Children of the Vietnam War
Born overseas to Vietnamese mothers and U.S. servicemen, Amerasians brought hard-won resilience to their lives in America
- By David Lamb
- Photographs by Catherine Karnow
- Smithsonian magazine, June 2009, Subscribe
They grew up as the leftovers of an unpopular war, straddling two worlds but belonging to neither. Most never knew their fathers. Many were abandoned by their mothers at the gates of orphanages. Some were discarded in garbage cans. Schoolmates taunted and pummeled them and mocked the features that gave them the face of the enemy—round blue eyes and light skin, or dark skin and tight curly hair if their soldier-dads were African-Americans. Their destiny was to become waifs and beggars, living in the streets and parks of South Vietnam's cities, sustained by a single dream: to get to America and find their fathers.
But neither America nor Vietnam wanted the kids known as Amerasians and commonly dismissed by the Vietnamese as "children of the dust"—as insignificant as a speck to be brushed aside. "The care and welfare of these unfortunate children...has never been and is not now considered an area of government responsibility," the U.S. Defense Department said in a 1970 statement. "Our society does not need these bad elements," the Vietnamese director of social welfare in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) said a decade later. As adults, some Amerasians would say that they felt cursed from the start. When, in early April 1975, Saigon was falling to Communist troops from the north and rumors spread that southerners associated with the United States might be massacred, President Gerald Ford announced plans to evacuate 2,000 orphans, many of them Amerasians. Operation Babylift's first official flight crashed in the rice paddies outside Saigon, killing 144 people, most of them children. South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians gathered at the site, some to help, others to loot the dead. Despite the crash, the evacuation program continued another three weeks.
"I remember that flight, the one that crashed," says Nguyen Thi Phuong Thuy. "I was about 6, and I'd been playing in the trash near the orphanage. I remember holding the nun's hand and crying when we heard. It was like we were all born under a dark star." She paused to dab at her eyes with tissue. Thuy, whom I met on a trip to Vietnam in March 2008, said she had never tried to locate her parents because she had no idea where to start. She recalls her adoptive Vietnamese parents arguing about her, the husband shouting, "Why did you have to get an Amerasian?" She was soon sent off to live with another family.
Thuy seemed pleased to find someone interested in her travails. Over coffee and Cokes in a hotel lobby, she spoke in a soft, flat voice about the "half-breed dog" taunts she heard from neighbors, of being denied a ration card for food, of sneaking out of her village before others rose at sunrise to sit alone on the beach for hours and about taking sleeping pills at night to forget the day. Her hair was long and black, her face angular and attractive. She wore jeans and a T-shirt. She looked as American as anyone I might have passed in the streets of Des Moines or Denver. Like most Amerasians still in Vietnam, she was uneducated and unskilled. In 1992 she met another Amerasian orphan, Nguyen Anh Tuan, who said to her, "We don't have a parent's love. We are farmers and poor. We should take care of each other." They married and had two daughters and a son, now 11, whom Thuy imagines as the very image of the American father she has never seen. "What would he say today if he knew he had a daughter and now a grandson waiting for him in Vietnam?" she asked.
No one knows how many Amerasians were born—and ultimately left behind in Vietnam—during the decade-long war that ended in 1975. In Vietnam's conservative society, where premarital chastity is traditionally observed and ethnic homogeneity embraced, many births of children resulting from liaisons with foreigners went unregistered. According to the Amerasian Independent Voice of America and the Amerasian Fellowship Association, advocacy groups recently formed in the United States, no more than a few hundred Amerasians remain in Vietnam; the groups would like to bring all of them to the United States. The others—some 26,000 men and women now in their 30s and 40s, together with 75,000 Vietnamese they claimed as relatives—began to be resettled in the United States after Representative Stewart B. McKinney of Connecticut called their abandonment a "national embarrassment" in 1980 and urged fellow Americans to take responsibility for them.
But no more than 3 percent found their fathers in their adoptive homeland. Good jobs were scarce. Some Amerasians were vulnerable to drugs, became gang members and ended up in jail. As many as half remained illiterate or semi-illiterate in both Vietnamese and English and never became U.S. citizens. The mainstream Vietnamese-American population looked down on them, assuming that their mothers were prostitutes—which was sometimes the case, though many of the children were products of longer-term, loving relationships, including marriages. Mention Amerasians and people would roll their eyes and recite an old saying in Vietnam: Children without a father are like a home without a roof.
