Posted on Apr 29, 2020
'Sigh, Gone' Is A Refugee's Chaotic Memoir Of Displacement And Belonging
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In 1975, Tran was a toddler when he and his extended family fled the fall of Saigon. They spent time in a refugee camp and, then, thanks to outreach by the Lutheran church, they were relocated to the town of Carlisle in South Central Pennsylvania. There, they took on their new collective identity as the Vietnamese family in town. As Tran writes, "Random strangers had saved us. And random strangers were cruel to us, too."
'Sigh, Gone' Is A Refugee's Chaotic Memoir Of Displacement And Belonging
Posted from npr.org
Vietnam War
Immigration
Refugees
Reading
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 4
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It's like that for virtually all new immigrants, especially those relocating to smaller towns and cities
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SPC Kurt Hesselden
War memories exist for a long time. I was born a few years after WW2 ended in Germany. After time in post war orphanages I was adopted by an American family from New Mexico which in the early fifties was sparsely populated. Appearance wise I was able to merge in with the populace pretty well unnoticed unlike the Asians in 1975. Problems merging were more my language or lack of. Random cruel strangers for Tran rings a bell as even 20 years prior to him it is easy to remember being called 'adolph' in school as that war was just too fresh in peoples minds. But, it seems other wars pop up to replace history and those that were quick to tease found new targets.
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One of my brothers best friends growing up was a Vietnam refugee. His dad was a doctor and gave aid to Americans. They still have family there and he can never go back. His family tells him to this day to not return by himself or with his family or he will be imprisoned along with them. They made a good life here in the states. They opened up a restaurant and have done well but they rarely ever talk about having to get out or the trials to come to America and the trials when they got here.
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Sgt Jim Belanus
my wife's niece just married the son of a Viet Nam refuge, he was very young if memory is right, he was evacuated from the embassy. He has done well for himself and family in this country.
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