Children Of Vietnamese Refugees Feel Empathy, Responsibility To Help Afghans

Bao Nguyen says he might not have existed if it weren't for American generosity toward Vietnamese refugees after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

After seven attempts to flee Vietnam, his parents spent six months in a refugee camp in Hong Kong before being sponsored by a Jewish organization that allowed them to resettle in Wisconsin in 1979. A few years later, Nguyen, now a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, was born.

"I'm a result and a product of a generous America," Nguyen told NPR.

In the last week as thousands of Afghans face an uncertain future under Taliban rule, Vietnamese Americans — many of whom are children of refugees — are calling on U.S. officials to let in as many Afghan refugees as possible and trying to assist Afghans who are already landing in America.

"I see sort of the lineage of American generosity because of these events, and I think it's almost my responsibility to pass that onto the Afghani refugees and people who are trying to get to America," Nguyen said.

Empathy leads to action

The empathy many Vietnamese Americans feel toward Afghan refugees has pushed them to take action.

A group of Vietnamese American friends in Seattle are trying to pair 75 Vietnamese host families with 75 incoming Afghan families arriving in the Seattle-Tacoma area.

Rose Ave Bakery, an Asian-American bakery in Washington D.C., is donating 10% of proceeds from this weekend's sales to help with Afghan refugee resettlement efforts.

Owner and baker Rosie Nguyen, whose parents were Vietnamese refugees, said seeing the desperation of Afghans this week "feels very personal."

"The perspective of my parents is going to be the same as these people," she said. "They're terrified, they're scared, they want a better life for themselves and their children. So they're going to do anything and everything to do that, and when you do that, you're giving up everything."

"It's just a small token that I feel like we can do as a small business," she said of the fundraiser. "I would hope that there's people — I know there is — that are doing the same, and that we're all pitching in to help."

Similarities between Saigon and Kabul

Critics have pointed out the similarities between images from Kabul this week as Afghans desperate to flee the country crowded the city's airport and from Saigon in 1975 when Americans pulled out of Vietnam.

In the aftermath of Saigon, approximately 150,000 Vietnamese were able to seek refuge on American soil. Four years later, President Jimmy Carter doubled the number of Indo-Chinese refugees accepted, a move that was politically unpopular at the time: only 34% of Americans supported the idea.

Georgia State Rep. Bee Nguyen, who tweeted this week about how her parents found refuge in Iowa, told NPR she would have liked political leaders to have responded more quickly with assisting Afghans. But she expects there will be a change in "political will" to increase the cap on refugees.

"The reality is in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the United States played role in what happened and part of our responsibility is to acknowledge that role and to open up our country to the people who have been impacted by it," Rep. Nguyen said.

A "thriving" generation speaking out

Part of why many young Vietnamese Americans are speaking out and sharing their own parents' refugee stories is realizing the similar trauma their parents experienced in leaving Vietnam, and losing their country.

Rep. Nguyen said she's seen other Vietnamese Americans posting on social media and sharing their family stories about leaving Vietnam and the Americans who helped them when they arrived in the U.S.

"The folks who are sharing these stories are not doing it because of a political angle," she said. "They know their own family members or themselves were in a similar position of having to watch the loss of your country ... their own patriotism, the place that they feel connected to, the place that they grew up in."

"There's multiple layers of loss happening at the same time," Rep. Nguyen said. "Children of immigrants and immigrants themselves who have experienced that have deep empathy for people who are in that situation."

Children of refugees also have to navigate the second-hand trauma of their parents' experiences. There is a balancing act of wanting to know your family's history and not wanting to have them revisit their trauma in telling it.

Bao Nguyen said he finally asked his parents about their journey as refugees a few years ago after decades of not talking about it. But now, he's sharing his family's story in hopes of sparking change.

"Our parents have been seen as a generation that was just trying to survive in many ways ... and our generation is seen as going past this idea of surviving, but really thriving. And by thriving, I think we're able to speak up," he said.