For people today in Vietnam, April 30, 1975 marks the end of US occupation, the reunification of North and South Vietnam, Liberation Day, the beginning of peace and self-sovereignty. It is celebrated proudly with nationalistic banners, flags, and military parades, and reminds the people that a country as small as Vietnam was able to defeat a military superpower, the US.
For the US, April 30, 1975 was the end of its military involvement in Vietnam. It was when “our boys could come home” after having been drafted into a morally questionable war. It conjures the chaotic scenes of Vietnamese people, who had helped Americans during the war, desperately pushing through US embassy gates in order to be evacuated, and being kept out by those they had helped. It is a reminder of the humiliation of military defeat and withdrawal for the US. It is when, as Yen Le-Espiritu puts it, the US starts the “we-win-even-when-we-lose” narrative, through which the US can remain heroes and saviors of Vietnamese refugees, by giving them the “gift” of safety and freedom (Mimi Thi Nguyen). But why were people fleeing in the first place and in need of this “gift”?
For many Vietnamese Americans, April 30, 1975 marks the beginning of their transition from being Vietnamese civilians to becoming Vietnamese refugees. It marks the beginning of many harrowing refugee journeys that severed the bonds of family, culture, history, language. In the Vietnamese language there is a proverb “chôn rau cắt rốn” this is the first act after a baby is born, to bury the child’s placenta and umbilical cord in the soil of their birthplace, tying their spirit to the land. April 30, 1975 is a day of uprooting. It is the day a country, a home of South Vietnam, ceased to exist.
For Cambodia and Laos, which are too often unrecognized as primary sites of the war, this day marks the collapse of the American backed regimes in their countries. For Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge had already taken Phnom Penh by April 17, and the horrors of genocide, mass starvation in labor camps, torture, executions, and constant surveillance had begun. In Laos, under the Pathet Laos, people who had supported the Americans were sent to brutal reeducation camps where many died from hard labor, starvation, disease, and punishment. A refugee crisis also ensues. 50 years later, there are still unexploded ordinances left over from the 580,344 illegal and unauthorized US bombing missions (260 million bombs dropped) in Laos and Cambodia between 1964-1973, that continue to injure and kill Lao and Cambodian civilians today.