The massacres that President Ford had feared never took place, but the Communists who came south after 1975 to govern a reunited Vietnam were hardly benevolent rulers. Many orphanages were closed, and Amerasians and other youngsters were sent off to rural work farms and re-education camps. The Communists confiscated wealth and property and razed many of the homes of those who had supported the American-backed government of South Vietnam. Mothers of Amerasian children destroyed or hid photographs, letters and official papers that offered evidence of their American connections. "My mother burned everything," says William Tran, now a 38-year-old computer engineer in Illinois. "She said, ‘I can't have a son named William with the Viet Cong around.' It was as though your whole identity was swept away." Tran came to the United States in 1990 after his mother remarried and his stepfather threw him out of the house.
Hoi Trinh was still a schoolboy in the turbulent postwar years when he and his schoolteacher parents, both Vietnamese, were uprooted in Saigon and, joining an exodus of two million southerners, were forced into one of the "new economic zones" to be farmers. He remembers taunting Amerasians. Why? "It didn't occur to me then how cruel it was. It was really a matter of following the crowd, of copying how society as a whole viewed them. They looked so different than us.... They weren't from a family. They were poor. They mostly lived on the street and didn't go to school like us."
I asked Trinh how Amerasians had responded to being confronted in those days. "From what I remember," he said, "they would just look down and walk away."
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Related topics: US Military Immigrants Vietnam War Vietnam
Additional Sources
"Vietnamese Amerasian Resettlement: Education, Employment and Family Outcomes in the United States," U.S. GAO report, 1994 (PDF)









Comments (86)
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My mom is mix with white ii been trying for a couple of years to help her find her father that was a sargent in vietname war n e help or suggestions
Posted by jenny huynh on February 11,2013 | 12:10 PM
I am a African American, Vietnam vet who served in 1970. I am a firm believer that I left at least one child in Vietnam. This article moved this old man to tears knowing what the person(s)I left behind must have gone through. Seeing what the Vietnamese people endured during that war amazed me. The war was a day to day life for them. After it was over, it must have been a living hell that continued for decades. It's a beautiful country with beautiful people. Thanks to all who made this article.
Posted by Daryl on December 21,2012 | 07:06 PM
Great article! My mother is Vietnamese and came to the USA in Operation Baby Lift, and my father is African American. I was born in 1988 in the USA. It bothers me to know that people of a similar background as me went through these issues in Vietnam, the USA and other countries, but I'm glad that I read this, it was very informative. Many thanks!
Posted by KP on September 28,2012 | 09:32 AM
while my brother George cornelious smith was in the army, He met a young ladies, who was from china, during the vietnam war,where he fathered two sons, eric and rafael. we lost contact with their grandmother about them. They are grown now, and they have a grandmother who is 84 years old, that think about them all the time latel. we are looking for any information concerning them. Mother name was maling.
Posted by evon smith on July 25,2012 | 08:12 PM
My brother, Steve Davies, fathered a baby girl in either June or July, 1969. He was stationed in a town called Pleiku or Pleiko in the central Highlands of Vietnam. He worked and lived on the air force base and worked in avionics at the helicopter base. He fell in love with a Vietnamese woman who was also part French. She did not speak English. My brother remembers her name, probably the last, as "Huong" or "Huwong". She called him "Davey", because of his last name. He was there for the birth of their baby girl and wanted to marry this woman. But when he went home to the U.S. (he was in Vietnam for 19 months), his father insisted he cut all ties. He was broken hearted, but followed his father. Now Steve is in his early 60's, is married, but always wonders what happened to his daughter. If anyone knows anything, or if there is a registry, please contact me. Thank you for any help or advice you can give us. Carol Renard Florida
Posted by Carol Renard on June 3,2012 | 12:18 PM
I am looking for a girl that worked in pleiku in 1972. her name is Phu Nguyen. she worked in the messhall in camp holloway. and we had a place in pleiku. but she moved to the Bien Ho area where her mom left her a house. I was a security Gaurd in camp holloway 1971-1972. Phu where are you?????????
