Recognizing
the South Vietnam flag is long overdue
At home, my refugee parents taught me
to also honor a yellow flag with three red horizontal stripes — the flag of
South Vietnam before Saigon fell to communists on April 30, 1975. On Monday,
the Seattle City Council is set to vote on a resolution recognizing the
contributions of the Vietnamese community and acknowledging their “Heritage and
Freedom Flag” as their unifying symbol. Forty years after the City Council
first signed resolutions welcoming Vietnamese refugees, it’s about time this community’s
turbulent history is acknowledged. Thanks to Councilmember Bruce Harrell and
his legislative aide, Vinh Tang, who is of Vietnamese and Chinese heritage, for
seeing this opportunity to recognize a large immigrant population that has
struggled to find a political voice in Seattle.
The Seattle Times q
Recognizing the South Vietnam flag is long
overdue
The Seattle City Council’s willingness to recognize the
South Vietnam flag would be a major milestone for refugees.
What would Americans do if an anti-democratic force
conquered Washington, D.C., and forced us to renounce Old Glory? Think about
it. Our identity as a nation is so defined by the Stars and Stripes, we’d
probably fight until the end for our right to pledge allegiance to a flag that
represents freedom and democracy.
Vietnamese people in the United States don’t have to imagine
what it’s like to lose their country and its symbol of independence.
As a child, I placed my hand over my heart every morning in
school and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. At home, my refugee parents taught
me to also honor a yellow flag with three red horizontal stripes — the flag of
South Vietnam before Saigon fell to communists on April 30, 1975.
On Monday, the Seattle City Council is set to vote on a
resolution recognizing the contributions of the Vietnamese community and
acknowledging their “Heritage and Freedom Flag” as their unifying symbol.
This simple but symbolic gesture is long overdue and it
makes sense since this is the same flag that flies high at Vietnamese events,
throughout the Little Saigon business district and at the entrance to Rainier
Valley, where it’s paired with the U.S. flag.
Forty years after the City Council first signed resolutions
welcoming Vietnamese refugees, it’s about time this community’s turbulent
history is acknowledged. Thanks to Councilmember Bruce Harrell and his
legislative aide, Vinh Tang, who is of Vietnamese and Chinese heritage, for
seeing this opportunity to recognize a large immigrant population that has
struggled to find a political voice in Seattle.
To most outsiders, and even younger Vietnamese Americans,
the flag issue may seem abstract. But it would be a tragedy for its
significance to be diminished.
Duoc Nguyen, a 76-year-old former South Vietnamese air force
lieutenant colonel. (Thanh Tan / The... More
The yellow flag is an emotional and integral part of the
identity of some 70,000 Vietnamese living in Washington. It symbolizes where we
came from and our fight for a free society.
“I truly would prefer to live just one day of freedom in a
democratic country and die than to live under communism for the rest of my
life,” 76-year-old Vietnamese elder and former South Vietnamese air force
lieutenant colonel named Duoc Nguyen recently told me as he clutched his
beloved yellow flag. He came to the United States after suffering 13 years in a
communist re-education camp where he nearly starved to death. The South
Vietnamese who weren’t imprisoned were stripped of their assets, citizenship
and their entire way of life.
Such conditions forced millions to escape by air, land and
sea. Despite the death, rape and pillaging that often occurred on these
journeys, people continued to flee Vietnam throughout the late 1970s and 1980s.
For these survivors, the communist regime’s official red
flag with a yellow star in the middle elicits anger and a profound sense of loss.
I have seen grown men wince at the sight of their oppressor’s flag. I have
heard too many stories of the communist regime’s myriad abuses, which the
Vietnamese government has never apologized for or formally acknowledged.
Maybe that’s why, even though I was born in Olympia, I, too,
react when I see the communist flag in books and news stories.
Just as the Jewish people will never forget the Holocaust
and Japanese Americans know the pain of being sent off to concentration camps
during World War II, Vietnamese Americans have a responsibility to preserve our
legacy as survivors of a war that claimed more than 1 million civilians. In the
fight for South Vietnam and its flag, some 58,000 American service members also
died along with more than 200,000 South Vietnamese soldiers.
A formal resolution by the City Council would help Seattle’s
10,000 Vietnamese know that they can become part of the mainstream political
process. It also offers them some comfort in knowing that where they came from,
and how they suffered, will not be forgotten.
