gravitate to each other. So we have these Vietnamese communities popping up across the United States , you know , Houston , Louisiana , Orange County , Seattle , places like that , especially in Virginia. So that's how you get this , these communities. And especially in Louisiana , where a lot of Vietnamese people who have background in fishing , you know , shrimp fishing and such. Louisiana is that same climate that they have in Vietnam. So it becomes a natural place for them to start to go to. Right.
S1: Right.
S7: That's Ventura County , San Bernardino , LA , Orange County and San Diego , about 600,000 total. And that is the largest concentration of Vietnamese in the world outside of Vietnam. Wow.
S1: Wow. Well , and refugees from Vietnam didn't just arrive after Saigon fall.
S7: And after that , one of the historians I talked to said everybody botched the piece. So what happened is that the Communist government went on this campaign of revenge. They locked up political prisoners , sent them to reeducation camp. So when those first wave of people who were released from re-education camps , which is around 1979 , many sought to flee using fishing boats or through whatever means they can. And that's the first wave of what we call the boat people. So from 1979 until 1989 , you see many , many scenes of , you know , people on fishing boats trying to escape political persecution.
S1: In this series , you feature interviews with firsthand accounts of that day. But you also feature those who weren't yet alive but still impacted.
S7: And I wanted to kind of use this to talk more about that , because part of the the duality of being Vietnamese-American is that , you know , you're Vietnamese and you're also American , but also a lot of people , my peers , I can't really talk about anyone else but my peers , the people that I talk to every day. They felt like they don't want the events of 1975 to define who they are. And I have a sense that with a lot of people I talk to , like , you know , Talha , who was 18 months old when she fled Vietnam. But that sense of , you know , going beyond the war and just kind of but also not ignoring what happened and also keeping that legacy alive. So there's a lot of conflict among multiple generations. And I don't know what the actual result of that conflict is , but at least acknowledging it and at least giving a different perspective than just reliving the trauma of that day.
S1: Does your family have an experience of resettlement ? Yeah.
S7: So , um , my family , like many Vietnamese family , also have multiple waves of , uh , immigration to the United States. Some fled on April 30th , some fled , uh , by boat in , you know , 1979. And my parents came over here as part of a resettlement program in the 90s. You know , so we we have that multiple waves of , uh , immigration. And that is the same with many Vietnamese families here in the United States.
S1: Earlier we we talked about , you know , the trauma of losing the cultural aspects , like , you know , the language , uh , customs , traditions.
S7: That we were losing our culture. And then here in San Diego , there is the large Vietnamese New Year festival , which I am a part of that is doing that every year. And it's a huge festival. And that is , in a way , for a lot of younger Vietnamese people to reconnect with their culture. And as well as there's several Vietnamese language school , and that's how Vietnamese children are learning their culture. And I think there is a recognition of , you know , trying to preserve that culture , because in the early days , it's all about let's learn English , let's integrate into American culture. And then now I think there is a recognition that says this is something that is precious and we should cherish it.
S1: In addition to telling these stories involving intergenerational trauma , there is also hope that comes through in this series. Yeah.
S7: Yeah. So the hope is that we learn from the past and we also learn that. I mean , there is one gentleman who says , I hope my children never go through what I went through. And so there's that hope that says you learn from the past and you acknowledge it , and you keep that legacy going , but also you don't dwell on it. There's an older woman who escaped in 1975 , and she says , you know , it's the past , it's the past. But also she wants her grandchildren to know the history. So you have that duality in 1 in 1 sense that it is the past , but in another sense , it's also a part of who you are. And you know , your culture , your identity.
S1: Part of the present. Yeah. Yeah.
S7: It's a conflict. The United States never declared war. The it's only Congress can only declare war. So you can't call it a war. It's a conflict. And then , you know , I've forgotten about it until I started working on this project. And the historian says , you know , the Vietnam War is a civil war. You know , the Americans obviously got involved , but it is still , at its core , a civil war. And that part of history is lost. For example , a lot of the South Vietnamese , um , voices and history is lost when Saigon fell. So that is interesting. That's something that I learned. And , um , I'm there's this clip from this , uh , Documentarian. Her name is Jenny Lee , and she says that stems a lot of the hurt stems from that. And I think we have this clip right now.
S9: I think that still the majority of , say , like the American population don't know that the Vietnam War was a civil war. You know , the South Vietnamese voice is so , like , erased even here. That's why there's a lot of hurt. And I think that when we think of , um , the , the healing that hasn't been done in the community , it comes from that erasure.
S7: And as you can see , like that , that hurt , that pain , that reliving of the war. And for a lot of Vietnamese veterans here in , you know , in the United States , I think really stems from that , that that sense of erasure of their of their identity.
S1: Well , it is great that you're able to tell this story and share these personal experiences. And I think it's also great that you mentioned there's this effort to to maintain the culture , to hold on to the culture , rather than let it just be erased or to slip away. Um , so , you know , the first couple of episodes , they're out now.
S7: 55 zero.
S1: All right. I've been speaking with KPBS , Alexander Nguyen about his new KPBS four parts video series called Fall of Saigon. Alex , thank you so much.
S7: Thanks for having me.
S1: That's our show for today. I'm your host , Jade Hindman. Thanks for tuning in to Midday Edition. Be sure to have a great day on purpose , everyone.
