Repercussions of Vietnam War forever changed the U. S., Asia
America’s last war of the 20th century ended 40 years ago with the fall of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975.
Napalm, the Tet Offensive, Kent State, draft- card burning, Hanoi Hilton and Hanoi Jane: The Vietnam War divided the United States like no other conflict since the Civil War and made it question its unity and the invincibility that was hard earned from the two world wars.
The war, the Civil Rights Movement, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and Watergate forever changed the fabric of the United States. The genesis of the Blue State versus Red State schism can be found here.
The fall of Saigon turned South Vietnam communist, forcing thousands to flee. The boat people endured piracy, starvation and other unspeakable horrors at sea. Many eventually found a home in the United States and other countries, but far too many perished. More than a million Vietnamese now live in the United States, inextricably entwining the history of the two countries.
The communist victors, instead of embracing reconciliation as postapartheid South Africa did, chose to send thousands of South Vietnamese officials and officers to brutal political prisons and deny their children higher- education opportunities. They renamed Saigon Ho Chi Minh City, draping over its romance and poetry with propaganda drivel. The enmity between North and South continues to this day.
The world was much different then. The threat of communism spreading like falling dominoes was real. Few predicted the breakup of the Soviet Union or the rise of China.
The United States experienced a hard and bitter peace after Vietnam, a “crisis of confidence,” as President Jimmy Carter noted in his “malaise speech.” Vietnam was a perfect storm of misguided political and military policies, a cautionary tale for every conflict since.
A disastrous 1979 border war with Vietnam convinced China how backward its military was, spurring paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to quicken the pace of an industrial modernization that now manufactures Old and new coexist in Vietnam today, with political oppression still the rule but more striving toward a middle class life. everything from pet foods to the iPhone.
The Obama Administration’s foreign policy now pivots to Asia, giving Vietnam an important role in the geopolitics of South Asia against possible Chinese military aggression. The U. S. Navy has expressed desire to return to Cam Ranh Bay to help protect the world’s busiest shipping lane that goes from Japan and South Korea to Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam.
After normalization with the United States 20 years ago, Vietnam aspires to a form of the American dream and a middle- class life. Vietnamese kids are getting fat with KFC, McDonald’s and Coca- Cola. The iPhones and Louis Vuitton bags are symbols of the Communist Party cadre. Materialism holds more sway than communist ideology, though the party retains absolute control.
Vietnam’s education emphasizes rote memorization, not analytical skills. It’s designed to produce toetheline bureaucrats, not entrepreneurs.
Vietnamese émigrés, meanwhile, rebuilt their lives in the United States. Their arrival in the mid1970s coincided with the dawn of the Computer Age. Vietnamese technicians, assemblers and engineers helped build Silicon Valley, the way the Chinese immigrants helped with the Transcontinental Railroad.
The newcomers built Little Saigons in Orange County and San Jose, enriched the Melting Pot lexicons of the United States with savory terms such as bánh mì, Pho and Sriracha. One Vietnamese engineer even led the redesign of an American icon — the 2005 Ford Mustang. A Vietnamese scientist created the thermobaric weapon, “the bomb that ended the war with Afghanistan.”
This month, as Hanoi celebrates Reunification Day, Vietnamese exile communities mourn a traumatic event called Black April.
The story of our family is but a footnote in this Homeric odyssey of war and exodus.
My mother and father had a little store across from the present San Jose City Hall on East Santa Clara Street, the cradle of Vietnamese business here. My parents are gone now, like many of that first generation. Their children are well adapted to life in America.
Although my birthplace is Saigon, my home is now San Jose. Still, sometimes in the dark of night, the echoes of that long- ago war boomerangs back, bringing the memories and sadness of exile from a lost land.
ONLINE EXTRA
ABay Area resident and former South Vietnam cabinet member reflects on Henry Kissinger’s betrayal at mercurynews. com/ opinion.