Posted by george delano Dennie on May 27,2012 | 03:05 AM
My father speaks of a child he fathered in Vietnam I would like to locate this child and bring him or her to meet the father they never knew my father was a marine his name is Domingo L. Medina thank you very much
Posted by Rita Medina on April 8,2012 | 12:10 AM
My sister and I were probably two of the lucky few. We were both born in Vietnam during the 60's to an American father and a Vietnamese mother. My dad married my mom and took us back to the US with him. Reading this story makes me realize how lucky we were to have our parents.
So many orphans in a war some 40+ years ago, still not knowing what has become of either both parents or at least one is I'm sure the most difficult thing anybody can deal with. May God bless you all, and I hope one day you can find peace.
Posted by Renee Wood on March 23,2012 | 06:28 PM
Such a touching story. My husband was 18 months in Vietnam - before I married him. I doubt he fathered any children there as he would have told me.
Posted by Moiraz on February 26,2012 | 11:53 PM
I just recently found out that my father JOE THOMAS, while in the Navy from around 1962 to probably 1964 was stationed in Hong Kong. Lived with a woman and she had a son. I do not know their names or exactly where they lived. If anyone has been looking for their father that were born in this time period and is looking for their father as now I would like to know who the family is. I was told my father was writing to her and then couldnt find her and lost touch later. I believe she may have sent a picture to my dad later. My dad is from Waxahachie, TX. Please let me know if this sounds familiar. Thank you.
Posted by Candace Thomas Keele on February 7,2012 | 11:32 AM
My name in Vietnamese was Huynh Thi Man. I was in a Catholic orphanage until adopted. I know my parents where forced by Vietnamese government to raise my brother (Ha van Doung)as catholics so they could adopt us. If anyone has information on this orphanage or who my parent could possibly be please email me at braxton_audra@comcast.net. Or if they information on this orphanage please email me. I came to the states in 1971. Thank you.
Posted by Audra Braxton on January 29,2012 | 11:23 PM
Hi all. My parents are Amerasian, which makes me an Amerasian. both my parents have never met their fathers. I don't have any information about my mom's dad, but I do have a tiny (probably useless) bit of information about my dad's dad. First, my dad's name is Kiet Nguyen, he was born on April 25 1966. His american dad had a relationship with my grandmother who's name is Xuan Nguyen (club dancer). Prior to having had my dad, my grandmother also have had 4 other children with a different man. Within those 4, there's a set of twins. I think my grandfather's name is "Mike" or "Matt" Galaki or something like that, my grandma has bad pronunciation. I wish I had more information, but my grandmother was forced to destroy all evidence of a relationship with an american soldier in order to save her and her kids lives.
If anyone has any information, please email me at jayemen@yahoo.com
Posted by Mai Nguyen on December 23,2011 | 03:19 PM
I'm posting this for my mother. She was born on April 30, a couple years before the war ended in 1975. She's looking for her father, a man who went by Al. He married her mother at the Green Hotel in Vung Tau, Vietnam. He took my grandmother to Bien Hoa for prenatal care, I believe. On his shoulder was a patch that bore K.L.6. I don't know what the significance is. I do not know his last name, or his rank, just that he wasn't a private. I don't know his terms of service either. He is African American and toured when he was twenty years old. If you have any information, please contact nisadang94@gmail.com. IT is believed that my grandfather hailed from Chicago, Illinois. He knew my grandmother as Kim Pho. If you have any information on DNA tests and how to go about finding my grandfather, please contact me.
Posted by Nisa Dang on December 11,2011 | 05:02 PM
My husband left Vietnam when he was seven. His aunt worked for the United States Embassy and were granted to leave Vietnam. His mother chose to stay behind and he left with three aunts his grandparents and his sister. My husband has no idea who his father is. His mother, who he came to the States about eight years ago, really doesn't say much. I would love for him to know who his father was but where do you start?? It really is a hard situation.
Posted by LORENA NGUYEN on November 9,2011 | 07:43 PM
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