Vietnamese in U.S. Visiting Homeland in Growing Numbers : Immigrants: They need to see friends and relatives or to come to terms with their past. Hanoi has made travel easier.

After many years of exile from their homeland, Vietnamese-Americans increasingly are returning to Vietnam for visits, according to officials of refugee assistance programs and the U.S. government.

The trips often are arranged by travel agents, who route people through third countries, including Thailand, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan, the officials say, citing the U.S. economic embargo against Vietnam and the lack of diplomatic relations.

Travel has increased because the Vietnam government has made it easier, because many Vietnamese-Americans believe U.S.-Vietnam relations are improving and because of the simple human need to see aging relatives, friends and loved ones left behind.

“People are just thronging back to Vietnam, believing they will be safe to return to visit relatives,” said a U.S. government official. The change is dramatic, said the official, noting that, in previous years, “you could count the number on a few fingers.”

“It is very important to go home and say goodby,” said Kim Cook, program director of the Vietnamese Resettlement Assn., which serves many of the estimated 30,000 Vietnamese-Americans in northern Virginia. “Many also go back to try to make sense of their escape” after South Vietnam fell to the communists in 1975.

Cook said: “The Vietnamese community sees Americans shaking hands with the communists. We can’t keep the grudges forever.”

For Vietnamese who fled communism for the United States, a return to Vietnam represents coming to terms with their past. It represents also a coming of age for yet another immigrant population in America--one that, like the Irish, the Germans, Italians and others before it, has stayed away long enough to make returning bearable.

And, by all accounts, the returns are numerous, from all over the country. Although no one can say exactly how many people go back for visits, one U.S. official estimated “at least 10,000 a year.”

In Biloxi, Miss., Loan Vu, director of a refugee program at Catholic Social Services, said: “A lot of people are going from here. It’s the common thing now, if you’ve got the money.”

According to people familiar with the travel costs, a visa typically costs $100 to $150, and a round-trip flight costs $1,100 to $1,400. Several said flights are heavily booked all the way through February because many people are returning for the Vietnamese New Year holiday season.

In Santa Ana, Calif., Nhi Ho, executive director of the Orange County Refugee Community Resource Opportunity Project, said he first went back two years ago, when he was an aide to Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) and found it “nice to be back.” He went on to say that “the Vietnamese government tries to get more money from tourists, so they make it easy” for travelers.

The travel has caused strains among Vietnamese immigrants, many of whom are staunchly anti-communist and still believe Vietnamese-Americans should not return, even for visits.

Tuong Nguyen, executive director of the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., said that, although he sympathizes with people’s emotional needs to visit, “I don’t think they should go back until the political situation changes,” because most departed as refugees who had a “well-founded fear” of persecution for their political beliefs.

There are signs that change is coming.

Vietnam has been helping in the effort to reach a peace agreement in Cambodia. It has also helped the United States account for Americans missing in action and has agreed to allow other countries to resettle 10,000 political prisoners.

Some analysts believe those moves signal broad improvement in relations and that the economic embargo against Vietnam could be lifted soon.

In a recent speech in Washington, Richard Solomon, assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, said: “We look forward to a new era in Indochina and for U.S. relations with Vietnam, with Cambodia and with Laos. Such a new era is only months away, we hope.”

The pace of normalization, Solomon said, depends largely on the pace of Vietnam cooperation on resolving the fate of the 2,300 missing Americans and on stabilizing Cambodia.

U.S. businessmen, seeing their competitors in the rest of the world beating a path to Vietnam, are eagerly seeking some of the action but cannot legally invest in Vietnam as long as the embargo is in effect. As Vietnamese-Americans’ businesses mature, they too become part of the group wanting to do business there.

Le Xuan Khoa, president of the Indochina Resource Action Center in the nation’s capital, said: “Many people want to go back to explore future possible activities, such as business and technical assistance.” Others, he said, want to offer humanitarian assistance.

Although U.S. officials have indicated that a thaw in relations may be coming, many Vietnamese worry that such diplomatic efforts could be shoved into the background by the standoff in the Persian Gulf.

Meanwhile, many are not waiting for normalization before they visit Vietnam, and travel agents are cashing in.

In Arlington, travel agencies advertise in Vietnamese newspapers, as does Vietnam Express. Calvin Pham, a partner in the business, said about 30 people a month get Vietnam visas through his agency.

Although the practice is not illegal, agencies sometimes do have to confront U.S. law enforcement officials. Pham said FBI agents recently visited his firm to make sure nothing that violated national security was going on.

As for the clients, Pham said: “They have a good time. They can’t wait to get back” to the low prices and high living, as well as fun with family members.

The majority who visit already have become American citizens, officials said. Those who have not yet completed naturalization worry that their visits will hamper their effort to gain U.S. citizenship.

For that reason, and because the visits still are controversial among Vietnamese, many are reluctant to discuss their travels, spokesmen for refugee assistance groups said. “You could be accused of being a communist,” said one official.

Some travelers who do talk about their visits report surprise at how much their country has changed. Street names, for example, are not the same in old neighborhoods--changed by the communists in the same way that Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City. Others say they are immediately recognized as U.S. residents, standing out because of their western clothing, even their way of walking.

Kim Cook said returnees report two strong emotions. One, “You are a star and so well-treated,” she said. The other, “You are so struck with the poverty of your own people.”

And, she added: “Nobody goes over (returns to Vietnam) to stay.”