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The Outcast Amerasian
The Outcast Amerasian
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Nothing is worse than being abandoned by the people you love and trust in a time of despair. In March 1975, feeling outgunned by the North Vietnamese Army, the South Vietnamese government and military leaders abandoned their own troops and the people in Central Vietnam. Among those left behind, Amerasian children suffered the most.
In this novel, Kevin Le tells the life story of an Amerasian orphan named Quan. He was abandoned by his American and Vietnamese parents at birth and then was abandoned a second time in 1975 by the orphanage that cared for him before he was six years old. As U.S. Embassy personnel and South Vietnamese generals fled from South Vietnam in 1975, thousands of vulnerable people fell into the hands of the communist victors. These included young Amerasian children. During the chaos, the staff of an orphanage in Chu Lai, a former U.S. airbase in Central Vietnam, told all Amerasian orphans to leave.
Left behind in Chu Lai, these abandoned Amerasian orphans had to deal with daily hunger and homelessness. Adding insult to injury, the children suffered abuses and rejection from society because of their skin color. Under new communist rules, Amerasian children were treated like second-class citizens. As children, they were not allowed to have education or healthcare because their parents were politically unfit in the eyes of the new regime. Some Vietnamese didn’t want to get involved with people whom the regime considered anti-reactionary or anti-revolutionary for fear of reprisals from local police. The only ones who dared to care for a young Amerasian orphan like Quan were other Amerasian orphans. Children took care of other children.
However, the sufferings of Amerasian orphans worsened as Vietnam’s economy went into near famine during the five-year period of 1976 to 1981. Despite that ordeal, Quan hoped someday he would be able to find his biological parents, so he decided to go on a journey to find his birth mother. During this journey he worked at many odd jobs. Some people whom he worked for were kind, but others were brutal and barbaric. Thanks to the kindness of a small soup kitchen owner, he learned how to read and write after work at night.
Not until thirteen years after the fall of South Vietnam did the American conscience awaken and take responsibility for the Amerasian children left behind in Vietnam. In 1988 the U.S. Congress passed the Amerasian Homecoming Act to bring Amerasian children home. In America these children are entitled to education, healthcare, and employment opportunities regardless of skin color, religious belief, and political views.
As in the French novel Sans Famille by Hector Malot and the short story “The Little Match Girl” by Hans Christian Andersen, the story of this young Amerasian child touches the heart of all of us. Kevin Le did a job of writing the epic odyssey of Quan from Chu Lai to America. This is a wonderful book for all families and schoolchildren.
Dien D. Phan, Ph.D., Professor
St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota
May 2014.
In this novel, Kevin Le tells the life story of an Amerasian orphan named Quan. He was abandoned by his American and Vietnamese parents at birth and then was abandoned a second time in 1975 by the orphanage that cared for him before he was six years old. As U.S. Embassy personnel and South Vietnamese generals fled from South Vietnam in 1975, thousands of vulnerable people fell into the hands of the communist victors. These included young Amerasian children. During the chaos, the staff of an orphanage in Chu Lai, a former U.S. airbase in Central Vietnam, told all Amerasian orphans to leave.
Left behind in Chu Lai, these abandoned Amerasian orphans had to deal with daily hunger and homelessness. Adding insult to injury, the children suffered abuses and rejection from society because of their skin color. Under new communist rules, Amerasian children were treated like second-class citizens. As children, they were not allowed to have education or healthcare because their parents were politically unfit in the eyes of the new regime. Some Vietnamese didn’t want to get involved with people whom the regime considered anti-reactionary or anti-revolutionary for fear of reprisals from local police. The only ones who dared to care for a young Amerasian orphan like Quan were other Amerasian orphans. Children took care of other children.
However, the sufferings of Amerasian orphans worsened as Vietnam’s economy went into near famine during the five-year period of 1976 to 1981. Despite that ordeal, Quan hoped someday he would be able to find his biological parents, so he decided to go on a journey to find his birth mother. During this journey he worked at many odd jobs. Some people whom he worked for were kind, but others were brutal and barbaric. Thanks to the kindness of a small soup kitchen owner, he learned how to read and write after work at night.
Not until thirteen years after the fall of South Vietnam did the American conscience awaken and take responsibility for the Amerasian children left behind in Vietnam. In 1988 the U.S. Congress passed the Amerasian Homecoming Act to bring Amerasian children home. In America these children are entitled to education, healthcare, and employment opportunities regardless of skin color, religious belief, and political views.
As in the French novel Sans Famille by Hector Malot and the short story “The Little Match Girl” by Hans Christian Andersen, the story of this young Amerasian child touches the heart of all of us. Kevin Le did a job of writing the epic odyssey of Quan from Chu Lai to America. This is a wonderful book for all families and schoolchildren.
Dien D. Phan, Ph.D., Professor
St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, Minnesota
May 2014.
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