~ The Beginning ~
Hannah: My full name is Hannah An. Last name is An, yes.
Lindsey: Where are you originally from? H: Actually, originally from Vietnam. Saigon, Vietnam. I was born in Saigon, but my family was originally from the North. North Vietnam. I was born in the south.
L: What is your full name?
Danny: My full name is Danny Nhat Van An
L: Where are you from? D: I am from Vietnam
L: Where in Vietnam?
D: I grew up in North Vietnam, but later on, I move to the South. Yes from north to south
L: When did you move from north to south?
D: I moved from north to south in maybe 1952. I move from the north to the south and move to Saigon.
L: How old were you during the time of the Vietnam War?
H: Let’s see, I was 19… When the war was over it was 1975, so I was about little older, like 10 years old. Was 10 years old in 1975, but the war started in 1968. I don’t know that would make me 7 years old. Yeah.
~ Involvement in the War ~
L: What did your father and other family members do during the war?
H: My dad was in the air force. He was one of the colonels in the air force. My grandfather was a businessman. We had a lot of banks and business. He was in commerce. We were involved in a lot things. Yeah my family was involved in many things.
D: After 1956, you know, Vietnam get the independence of France. Then after that I moved from France to Vietnam. Then later on, I join the air force. So I became the Vietnamese air force officer in South Vietnam
Roxy: If you had not moved from the north to the south, you would have fought for the north, correct?
D: You never know, because sometimes, you know, when you stay in the north and you go to the south, sometimes you get stuck. Sometimes you need to fly or even walk. Because sometimes you can make the decision by yourself, right?. Sometimes you have to join this party or the other. And you got to know during the Cold War after the second war, they’ve been fighting a little bit about ideologies, between the communism and nationalism like the communists or socialists, or you know freedom country. So when you stuck in East Europe, you have to fight for east Europe right? You have no choice, right? You have no choice. But you know, if I had a choice, I have to find the side that supports the people and freedom right? Which one has more freedom? I will be on that side.
H: Of course we support the south, because we believe. Our belief is in freedom and capitalism. And, I’ve always believed that with communists the theory is excellent, but in reality it would never work. In order to grow economy, it has to be a combination. I think capitalism gives people the ability to excel and make your dreams come true. That’s one of the reasons why that United States economy has been successful, even though we are a very young country.
R: If you were fighting for freedom, how did you feel your freedom was being restricted by civil war?
H: Basically, because what ever you do is very controlled. Everything you do is controlled. Beside that, as a woman, you don’t have that freedom. It’s a combination. Of course, back then, third world country, women did not have the ability to grow as much. Even as a capitalist economy as well. But it was even worse. Because everything you do was so controlled. People just relied and in theory they say “oh you know you share wealth among all” but that’s not true. I hate to say this, but the people that control the party, makes more corruption than anything. Now it’s more hidden, you don’t know about it. They keep you silent. At least in capitalism, there is more of a voice for you. Of course, in Vietnam, the south we don’t have much of a voice, like United states. At least we can a little voice. But in communism there is shushing, if you go against the party, you disappear, right?
~ Family ~
L: Where were you living? Was your whole family living in Saigon?
H: Yes. I mean, we have a very large family. My mother had 7 children. On her side was a lot. My dad was an only child, but there was a lot of relatives. My immediate family lived in Saigon, Vietnam. Kind of throughout the whole country, we had relatives everywhere. Part of my mom’s family got stuck in the north too. Some of her relatives, her brothers and sister, was got stuck in the north side, the communist side. They weren’t able to escape to the south?
R: When they got stuck in the north, were you able to see them again?
H: No oh no. The whole section with the war, you can’t go over. Actually I didn’t get to see them until the war was over. And until very recently like the late nineties, when we came back were we able to see them.
L: What was is like being a young child during the war? I’m sure it was difficult to understand what was going on fully.
H: I think it was very different from everyone. For myself and my sister, I think we fall in the class of very… In the third world countries there different classes, I think we were on the top class. We were very well off. We lived a very, I hate to say this… but a very sheltered life. Therefore, we were very protected from the whole war itself. So, we do not experience poverty. We do know that you know we see people fighting, dying everywhere but you see bombing, all that. But we were still protected.
R: Did you have friends that were less privileged who had a harder time? H: Yes, um… The society was very separate. The wealthy peoples were not a lot. It was very different. My family, my friends we go to the really top best schools. It was very different. But as you travel around the country you get to experience that, you do get to see a lot of that.
