Stephanie Truong |
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Parents’ Experiences In Vietnam
Q: In previous talk you mentioned your mother is involved in the communist party? How was that?
ST: Yeah… They weren’t involved more than they were affected by it. My mother had pretty bad experience with them. The regime wanted everybody to be equal, so they definitely tinkered with the economy and the value of the dollar. So my mom’s side of the family, they have to interact with the Communist Party since they are well off. There was one incident that they came in to their house, and they were walking around, basically just to threaten them, show them they were in charge. They kind of just went in and interrogated them for no reason. The only reason why I know this because I was looking through a photo album that my mother had, and there was a note on the side, it was like, “I hope you grow up in a good environment.” I asked who wrote this. My mom said that was when the Communist Party came in and going through all of our stuff and they wrote that to be sarcastic. It wasn’t a good experience. My mom doesn’t like to talk about it, but that was the one thing that I know.
Q: So did they have a raid?
ST: I don’t know. I think they would just go around, and they would go into people’s houses and try to impose their power over them, even though they wouldn’t really do anything. They were just trying to [intimidate them]… yeah.
Q: How about your dad? You said your dad is in the village part. Did he experience anything?
ST: For the communist party, I think no, I think they stuck more to the city side. He told me he had pleasant experiences with the US soldiers who would march around there. One of his few memories is that all the kids would go up to them and the soldiers would give them M&M’s.
Q: You said your dad had to be careful with troops. What kind of troops?
ST: It was the Communist Party. Just like any kind of the political parties, in terms of involvement, people are trying to stay under the radar—trying to act out is going to be bad news for you anyway. So just try not to get caught. If they were caught sneaking out at night, because in the daytime you don’t want to, they would interrogate them and there was going to be a punishment, because the Communist Party didn’t want to leave the impression that people don’t want to stay in their country. If they were caught, they would have their consequences. It would be more like making them go back and telling them they couldn’t go, and maybe a little stricter about the consequences if you were caught again.
Object Description
| Profile of | Stephanie Truong |
| Title | What My Parents Saw |
| Profile bio | Stephanie Truong is a junior student currently attending the USC School of Architecture. She is an American-Vietnamese second-generation daughter of two Vietnamese war refugees who found their way out of Vietnam in the early 70’s when they were in their teens. Her mother was born in the city while her dad was from a village, both of them from South Vietnam. Stephanie explained how her parents escaped from Vietnam. Her mother boarded a ship to Thailand and was in a camp there while her dad escaped in a fish boat in the middle of the night. He spent 2 weeks in the boat and struggled for food and water and saw people died. He ended up his journey in a refugee camp in Thailand as well. Both of her parents were sponsored by families who helped them come to America. They settled their new life in the United States and years later Stephanie was born. Stephanie is a great example because as a second-generation child she recognizes the sacrifice that her parents did to escape the war that could have cost their lives if they stayed in Vietnam. She feels proud of them and as an American-Vietnamese she wants to share her parents' experiences with future generations as well as her personal perspective towards the war and how it was taught to her in American schools. |
| Profiler bio | Andrew Herrera was born in East Los Angeles, CA. He went to East Los Angeles Community College, and transfer to USC in 2012. He currently majors in Architecture. Difan Feng was born in Beijing, China, where he continued to live until 2008. He came to the US afterward for college. He was an economics major and changed to architecture after his first year. Iliana Michelle Lopez was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador. She moved to California in 2003. She studied architecture in East Los Angeles Community College and transferred to USC in 2012. |
| Subject |
refugee camp Vietnam war sponsorship culture shock culture 2nd generation |
| Profiled by | Herrera, Andrew; Feng, Difan; Lopez, Iliana |
| Profile date | 2014-04-01 |
| Geographic subject (state) | Minnesota |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA; Vietnam; Thailand |
| Coverage date | 1970-1979 |
| Publisher (of the original version) | http://anotherwarmemorial.com/stephanie-truong/ |
| Type |
images video |
| Format | 1 image; 5 video files (00:17:43); 5 transcripts |
| Language | English |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Part of collection | An Other War Memorial -- Memories of the American War in Viet Nam |
| Filename | truongstephanie |
Description
| Profile of | Stephanie Truong |
| Title | Parents' Experiences in Vietnam |
| Format | 1 transcript, 1p. |
| Filename | truongstephanie-vid2_tr2.pdf |
| Full text | Parents’ Experiences In Vietnam Q: In previous talk you mentioned your mother is involved in the communist party? How was that? ST: Yeah… They weren’t involved more than they were affected by it. My mother had pretty bad experience with them. The regime wanted everybody to be equal, so they definitely tinkered with the economy and the value of the dollar. So my mom’s side of the family, they have to interact with the Communist Party since they are well off. There was one incident that they came in to their house, and they were walking around, basically just to threaten them, show them they were in charge. They kind of just went in and interrogated them for no reason. The only reason why I know this because I was looking through a photo album that my mother had, and there was a note on the side, it was like, “I hope you grow up in a good environment.” I asked who wrote this. My mom said that was when the Communist Party came in and going through all of our stuff and they wrote that to be sarcastic. It wasn’t a good experience. My mom doesn’t like to talk about it, but that was the one thing that I know. Q: So did they have a raid? ST: I don’t know. I think they would just go around, and they would go into people’s houses and try to impose their power over them, even though they wouldn’t really do anything. They were just trying to [intimidate them]… yeah. Q: How about your dad? You said your dad is in the village part. Did he experience anything? ST: For the communist party, I think no, I think they stuck more to the city side. He told me he had pleasant experiences with the US soldiers who would march around there. One of his few memories is that all the kids would go up to them and the soldiers would give them M&M’s. Q: You said your dad had to be careful with troops. What kind of troops? ST: It was the Communist Party. Just like any kind of the political parties, in terms of involvement, people are trying to stay under the radar—trying to act out is going to be bad news for you anyway. So just try not to get caught. If they were caught sneaking out at night, because in the daytime you don’t want to, they would interrogate them and there was going to be a punishment, because the Communist Party didn’t want to leave the impression that people don’t want to stay in their country. If they were caught, they would have their consequences. It would be more like making them go back and telling them they couldn’t go, and maybe a little stricter about the consequences if you were caught again. |
| Archival file | Volume3/truongstephanie-vid2_tr2.pdf |
