Letter from A Vietnamese to an Iraqi Refugee
New America Media, Commentary, Andrew Lam Posted: Oct 03, 2007
More than three decades ago, I left Vietnam as a refugee and found asylum in America. Last night on the Internet, I chanced upon an image of you: a teenage refugee from Iraq newly arrived to America. Your shy smile reminds me of myself a long time ago.
Many have stepped onto the American shore since my arrival but few share such parallel tracks as you and I do. You and your family fled Iraq; my family and I were once refugees from Vietnam. We found asylum in a country that had a direct hand in the chaos and bloodshed in our own respective homelands. Iraq, it seems, is about to trump Vietnam in the American psyche as the reigning metaphor for tragedy.
I could, like baseball cards, trade the Gulf of Tonkin Incident for weapons of mass destruction, the My Lai Massacre for Haditha, boat people for Iraqi refugees, and “Vietnamization” for “Iraqization.” The similarities continue to pile up as the war in Iraq goes on.
Though I know little of your past, I have an idea of what you’re going through. Life in a new country is difficult and bewildering, but for those forced into exile, it torments to the core. You will always grieve for what was robbed from you and your family, and yet, while many perish, languish as refugees in Iraq’s bordering countries, or face a nightmarish existence back home, you have survived and found your way to the Promised Land.
A new reality is upon you and you must rise to meet it. This entails a drastic change in your nature, in your thinking, and, possibly, in your very constitution.
You will learn soon enough that in the land of plenty there’s plenty of irony. The champion of human rights one day can easily turn into the worst violator of those rights the next. The country that boasts, “Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free,” turns its back on those whose misfortunes are the direct result of its own actions.
Here, where freedom of expression is written into law, there’s very little space to accommodate your biography, your story, and your distress. What is a central concern in one country is often a footnote in another.
You will find that the American experience in Iraq will, in time, be reconstructed – through books, movies and songs – into a mythic reality around which the nation self-flagellates and reexamines, what seems now, since Vietnam, to be its routine loss of innocence. But Iraqis themselves will be relegated to an asterisk. The complicated narrative of a civil war with so many sides and so many people caught in the middle will be dismissed until the American experience takes center stage. Everyone else becomes his enemy.
That is to say, the old, faceless conical-hatted figure in black pajamas of old Hollywood movies has donned the galabiyya to play the new antagonist in the desert.
But don’t give in to the self-indulgence of despair. Despair fuels hatred, warping you into the image held by those who think the worst of you.
You have survived, after all, and you must turn your new life into a constructive expression, not just for yourself but for all those you love and care for.
How you do this you must find on your own. I can, from experience, tell you this: you cannot run away from the past, feign amnesia, and embrace the new. I tried this, and it did no good. I learned to combat the rancor in my heart by embracing my losses, accepting the tragedies of my life – my lost homeland, my dead friends and relatives, my traumatized family, my broken heart – as a kind of inheritance. Over time, I learned to give it aesthetic expression, and this gives me solace, a center, and ultimately a sense of direction.
My second piece of advice is to accept the contradictions of your new home. You must look at this country through two very different lenses: America versus the United States. The two can be as opposed to each other as the olive branch is to the cluster of arrows grasped in the bald eagle’s claws on the Great Seal. In good times, America leads. In bad times, the United States dances alone.
The United States, after all, is a sovereign government with permanent interests, currently waging a war on many fronts. Rhetoric aside, it will trample upon the lives of innocents in its path in order to secure its interests. This is called “collateral damage,” and is yet another bitter pill you must learn to swallow.
Yet America remains the ideal that we all aspire to, everything you and I have ever dreamed of – transparency, opportunity, due process, fair play and a promise of expansion and progress. It is where you work hard and earn respect, build a home and raise your kids, and where, with determination and a clear vision, you can rise to your highest potential. America tolerates difference, understands diversity and assumes you are innocent before proven guilty. America allows you to practice your religion, protects your privacy, and encourages you to dream. It is a place where you can disagree with your neighbors, your politicians, even your government, without fearing violence or arrest.
While the United States is a fact, America is the deepest promise of this country, fashioned out of the fire of idealism, never fully realized but constantly re-imagined and fought over by each generation. Accepting the cold reality of what the United States does out of national security interests does not mean you should ever be complacent. You must correct and object to the wrongs, the immoralities and injustices that are being waged at home and abroad, for this is the truest form of patriotism.
