Vietnamese/Americans can relate to plight of Syrian refugees look back

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, hundreds of thousands of refugees fled Vietnam any way they could.

FOUR DECADES ago, there was another refugee crisis. The sight of Syrian refugees flee their war-torn country has caused a sense of deja vu among the Vietnamese who left Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. They moved to help the new boat people. 

After the fall of Vietnam, millions of Vietnamese who supported the Saigon regime or sided with the Americans, fled their country. Many were rescued by U.S. Navy ships, others flew out on airplanes provided by the U.S. Over 800,000 escaped in boats.

Many were sent to refugee camps in the Philippines and other countries to be resettled around the world. Some sailed from country to country seeking a place that would accept them. The United States took in over 125,000 of the Viet refugees in 1976 alone. Eventually, 750,000 found their way to the United States.

"I want to see what we can do to help the Syrians because that is us," said Tom Q. Nguyen, a Fountain Valley, California business owner whose mother and sister died at sea in the 1980s.

Seeing the plight of refugees fleeing Syria gave flashbacks to many Vietnamese who went through that ordeal after the fall of Saigon.

Decades later, the former refugees have done relatively well, many have established themselves in America as business owners, excelled in school, run for office and contributed to the betterment of their communities.

So now, the Syrians' plight has touched a nerve with Vietnamese. Viet communities in Canada and the U.S. are fundraising to help the Syrian refugees.

Germany has taken in hundreds of thousands as have other European nations. The U.S. has announced plans to take in 10,000 additional Syrian refugees in the next fiscal year. Secretary of State John Kerry has said the U.S. will accept 85,000 refugees from around the world next year, and up to 100,000 in 2017.

The U.S. can do more. In 1975, about 400,000 Eastern Europeans came to the U.S. after World War II and 650,000 Cubans were resettled, mostly in Florida, when Castro came to power.

“As Vietnamese Americans, I feel we have a moral responsibility to help these people,” says Duc Nguyen, 51, an Emmy award-winning film maker. “Others helped us when we were in that situation. Now it is time to pay it forward.”