Giving Back : ‘We Vietnamese Can Finally Heal If We Want To’

In the past few months I have been attacked many times in the Vietnamese-language press of Orange County and around the United States, and also in large demonstrations (against improved ties between the United States and Vietnam) What shocks me is that after all we Vietnamese have been through, including fighting and killing each other during our civil war, there is still so much anger and resistance among Vietnamese living in the United States.

Many of the Vietnamese who attack me, including some former officers of the South Vietnamese Army, came from well-off educated families and lost everything to the communists. Some were put in re-education camps and suffered a lot from the communists. Yet these same Vietnamese cannot seem to understand the lives of people born less fortunate. They insist that the only reason anyone helps the people of Vietnam is to help the communists.

My generation growing up in the Vietnamese countryside never had a chance to get education or training. I finished fifth grade, the highest grade then offered. Country women uneducated as I was had only one way to support themselves and their families--prostitution. I have already told that about myself, so what is the point of the Vietnamese who were educated and wealthy bringing this up (against me)? I travel to Vietnam for my work with East Meets West, and I know that the children there are still not getting any education. In my home of Da Nang, less than one in five children finish the fifth grade. Only one in 15 graduate from high school. I want this younger Vietnamese generation to be smarter than the uneducated farm girl I was.

Now, 20 years after the war, the toxic chemicals like Agent Orange and the thousands of still-unexploded land mines that people keep accidentally setting off while plowing and so forth continue to cause birth defects and injuries and deaths. The small, bare clinic that East Meets West has established does good work, but it is a tiny drop in a huge bucket.

The younger Vietnamese in this country are very good. They want to understand the present reality and to help when they can. Many Southern Californians and other Americans, including veterans, are helping East Meets West. And some South Vietnamese who used to be protesters have been back to visit Vietnam since 1990. They saw the terrible situation there, and had to ask themselves: “How can I turn my back when so many are suffering?”

I was happy to learn about the delegation including Vietnamese immigrants from Orange County that will soon go to Vietnam to discuss business ties. I hope when they return they will openly discuss what they have seen and the situation of the Vietnamese people. I cannot expect everybody to like me or my books. But there’s no need to divide, no need for this hatred. Everybody, especially every Vietnamese, has a story to tell, a scar on his or her life. If we Vietnamese want to go on with our lives and finally heal in this peaceful country of the United States, we can do it.