Your Story, Our Story Assignment
During the Vietnam War, my grandpa was taken into prison for a few months because he was a soldier for the South. At the time, my great grandma dwelled in Long Khanh, along with my mom and her siblings. My mom told me she played outside her house like the usual, and all of a sudden she witnessed an airplane, dropping a bomb nearby. News went around Viet Congs have conquered the South on April 30! Therefore, my mom’s family was separated into 2 groups. My grandma and her nieces emigrate from Vietnam, and flew to Thailand (airplane station Tan San Nhat).  However, trouble occurred when there was an oil leakage. The plane’s tail caught on fire, and slowly landed to the ground. Luckily, my family members were safe! They had to find another plane to take them to America.My mom told me it wasn’t until 11 years later the whole family reunited. This photo, taken in 1972, helped verify my mom’s and siblings’ relationships to my grandma during the interview in Saigon. Hence, the photos were essential artifacts of my mom’s family history. To summarize, the push factors for most Vietnamese immigrants were war, communism, lack of opportunity, and oppression under Ho Chi Minh. The pull factors were resources, opportunity, democracy, and help from Whites. Unlike African Americans, Native Americans, and Chinese Americans, the United States helped ship them onto their soil and shelter them. Yet, in some way America betrayed South Vietnam for removing its troops and not sticking with them till the end.

– Thaomi Pham

Relationship:  Child of im/migrant Child of im/migrant