What happened in April 2015: socio-cultural, literary, and political news and events relating to Viet Nam and to the Vietnamese diaspora.
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Viet Kieu in the news
• For many Vietnamese Americans, “the war has not ended.”
• “How can we leave the past behind? . . . We think about it in the present.”
• “The plain fact that the American war in Vietnam was a mistake and a crime . . . is about the only plain fact there is.”
• Looking back: Over 80,000 Vietnamese immigrants came to Australia following the Vietnam War.
• Vietnamese refugees in England recall their ordeals.
• La Quinta High has the highest concentration of Vietnamese-American students of any high school in America.
• A Vietnamese-American is among the dead in Nepal earthquake.
• A Vietnamese-American woman returned to Vietnam to visit her Vietnamese mother’s tomb and reunite with relatives.
• Little Saigon in Orange County is “a world within a world.”
• Little Saigon residents watch their story on screen.
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• Looking back at Vietnamese refugees in Camp Pendleton’s 1975 ‘tent city’
• “I’ve learned that to be Vietnamese American is to accept a mixed legacy of incredible survival and unspeakable pain. “
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General Luong recalls, “I knew right back then that I want to serve our country.”
News about Viet Nam
• “We traded millions of lives for independence and equality . . . [only] to strip Vietnam’s people of their money and their rights while a tiny elite fills its pockets and hides behind the rhetoric of the revolution.”
• Relationship between Vietnam and the US is “on par with those of other Southeast Asian nations.”
• The dangerous search for undetonated bombs by the U.S. is still ongoing.
• Vietnamese Msgr. Pietro Nguyen Van Tai will be remembered for serving the church in Asia for decades.
• At ASEAN People’s Forum (APF) Vietnamese civil groups raise issues concerning freedom of religion and expression.
• Three Vietnamese researchers specializing in water resource management have concluded that “Vietnam is currently among the countries deficient in water.”
• Four decades after the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese public sees its former foe as a “helpful ally.”
• Forty years after the fall of Saigon, Amerasians–soldiers’ children–are still left behind.
Other News
• How the American War is seen by the North Vietnamese.
• “When it comes to Vietnam, we have all learnt to forget.”
• ASEAN expresses concerns about Chinese land reclamation projects in the South China Sea risk.
• Newly-found evidence may provide proofs that Korean troops not only committed civilian massacres in Vietnam, but that they also pimped out Vietnamese women.
• The Australian government returned almost 50 asylum seekers to Vietnam.
• Vietnam veterans of Korea force cancellation of event with survivors of civilian massacres by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War.
• Three individuals talk about the doomed Operation Babylift.
• The 40th anniversary of the war’s end “should be occasion for more self-reflection and less finger-pointing on all sides.”
Special thanks to Viet Thanh Nguyen for providing many of the news items. Peace!
RP