~ Fear and Excitement ~
L: What was it like experiencing like a lot of the bombings and fighting?
H: We experienced that towards the end. Then that’s when you see. The fall of Saigon happened so fast. All I see is when you travel out in the countryside. Like I said when I was so protected and sheltered, you don’t see as much. Just what you see on TV when you read about it… When you travel the countryside you see people being maimed and everything. You see all of that. Toward the end, it happened so quickly. For me it was kind of scary. At the same time, my personal feeling was I thought it was kind of exciting. Living such a privileged life, you don’t really get to see much. And everything was coming to Saigon, the capital. I thought it was kind of exciting. I had the ability to kind of like go. Everyone was so busy, they don’t pay attention to us. So we, me and my sister. We get to do whatever we want, in a way. Because during that chaos, we don’t have to walk a certain way, talk. We were very proper, but we could be whatever we wanted to be.
R: so it was a feeling of excitement, but were you ever really scared for your life?
H: I was scared, I can see people die. It was a combination of feelings, you know? And then at all the same time, the way my family left because who we are and our relations. My dad was in the air force and who my grandfather was. We were brought out the country by the CIA. The excitement of going to the United States was really exciting. I was looking forward to it, because you hear so much about America. What we can do. Because you know, as much as we lived a privileged life, but as a girl, you don’t get a lot of ability to do a lot of things. Freedom to do a lot of things. So I said yeah I go to the United States. Even right before the war, I always wanted to go to boarding school and go to East Coast and I heard about all of these great boarding schools, I was planning to go. It was all the excitement. Yeah it was really scary. In the end, there was all this fighting, shooting. In the end, I was so sheltered that they moved me away. Ok get on a plane and leave. Because of who my family was.
~ Relocation ~
R: Can you explain more about the whole process of the CIA relocation?
H: Actually it was very simple process. Like at that time, my father and grandfather was not both in the country, so in a way it was very scary. My dad was on a mission, my grandfather was also out the country, on some sort of a mission. Unfortunately, when it happened, one of my dad’s friend in the CIA. He came in and knocked on the door and said to my mom, “look you got to leave right now.” And my mom said, “wait it’s the middle of the night, I’m going to wait for my husband comes back and my father in law, I’m not going anywhere.” They said, “no, it’s too late, the fall of Vietnam is going to be over very soon.” My mom said, “we hardly hear anything, it’s just once in a while bombing, but it’s still outside and happened before, they came close and never made it through so I’m not going anywhere.” They said, “my suggestion is that you take the girls out of the country, cause the last thing you want is to have three girls get stuck, okay? And you need to take and leave like that.” I remember my younger sister was drinking her bottle of milk. She was carrying her bottle of milk. I understand because I speak French and a little English. Oh where are we going “we need to leave right now”, I thought it was fun. Cause you know nine or ten years old. You have this imagination! Great! We are leaving?! Let’s go! So excited to leave. Middle of the night they take us out and we carried nothing with us. Nothing. So that was scary.
R: so you carried absolutely nothing? didn’t grab anything?
H: nothing. For my mom, it was the middle of the night. What do you grab to start with? In her mind she was thinking, let’s just go to the Philippines, because we know a lot of influential people in the Philippines. Because of who my family was. Let’s go to the Philippines, leave us there. She would fly back and meet my dad. Let’s just do something like that. Let’s just get out. So we left everything. So we pretty much lost everything.
H: There were a lot of people who got very rich from the fall of Vietnam too. Cause like in every country there was some sort of corruption. Some people became very, very wealthy. Because they know in advance. Everything was transferred with money. But for us, my family, yes we were very well off, but because we didn’t believe in leaving, we wanted to fight. And so therefore, we end up losing a lot. We didn’t’ take anything with us. We left penniless, with nothing. We really have to start over here. We went from air force base, where the refugees came. At the beginning it was really fun for myself and my sister because you know, it’s like in a camp, you know. I have never seen people and I could talk to any kid, right? Before it was like oh, we don’t hang out with everybody. During that time, everyone was in like a camp. It was a lot of excitement. Then after that we get transferred over to Guam. We stayed at Guam for a little bit. And then from Guam we went to camp Pendleton, which is very close by here. Then first after that we were able, long story, we were able to get out and that’s where my family start over. But then the reality hit in. Then it’s no longer fun.