My third piece of advice: In spite of your sad memories, ally yourself to this country, and let it embrace and transform you as you will undoubtedly transform it. Look at the new faces of America: the Indian writer, the Salvadoran grocer, the Chinese restaurateur, the Haitian shop owner, the mixed race children of many inheritances - the entire world has entered here, has integrated and commingled. The American experience no longer needs to be monolithic and singular. Instead, a complex, cosmopolitan, horizontal chorus is forming. And it needs your voice.
This is my final piece of advice: Tell your story. Commit everything – each unmarked grave, each burnt-out house, each broken body – to memory. And when you can, sing. It’s your responsibility, your spiritual burden to speak up, to bear witness to the new tragedy for this generation.
As a Vietnamese refugee who became an American writer, I can tell you that you matter, that your sadness matters, the story of how you survived and triumphed matters. For every story that belongs to you, in time, belongs to America.
Andrew Lam is the author of Perfume Dreams
Articles By Andrew Lam
When Buddhist monks Get Mad
New California Moments
Too Much Self Esteem Spoils Your Child
Iraq Replaces Vietnam as Metaphor for Tragedy
Iraqi Refugees -- Why 'Little Baghdad' Won't Form in the U.S.
My Space, The Final Dwindling Frontier
Andrew Lam's youtube page
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User Comments
Alli Tipton on Nov 07, 2007 at 08:37:57 said:
Dear Andrew Lam,
I am going to take the opportunity to introduce myself. My name is Amanda Jaber and I am a high school senior at a small Catholic school in Pennsylvania. I am also, at the same time, a first generation Palestinian girl who found it quite easy to relate to your Letter to an Iraqi Exile. Now although I am not an exile or refugee, I clearly saw and understood the advice you gave in your letter, and it is in mine that I commend you for an exceptionally written work, full of insight, truth, and guidance. As I read, I began to realize that with every paragraph you give hope to someone who is surely terrified about coming to a new land, troubled by what he has left behind, and is now in the same shoes that you wore years ago when you came as a refugee from Vietnam. I can only hope that he will somehow get the opportunity to read this letter, because I am sure, that even though you two have never met, he would take great comfort in the words you have written to him.
The things you speak about in your letter are such truths, that although we claim to already know them, to hear them with such objectiveness and “wise” insight (seeing as how you know from experience) make their impact that much more forceful. For example, “You will soon learn that in the land of plenty, there’s plenty of irony.” That single line instantly made me think- it made me stop, reread it and repeat it- twice, and with thought, the reality of that statement was overwhelming. “The country that boasts, give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses longing to be free, turns its back on those whose misfortunes are the direct result of its own actions.” There are people in this country who are starving and homeless. In the most prosperous and wealthy country on this planet, there are way too many people who have nothing to feed their children or nowhere to sleep at night. You can’t tell me this is how it has to be. While I was thinking, I realized that English is your second language. The majority of people who have spoken English their whole life would probably fail to write something not only as great in content, but something with such skill and tact in manipulating their first language into such a great work as you have done with your second.
I can’t exactly pinpoint one thing that makes this letter so appealing but your style is so powerful to me. The structure, with the breaks and pieces of the advice all separated, and the simple sentences that go on to list numerous things that relate to what you are saying, has an extremely big effect on the way this essay is taken. If it was all just written out in a regular letter, much like the one I am writing to you, it would still be good because of its content, but it would not be great because the things that make it hit you (the separations between thoughts and parallelisms that give the work its impact) are gone. “America tolerates difference, understands diversity, and assumes you are innocent before proven guilty. America allows you to practice your religion, protects your privacy, and encourages you to dream. It is a place where you can disagree with your neighbors, politicians, even your government, without fearing violence or arrest.” We all claim to already know these things, but it is not until they are read in this form that we are forced to pause and think about them, take a step back and realize the truth that they really do carry- and all of this comes from the way they are written.
I could honestly go on for pages about your letter which is, ironically, a single page, but I will spare you the excess of verbiage. I just want to let you know that even if the Iraqi exile this letter was intended for never gets to read it, it has left an indelible mark on a first generation Palestinian girl from a Catholic school in Pennsylvania. Thank you for your insight.
Sincerely,
Amanda Jaber
-- edited by the publisher.
Stephanie Guerdan on Nov 07, 2007 at 08:36:43 said:
Dear Andrew,
When I began to read your letter, I thought immediately that it was not meant for me. I have never known the pain of leaving behind my home; I have never known war in the visceral and real way you have; I have never known the experience of adjusting to a completely different culture. I can barely begin to imagine the circumstances both you and the subject of your letter experienced. Relief, guilt, confusion, and sadness are all emotions with which I am familiar, but I have never experienced them in the way you have. I felt like an intruder, reading a letter which was not addressed to me.
