'Amerasian' Homecoming

Unlike most of us living securely with our families and loved ones here in beautiful Orange County, most Vietnamese Amerasians did not have this opportunity in life. Vietnamese Amerasians, often called “Amerasians,” refer to children of the Vietnam War- born to an American soldier father and Vietnamese mother. Just looking at the excerpt above, you can tell their story has been unfortunate. Nearly 20,000 other individuals have shared the same ‘Amerasian’ experience with the children in the picture on the left- and sadly never had much of a full opportunity to search for their true identity and be embraced by their society.

The phrase "children of the dust" was used to label Amerasians- like “dust,” they constantly flow with the wind, living a wandering life. The tragedy lied in the reality that most soldier fathers did not want them to be a part of their lives- viewing their children on “the other side of the world” to be merely a byproduct of the war itself, and something to move on and away from. So growing up in Vietnam, many faced cultural identity conflicts within themselves…trying to adjust and work to fit in to their society- living with questions like: what race and country do I belong to? What country can I call home? Out of initial discrimination and strong post-war bias, most were also badly mistreated in Vietnam and often denied the most basic of civil rights, including the right to even a basic education.

But over a few years as America started to recover from the turmoil and bitterness triggered by the war, there developed a collective attitude across the nation to take care of its "forgotten sons and daughters" left behind. And as a result, the Vietnamese Amerasian Homecoming Act went into effect in 1989- basically serving as a “passport” for all allowing children in Vietnam born to American fathers to come and immigrate to the U.S. In a sense the U.S. hoped this would reaffirm their responsibility for Amerasians by encouraging them to come find home here and by taking steps to arrange their passage.

What’s needed to be said I think is that most Amerasians did live a very wandering life in Vietnam. This resulted from the tragic lack of family support and education, making them almost clueless of what and who were real or not. But more than anything, what the Homecoming Act did was to an extent grant Vietnamese-Amerasians the opportunity to be "human" again- to feel a part of something substantial after years of living a wandering life more than half-way around the globe. Put into effect nearly 20 years ago, over 25,000 Amerasians have arrived and found new life in the U.S. with their relatives.