The narratives of Vietnamese refugees escaping the Vietnam War echoed through the Tustin Library earlier this month.
Stories of long waits at sea, uncertainty, violence, displacement, and other harrowing experiences showed the harsh reality of what many Vietnamese “Boat People” went through.
The stories were told through a film screening, which was a part of the OC Public Libraries “One County, One Book” series, a community reading program centered around various novels with related film screenings, cultural presentations, storytimes and book club discussions.
Editor’s note: This is an occasional series where Voice of OC works with local community photographers to offer residents a first-hand look at the local sites and scenes of Orange County.
The current book in focus is “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, a fiction Pulitzer-winning novel set during the Fall of Saigon.
Eric Nong, the Artistic Director of the Viet Film Fest, expressed how he specifically wanted to focus on films with “boat people” narratives to showcase some of the themes from the book.
“What I wanted to bring here were boat people narratives but have films that approach it in very different ways,” said Nong.
When communist North Vietnamese troops overtook the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon, it marked the final major event of the Vietnam War and the end of America’s intervention in Southeast Asia. The fall of Saigon of April 1975 also led to a two-decade long refugee crisis from 1975-1995 where more than three million people fled from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Boat people is a term used to describe refugees who flee their country by boat. The term originated in the 1970s to describe Vietnamese refugees.
Not only were the directors, loved ones and community members in attendance but also many Vietnamese refugees who lived through similar experiences to the ones expressed in the three films that were screened: “The Waves Now Calm,” “The Fading Light” and “Finding the Virgo.”
“The Waves Now Calm” reflects on the Indochina Refugee Crisis through memories of a retired Malaysian fisherman and a family’s Thanksgiving celebration. “The Fading Light” follows a Vietnamese American revisiting his childhood home in Saigon amid the legacy of the Vietnamese boat people. “Finding the Virgo” is a documentary following a family of Vietnamese boat people in search of the cargo ship that saved them and gave them new life.
Dat Nguyen was invited by a friend to the event and recounted his experience as a “boat person” fleeing Vietnam. Detailing 23-days at sea, including being attacked by pirates, witnessing deaths, and facing numerous hardships, he was eventually rescued by a Singaporean fisherman, but they were stranded for days without help.
“To be honest with you, the third movie [Finding the Virgo] made by Lauren Vuong is very touching because I was in a reeducation camp… [and] I was also a boat person,” said Nguyen.
Nguyen emphasized the importance of sharing these stories with younger Vietnamese generations to appreciate their struggles and the sacrifices made by those who saved their lives.
“[Younger generations] should know how hard it was to get here, why we are here, and they have to appreciate all the people who saved our lives, their parents’ lives, and then we have to show our appreciation to America.”
Tustin community members also shed light on their insights during the Q&A after the films of newfound knowledge, stating that they had lived alongside Vietnamese-Americans their whole lives but never knew about the hardships they endured.
Thien Do, writer and director of the “Fading Light” film also reflected on the importance of sharing these films in spaces of those who experienced them but also people who were unaware of the struggles some Vietnamese Americans faced when leaving their country.
“To have so many people who have actually gone through, lived through the situation that was portrayed in these three films [attend] was especially meaningful,” said Do.
“My biggest hope is that people will know that there are those of us who are telling our Vietnamese American stories,” said Do. “I think that if you don’t live close to a Vietnamese community, then you often don’t know that there are these kinds of films around.”
Lauren Vuong, producer and subject of “Finding the Virgo,” learned that sharing such stories can alleviate feelings of isolation among trauma survivors and foster collective healing.
“It’s not a story that is personal to my family, but it’s really a story that is a history of the collective [Vietnamese American community],” said Vuong.
“It’s important that people who already know the story and saw it unfold… but also to the American public, who didn’t know, didn’t understand,” said Vuong. “They just see us here and they appreciate our food, but they didn’t know the circumstances in which we were forced to leave our country.”
Vuong’s documentary took years of research and highlights the importance of having a platform to share these stories.
Platforms such as the OC Public Libraries and Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association who are pushing for these stories to be told.
“I think [libraries] give people a place to learn,” said Vuong. “If you’re curious, it’s here — and if you come here, there is a community who is ready with resources to help with your curiosity and hopefully to foster a growing knowledge base for you.”
Libraries can be a space that fosters important discussions and community, says Nong.
“I know this term is not really welcome in certain corners right now, but libraries are a safe space for discussion, analysis, interpretation of moments in our past that perhaps have gotten under reported or underappreciated by certain members of the community,” said Nong.
“The Vietnamese American story of how many of them came here to the United States, there’s a tragic history there,” said Nong. “There’s also an inspirational story there of how people persevered.”
