Surviving Twice: Amerasian Children of the Vietnam War

Posted in Asian Diaspora, History, Media Archive, Politics/Public Policy, United States, Videos on 2017-06-29 20:12Z by Steven

Surviving Twice: Amerasian Children of the Vietnam War

C-SPAN: Created by Cable
2005-09-11

Trin Yarborough talked about her book, Surviving Twice: Amerasian Children of the Vietnam War, published by Potomac Books. She talked about the lives of orphans who weren born to American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Randy Tuan, who was one of many orphans adopted to work on a farm, spoke about his life and music. Following their presentation, Mr. Tuan and Ms. Yarborough responded to questions and comments from members of the audience.

The book told the stories of five Vietnamese Amerasians born during the Vietnam War to American soldiers and Vietnamese mothers. Not among the few thousand Amerasian children brought to the U. S. before the war’s end who grew up as Americans, speaking English and attending American schools, this group faced many more formidable obstacles, both in Vietnam and in their new home. She wrote that an estimated 100,000 children were born during the Vietnam War to American soldiers and Vietnamese mothers. She also wrote that many of these children faced difficult lives as a result of racial prejudice or an inability to identify completely with the Vietnamese culture. The book looked at the effects of the Amerasian Homecoming Act, a Congressional program enacted in 1987 that brought 28,000 Vietnamese Americans to the United States before the program was stopped in 1994 because of problems with fraud.

Watch the video (01:12:12) here.

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Surviving Twice: Amerasian Children of the Vietnam War

Posted in Asian Diaspora, Books, History, Media Archive, Monographs, Politics/Public Policy, United States on 2017-06-29 19:39Z by Steven

Surviving Twice: Amerasian Children of the Vietnam War

Potomac Books (an imprint of University of Nebraska Press)
April 2005
336 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-57488-864-5
Papberback ISBN: 978-1-57488-865-2

Trin Yarborough

Surviving Twice is the story of five Vietnamese Amerasians born during the Vietnam War to American soldiers and Vietnamese mothers. Unfortunately, they were not among the few thousand Amerasian children who came to the United States before the war’s end and grew up as Americans, speaking English and attending American schools. Instead, this group of Amerasians faced much more formidable obstacles, both in Vietnam and in their new home. Surviving Twice raises significant questions about how mixed-race children born of wars and occupations are treated and the ways in which the shifting laws, policies, social attitudes, and bureaucratic red tape of two nations affect them their entire lives.

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