REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM, REST IN PEACE

Commentary For ASIAN WEEK
April 7, 2005 © Vu-Duc Vuong
REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM, REST IN PEACE By Vu-Duc Vuong

In a few more days, it will be exactly 30 years since the days when the South Vietnamese President and Vice President slipped out of the country, when the American Ambassador was plucked by helicopter from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy, the American flag tucked under his arm, and when the North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the iron gates of the Independence Palace in downtown Saigon.

To many Vietnamese-Americans, April 30 will always be a “day of infamy” and they still vow to avenge that defeat, that loss, that shame.

To many other Vietnamese, in Vietnam as in the diaspora, that is a day of peace, a day of reunification, or at the very least, a day when the guns fell silent for the first time in many generations.

There will be plenty of commemoration, in Hanoi, the nerve center of the Communist victory, in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, scene of the last acts of a protracted war, in Paris, where people will note the continuing suffering of the tens of thousands of victims of Agent Orange, an unresolved legacy of that war, and in Washington, D.C., where unbowed former South Vietnamese fighters, now American citizens and some of their children, will try to carry on the struggle, albeit under a different banner.

Reporters from around the world, those old enough to have actually covered the war in their youth and those not yet born when the war ended, will gather again in Vietnam to witness this occasion and revisit the old battlefields.

For me, in California, it will simply be a day of meditation and a little protest.

I will reach back into Vietnamese history to give a context to this date. From legendary times, it was a prince and a fairy who met by chance, had 100 kids together, then had to separate, each taking 50 kids and going their separate ways. It seems as if it had been written in the stars that my people was not destined for an easy life.

What followed was over a millennium of domination, occupation, and assimilation by the giant neighbor from the North. It was sheer determination, or stubbornness and pride, that held our identity intact and our culture still distinguishable. I think of today’s Tibetans, Maoris, Hawaiians, Navajos and Mohicans, Incas and Mayans in this context, and I remain hopeful that they too will retain the essence of their people, in spite of the onslaught. If not in this generation, then in ten, twenty more generations.

But my meditation is not trouble-free this year. The first Vietnamese-American elected to the California Assembly, Tran Thai Van, has sponsored a resolution making the flag of the former Republic of Vietnam, commonly referred to as South Vietnam during the period of temporary separation from 1954 to 1975, the symbol of the Vietnamese-American community in this state. And he would like to have it approved by the Legislature in time for the April 30 celebration.

That resolution troubles me on several levels. The Republic of Vietnam, a peculiar creature of the waning colonial era and the emerging Cold War, was not a moment of pride for many Vietnamese. Its political leaders were handpicked by Uncle Sam and disposed of like an old rag when no longer useful. Its military leaders, by and large, were “corrupt and incompetent” in the words of Nguyen Cao Ky, himself a former Chief of the South Vietnamese Air Force and former Prime Minister. Even its flag, three red stripes on a yellow background, was created by a French colonial-backed puppet government. The country was wracked with corruption, injustice, repression, and religious persecution. It was not a Vietnam that many of us would want to hold out as our glory.

The way this “flag resolution” was presented also raised questions of propriety; it assumes that the majority, if not all, of Vietnamese-Americans in this state would want to revive that symbol of incompetence. With two-thirds of the Vietnamese population born after the end of the war, in the U.S. as in Vietnam, it is safe to say that the majority of my people has moved on and is no longer obsessed with that war. Even in California, where about half of the Vietnamese-Americans reside, the majority of us would like to integrate to the American society while maintaining benevolent relations with our old country. It is at least telling that each year over a quarter of a million Vietnamese-Americans travel to Vietnam for family visits, charitable activities, business purposes, educational endeavors, or simply for tourism. I seriously doubt that these people who “vote with their feet and their wallets” would want to revive the former South Vietnam.

In the end, there are many better alternatives to symbolize the vitality of the Viet-Am community in this state. The revived neighborhoods throughout the state, from Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose to Santa Ana, Westminster, Garden Grove, and San Diego are beautiful testaments to our resilience. The academic at first, and increasingly professional, achievements of the second generation speak more eloquently about our ability and industry than any flags or statues. And the integration of our community in general, from writers, teachers, social workers, reporters to the clergy, shopkeepers, and budding politicians, all illustrate the potential of this newer addition to the American tapestry. Indeed, Assemblyman Tran Thai Van himself, blazing the trail to state offices, figures prominently and deservedly among these symbolic achievements.

Let us now bury, without forgetting, a sad but brief episode in the millennia of Vietnamese history. May the Republic of Vietnam rest in peace.

Vu-Duc Vuong is a teacher and writer in the Bay Area. Email him at vuduc.vuong@gmail.com