As I read more, however, I realized that most of your letter can be applied to any and every American, whether a newly-arrived refugee or a sheltered, native teen or anyone else. The advice you give would be especially helpful to a new arrival to this country, but is also something which every citizen of these states should consider. What struck me the most was exactly how true it was. Our country is a beautiful place, an egotistical place, an oft-criticized place, a contradictory place, and an entirely unique place. I would like to thank you for provoking me to think about it, both as the United States and as America, and for reminding me why I love it so much.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Guerdan
Amanda Jaber on Nov 07, 2007 at 08:35:52 said:
Dear Andrew,
I am writing to you because I recently read your Letter to an Iraqi exile and was amazed by your writing and advice. I feel that you wrote something that can echo throughout the county. You are proof of what America truly resembles. You came into America hurt and confused, yet did not fight against what we have to offer but embraced it. You looked towards the opportunities through your hurt, and used your emotions for good rather than fueling hatred. I feel your letter was real; it was not biased or aggressive. You considered all points and spoke about learning to live with what you are given. The United States is not perfect and has many flaws, but nothing is perfect and that is what makes it beautiful.
I hope Americans and the new refugees open up and accept each other. Hopefully the refugees coming from Iraq can learn from your letter and take in their new home. My favorite piece of advice from this letter was to not forget the country and culture you came from. All people in America have an ancestry. We all came from some other country, whether Europe or Asia, and our ancestors went through a struggle to come to the land of opportunity. I feel the refugees today are starting a new path for their future generations. We are all somehow connected in that sense. I also hope, as you suggested, that they put your final piece of advice to use, to tell their story. Our stories, our hopes, and our dreams, together make up us: the United States. I am admired by your drive and charisma and wish you the best of luck in the future.
Thank You,
Alli Tipton
Pittsburgh, Pa
Cheng/Yu on Oct 11, 2007 at 00:49:06 said:
Aren't the Americans and Vietnamese lovers now?
Thinh Ba Nguyen on Oct 05, 2007 at 09:56:51 said:
Yes,North America is an opportunity destination but we Vietnameses paid the big lost to be the refugee so settle down in the land that we struggle everyday.
In USA,there are succeed and failed stories
occurring to everyone.For example,people who lived in the fishing village,or people dwelt in the city in Vietnam,can be a millionaire because they work very hard to get what they think and work for.Therefore,that must be better not to live under the regime that taking revenge and no cares to its people who just lived in South.(Thank God,the "doi moi" reform is applied now in that country)
From Vietnamese catastrophe,we don't want it to repeat to everyone.People who are in the government or military should do better job to protect its people and thinking in the correcting paths.Don't let war between themselve,and don't screw up then wrapping money and running away to let the ordinary people getting suffer.
Lisa on Oct 05, 2007 at 08:39:55 said:
Thank you. For speaking your truth; revealing your personal experience, and the complex proceeds of your years of soul-wrestling, and reflection. Your wisdom and perspective teach that with terrible effort a heart and mind can include loyalty to all you have loved and was lost, and yet find a place in them to enfold, digest, and integrate a new experience, country, culture -- even an oppressor. While every journey taken is an individual journey, the young person you are writing the letter for (if they ever have a chance to read it)has been given the gift of your journey, your strength, your hard-won perspective. As have I. And I thank you.
Tammy on Oct 04, 2007 at 20:17:00 said:
to Lam
Funny! in your positives, I find lots of negatives. In your encouragement, I find many despair. Or... I can be wrong.
I hope that little boy find peace and happiness where ever he lives. hE SHOULD BE HIS OWN DESTINY AND NOT A SHADOW OF HIS PARENT'S LEGACY.
tAMMY
I also think you over encouraged him!
Tuan Le on Oct 04, 2007 at 19:39:46 said:
Hey Lam,
My parents lost many family members during the war. They were just at home. Bombs dropped on them (Grandma, aunt, uncle and sister). My other uncle and dad joined the army to win back our motherland. We are still here. Although it is hard life. But I am proud to say.. we build it. We earned it. We are our own country and government. The south had 20 years of free election but was in turmoil, scandals and let American bomb on our soil and lives. I am sure you are an ideal american now. Do they feel the same?
Tuan, Hanoi Vietnam
Tuan Le on Oct 04, 2007 at 19:36:40 said:
Hey Lam,
My parents lost many family members during the war. They were just at home. Bombs dropped on them (Grandma, aunt, uncle and sister). My other uncle and dad joined the army to win back our motherland. We are still here. Although it is hard life. But I am proud to say.. we build it. We earned it. We are our own country and government. The south had 20 years of free election but was in turmoil, scandals and let American bomb on our soil and lives. I am sure you are an ideal american now. Do they feel the same?
