Vietnamerica: A Family's Journey

One of the central stories in GB Tran’s graphic memoir is the largely unresolved resentment that Tri Huu harbors toward his father, Huu Nghiep, for abandoning his family to join the Viet Minh. The Viet Minh was a nationalist organization founded in 1941 by communist leader Ho Chi Minh. The Viet Minh’s goal was to resist Japan’s occupation of Vietnam during World War II and France’s colonial authority. When Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, effectively ending World War II, the Viet Minh declared Vietnam an independent country, but France thwarted its sovereignty by attempting to regain control over its Indochinese colonies, a power they’d held since the late 1800s. The Viet Minh engaged in war with France from 1946 to 1954, eventually defeating the French, in a conflict known as the First Indochina War.

GB’s parents grew up during the First Indochina War and survived the subsequent years of the Second Indochina War, also known as the Vietnam War. At the 1954 Geneva Accords, Vietnam was divided, with Ho Chi Minh ruling the north in Hanoi and the US-backed regime controlling the south in Saigon. Fighting ensued for the next 20 years, and the US withdrew its troops in 1973. On April 30, 1975, the North invaded Saigon and reunified the country under communist rule in an event often referred to as the “fall of Saigon.” GB’s family narrowly escaped the capture of their city by evacuating five days before the fall.

For GB, who has family members who served on both sides of the war, his graphic memoir validates the personal experiences of his relatives without judging their political and ideological differences. Huu Nghiep, whose love for his country outweighed his role as husband and father, later became disillusioned by those ideals. His son, Tri Huu, took his family (including his mother) to the US but visited Huu Nghiep years later, and they somewhat healed their wounded relationship, but deep resentment remained for Tri Huu. Vinh as a young man was drafted to fight against his compatriots but believed that his people simply want to “coexist” (167). Do, who remained in Vietnam to help internal refugees and was forced into a communist labor camp after the war, saw his internment as a form of sacrifice for his countrymen. By depicting these various stories, GB diversifies and humanizes narratives of the Vietnam War that tend to focus on American lives and the binaries of North versus South or Communist versus anti-Communist. By highlighting the voices of Vietnamese nationals, GB engages in a transnational perspective that reflects the ways that multiple “returns” to the homeland have redefined the Vietnamese diaspora and their various perspectives, which not only generational differences but also individual experiences inform. GB’s graphic memoir gives a voice to families torn apart by the country’s history of armed conflict and highlights the themes Nostalgia and Exilic Longing; Separation, Abandonment, and Loss; and Memory, Truth, and Reimagining the Past.