The Vietnam War Is Better For My Parents

In this interview Luis Le answered some question about his experience during the Vietnam War. He was born in Vietnam and during the time the was happening. Mr. Le explains in this interview what it was like when he was a child in the war. His mother and father were killed by the communist government and was constantly moving from place to place. He tells us in one of the questions that when Saigon fell after the Paris Peace Accords many people were scared and that this was the real start for a terrifying life for many families. One of the answered questions states, “ War is ugly. I saw so many people died. The family lost their fathers, brothers, and sisters.” During the war many people had lost their homes, villages, and loved ones just as

during the vietnam war the US fought two wars at the same time the one in vietnam and the one back home between the government and its people. As time went by the US knew they had no chance of winning the war in vietnam so the US then tried to bring home all its troops and get out of vietnam. When a ceasefire agreement was made on February 1972 the US evacuated their troops and left the Hmong soldiers who were left behind to fight the North Vietnamese bye themselves. After US left the Hmong people were killed for helping the US.

Growing up without parents is a rough task, but growing up without parents amongst a raging war is absurd. Having to run and hide in fear as your village is raided by North Vietnam soldiers is something no one should have to experience, but to those such as my dad, who has experienced this, it can be terrorizing. My dad grew up in the little town of Long Cheng, Laos living day to day struggling to survive. Living conditions for the lower class in Laos was already harsh enough, but when the Vietnam War broke out in 1961 these conditions got even worse. My father and many other Hmongs in Laos were in great danger of the communist armies.

The Hmong were a tremendous Help to the Americans in the Vietnam war, they had shown the Americans where to go and aided them in gunfights, they helped heal some men who had injuries. Many Americans who were injured had aided by the Hmong people. The Hmong who consequently supported the American Military was called a terrorist. In return, they helped the Hmong, the bomb called the yellow rain dropped and killed a huge amount of innocent Hmong and died. The Yellow Rain was designed to kill the northern Vietnam army but had a large widespread killed radius (BOFFEY). The U.S couldn’t stop the war and brought some of the Hmong to America to help and ignited a new life trying to free them from their misery, hell, and torture. The Hmong held a parade

During what is called The Secret War (1953-75), thousands of Hmong fought in the Royal Lao Army led by General Vang Pao against the communist Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese military, on behalf of the U.S. and France, who promised to let them come to the U.S. and receive veterans’ benefits if defeated. France and the U.S. broke their promise, and thousands of Hmong survivors and veterans were forced to evacuate their country by foot in the most agonizing and dehumanizing of conditions, many dying along the way. Many of them, despite all odds, managed to make it to refugee camps where conditions were also miserable. Finally, when the Hmong were forced to resettle, many were brought to the U.S., but not after some delays and without ever receiving veterans’ benefits. They were placed in certain cities in the U.S., including Merced.

Just under 42 years ago, the United States fought a war against Vietnam for almost 20 years. The United States lost. It was a tragedy because many lives were lost and our Presidents made multiple mistakes and false promises. The U.S. had lost its first war in history and it would go down as one of our worst mistakes. In the following paragraphs, we will go over two separate accounts from two people living in the same area, Buffalo, New York. Patricia “Pat” Musiak had family members and loved ones fight for America and Raymond “Ray” LaMarca, Sr. fought for the U.S. in the Army.

“During the Vietnam War, General Vang Pao galvanized the Hmong - an ethnic minority in Laos - to leave their farms and villages and fight the communist invasion from North Vietnam. After the CIA pulled out of Laos in 1975, Vang Pao helped resettle tens of thousands of Hmong refugees to California, Wisconsin and Minnesota” (Robert Siegel, 2011, p.6). These actions had an impact on us Hmong people because without him doing that, me, my parents, or my grandparents wouldn’t be here right now and I wouldn’t even exist. So he gave me and us Hmong people a better chance at life.

Wars are a difficult place to be. “THE VIETNAM WAR transformed a generation” (Roberts 1). With all that happened during the war such as exposure to

The Hmong people were terrified of their own governments. They feared retaliation and punishment for siding with the United States during the Vietnam War. One veteran of the war stated that he still had family hiding in the trees of Laos as recently as 2010. Kia Mai Vang 's, who was interviewed by Nancy Pasternack, said her mother remembers her "grandfather carrying her for a month through the forest" to escape punishment from the Vietnamese government after the war (Pasternack 2). The struggle for the Hmong’s after the Vietnam War was dreadful. They were left to survive in a country they just fought against, with no alliances to help.

However, alternating between Hmong and English at school confused this crowd of people I went to school with, thus creating a boulder of stereotypes of the Hmong language. In fifth grade, it was my first time I ever heard, “Do you speak Chinese?” Trying to be in an environment where learning and diversity should be welcome it only confused my sense of self because now I felt that I couldn’t express who I am at school in words that could’ve been explained properly in Hmong. This idea that alternating between languages can produce stereotypes of one’s culture made me aware of how I can speak to others in the public.

Being a Hmong-American in the United States was hard. Growing up in a community that was full of Americans, and being in a private school in my early years, (consisting mostly of Americans and little diversity) was difficult. In that kind of environment, I never saw each person differently. The characteristics that I saw were our skin color, and another distinction that I saw was our religious and cultural backgrounds. I started to lose touch of my own culture and identity as a Hmong-American girl. My family told me that in the stages of my toddler years, I used to be good at speaking my native tongue until I started school.

As a child, around the age of five, I became friends with the children of a family that had just moved to our neighborhood from Hawaii. The parents would occasionally make statements in a language that the children could not speak. I realize now that they were making these statements in Hawaiian, although they did not speak the language fluently, and their children did not speak the language at all. Unfortunately, this loss of language from one generation to the next has been quite common in Hawaii since the early nineteen-hundreds when the influence of the United States resulted in institutionalized language death.

My grandpa just died last year, the day after Thanksgiving so it was hard for my grandma to talk about the Viet Nam war since it reminded her so much about the love of her life as well as her biggest losses. After spending time talking to her about the Viet Nam war, my heart hurts terribly because I realize I have never sat down and had a deep conversation with my grandma about anything. The Viet Nam war took away my grandma’s chance to see her sons grow up, a chance to take care of her sons, and a chance to be their mother. Until now I am still confused why the Americans tried to invade my homeland when Vietnamese people hadn’t done anything to them. For me the Viet Nam war was so cruel and unfair because it took away the life of millions

In 1975, the ‘Fall of the Saigon’ marked the end of the Vietnam War, which prompted the first of two main waves of Vietnamese emigration towards the US. The first wave included Vietnamese who had helped the US in the war and “feared reprisals by the Communist party.” (Povell)

It was very tough for the Hmong’s that were still in Vietnam and Laos after the war. The American armed forces was these people’s only protection and after they just picked up and left for their home shores the Hmong people that were still alive faced severe hardships. They had no food and water and most of their homes were all destroyed. Most of the men and young adult boys were killed in the war and the Vietnamese and Laos soldiers were still pursing the Hmong people because they wanted to terminate the Hmong people. It was also tough for the Hmong people that were left because the American’s had stopped bringing food drops along with medical supplies.