50 Years Ago, They Fled Vietnam for New Lives In America

She did. Truong McClure went to college, built a successful career in marketing and business consulting and raised two children. Now 56 and living outside of Sacramento, she has dedicated much of her time to honoring American veterans — speaking at American Legion events and cleaning debris from the gravesites of veterans. She was a founding member of the Veteran Employee Resource Network at Hewlett Packard, where she worked for a time. She taught her two children to salute the American flag.

“On behalf of many refugees, I recognize that many American soldiers were not received correctly and properly when they came home; they were called terrible names. I’d like to welcome you home. I want every veteran to see that we are the children that you have helped to keep safe, who have been able to go on and have happy, healthy families. We are living the American dream, which is what they fought to help us accomplish. Thank you for giving me my life.”

‘Service to Others’

Rear Admiral Huan Nguyen, 66

Huan Nguyen

On Veteran’s Day this past November, a crowd gathered in a field next to a veteran’s monument in the small town of Draper, Utah. Beneath towering mountain peaks, the flags of each of the American military services flew over this monument, along with the POW-MIA flag and the Gold Star flag that honors service members killed in battle. The keynote speaker wore an American Naval uniform with enough brass to add a couple of pounds to his narrow frame. This was retired Rear Admiral Huan Nguyen, 66, the first Vietnamese-born U.S. service member to attain that rank.

Born in Vietnam, he escaped with an uncle after his family was killed. He joined the Navy in 1993. “When I came here in ’75, I landed in Guam,” he says, “and seeing all these service men and women, the Marine Corps, the sailors — they were working hard to make sure we were OK. Part of my journey is about trying to get rid of the trauma of the past, and the best way to overcome this was to be of service to others.”

Frank Jao

‘An Ethnic Enclave’

Frank Jao, 76

Frank Jao escaped Saigon 50 years ago, at age 26, and ended up as a refugee in California’s Camp Pendleton. “I was among the first group of Vietnamese Americans who came to the country, and I could see there was a need to have an ethnic enclave for this new group.”

Jao got his real estate license, then founded Bridgecreek Development in 1978. That company became a key builder of Orange County, California’s Little Saigon, the largest Vietnamese enclave in the U.S., with nearly 200,000 residents. It includes the Asian Garden Mall, the largest Vietnamese shopping center in the country, home to pho restaurants, cafés selling bò lúc lắc (“shaking beef”), Vietnamese coffee shops and jewelry shops. It may all feel like Saigon, but Jao embraces his new home.

“I was accepted to be an American citizen,” he says, “so clearly, I am American. I have two daughters. They went to good schools and got good educations, and are doing good things for society. These kinds of opportunities and this accomplishment of assimilating into a new society could only happen in America.”

‘This Was Our Country Now’

Naja Pham Lockwood, 57

Naja Pham Lockwood's first birthday in America.

NAJA PHAM LOCKWOOD

Born near Saigon, Naja Pham Lockwood (her married name), has produced numerous films, including her latest, On Healing Land, Birds Perch about child refugees of the Vietnam War. “Even after 50 years,” she says, “the pain of the war is still so fundamentally there.”

Lockwood escaped Vietnam in 1975. Despite what she calls “horrific trauma,” the message she wants people to hear is about love.

“Of course there was prejudice, but I grew up in a loving community,” she says. She recalls arriving in America, and President Ford showing up at Fort Chaffee in the summer of 1975. “We were there, as refugees, and I can’t tell you how much my parents felt protected.” Her first day of school, in Worcester, Massachusetts, is a pleasant memory. “The parish priest held my hand and my brother’s and sister’s hands and walked us to school. Everyone came out to welcome us.”

There were more acts of kindness. Neighbors who brought dresses for her, and who welcomed her family on Thanksgiving with turkey and stuffing. Mothers who showed up at school to help teach her English. “My parents felt that this was our country now, that we were Americans. And that meant the world to them.”