Tuan, Hanoi Vietnam
Daniel on Oct 04, 2007 at 19:20:20 said:
Dearest Lam,
The Promised land is in the middle east... you've got the bible & information wrong LAM. Does it mean all human should come to America and live? None other place on earth is a promised land? i think where ever American involves, there will always be a civil war and there will always be American collaborator who will try to immigrate. $$$$ & freedom!
The little boy is really is a decedent of his parents action. god help him on his new royalty to a nation For his parents have got none.
Daniel, AZ
Thanh Nguyen on Oct 04, 2007 at 19:01:08 said:
Vietnam war time line in your article:
Jan 66 thru Oct 68 - US bombs dropped on N. Vietnam total over 600,000 tons
1 Mar 66 - An attempt to repeal Gulf of Tonkin resolution was defeated in the US Senate
29 Jan 66 - US begins bombing around Haiphong and Hanoi, N. Vietnam. This is considered a major escalation of the air war
---
16 Mar 68 - My Lai Massacre - Quang Ngai province - In 1971, LT Calley was convicted and sentenced to \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"life\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\". His sentence was later changed to 20 years \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"hard labor\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\". Over 100 civilians were massacred.
31 Mar 68 - President Johnson commits the US to a non-military solution of the war when he announced he would not seek re-election, and ordered a bombing halt over 75% of N. Vietnam (north of the 20th Parallel)
31 Oct 68 - President Johnson announced he would halt all bombing of N. Vietnam on 1 Nov 68. The B-52 bombing halt was maintained until 15 Apr 72. The US bombing \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"sorties\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" were shifted to Laos 1 Nov 68 on through 1972 -- over 25,000 sorties were flown, with the most occurring in 1971
More FACTS information on www.landscaper.net/timelin.htm
Bombs dropped in Vietnam equals to WWI and WWII combined.
i wonder why my parents did not tell me of these american crimes? or do we just concentrate on hating all that communist? What about to those who loves vietnam and died for protecting it?
i am a mere decedents of a collaborator?! a debt i did not own.
thanh Nguyen, Cali
Thanh Nguyen on Oct 04, 2007 at 18:58:36 said:
Vietnam war time line in your article:
Jan 66 thru Oct 68 - US bombs dropped on N. Vietnam total over 600,000 tons
1 Mar 66 - An attempt to repeal Gulf of Tonkin resolution was defeated in the US Senate
29 Jan 66 - US begins bombing around Haiphong and Hanoi, N. Vietnam. This is considered a major escalation of the air war
---
16 Mar 68 - My Lai Massacre - Quang Ngai province - In 1971, LT Calley was convicted and sentenced to \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"life\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\". His sentence was later changed to 20 years \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"hard labor\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\". Over 100 civilians were massacred.
31 Mar 68 - President Johnson commits the US to a non-military solution of the war when he announced he would not seek re-election, and ordered a bombing halt over 75% of N. Vietnam (north of the 20th Parallel)
31 Oct 68 - President Johnson announced he would halt all bombing of N. Vietnam on 1 Nov 68. The B-52 bombing halt was maintained until 15 Apr 72. The US bombing \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"sorties\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" were shifted to Laos 1 Nov 68 on through 1972 -- over 25,000 sorties were flown, with the most occurring in 1971
More FACTS information on www.landscaper.net/timelin.htm
Bombs dropped in Vietnam equals to WWI and WWII combined.
i wonder why my parents did not tell me of these american crimes? or do we just concentrate on hating all that communist? What about to those who loves vietnam and died for protecting it?
i am a mere decedents of a collaborator?! a debt i did not own.
thanh Nguyen, Cali
Hoang on Oct 03, 2007 at 14:52:08 said:
A fine piece of writing!
The question that arises is WHY the America as you defined it remains more elusive than ever. I suggest you and the readers take a look at this article that offers the most comprehensive answer I could find to date:
www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/132443-Al+Gore+and+the+Monolithic+and+Ruthless+Conspiracy
Hoang on Oct 03, 2007 at 14:52:03 said:
A fine piece of writing!
-->The question that arises is WHY the America as you defined it remains more elusive than ever. I suggest you and the readers take a look at this article that offers the most comprehensive answer I could find to date:
www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/132443-Al+Gore+and+the+Monolithic+and+Ruthless+Conspiracy