![]() "A lot of our elders feel like they did suffer a lot in Vietnam and during the transition here, and they associate that suffering with things such as communism," Nguyen said. Nguyen, of PIVOT, said it's crucial to acknowledge that the anger of the debate often arises from unaddressed trauma. On college campuses, domestic and international students have fought over which Vietnamese flag should be flown at graduation ceremonies. In 1999, more than 10,000 residents of Westminster, a Vietnamese American enclave in Southern California, packed the streets in violent protest when a video store owner displayed a poster of Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary communist leader, along with the red flag. It has allowed people to reminisce about their former lives, Vo Dang said, while giving them the strength to forge new paths in their adopted home.īut as with other emblems of national pride, allegiance to the South Vietnamese banner has also deepened divisions within the group. Today, the flag is a permanent, sacred fixture at important cultural events, including Lunar New Year, or Tết, festivals, serving as a totem of solidarity and rebirth. Supporters of President Donald Trump gather in front of the U.S. More than 20 states have adopted resolutions to do so. In the 1990s, Vietnamese American leaders began lobbying local elected officials to recognize the defunct banner as the "Heritage and Freedom Flag" to represent the displaced overseas community. In Vietnam, the North's red flag replaced their yellow one. "On the one hand, it's a political symbol," she said, noting that the banner's meaning has shifted over the years depending on "whose voice is loudest." "But on the other, there is this very affective and sentimental personal attachment that many in the refugee community have toward it."Īfter communist North Vietnam defeated the U.S.-backed South in 1975, scores of South Vietnamese refugees resettled in America. ![]() (The emblem has even been spotted in Australia at a "Stop the Steal" rally, a far-right campaign that falsely alleges widespread voter fraud against Trump.) ![]() (Vietnamese Americans were the only Asian group to favor Trump over President-elect Joe Biden in November.)īut the flag's growing visibility on the far right "opens up a bigger can of worms" for the diaspora, said Thuy Vo Dang, an ethnic studies professor and curator for the Southeast Asian Archive at the University of California, Irvine. The same sentiments buoyed the group's long-standing loyalty to the Republican Party. For decades, people have used it to express hatred for a communist regime that banished them from their country. Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Imagesįor Vietnamese Americans, the Yellow Flag represents many, often clashing, aspects of the refugee experience. White supremacy is not something you can be free under." President Donald Trump's supporters gather outside the U.S. "It's about us being free, and Trump is not someone you can be free under. "The ideas of authoritarianism, of overturning the people's will, are not the principles that this flag stands for," said Tung Nguyen, president of the Progressive Vietnamese American Organization, or PIVOT. I had lived through Communism and I know the tyranny and the pain it had inflicted on many families." (She declined to comment.)īut to community advocates who saw the South Vietnamese flag, or the Yellow Flag, as a symbol of democracy and unity, its presence at a riot was both alarming and infuriating. "It's a reminder of my roots and heritage. "This flag to me is an anti-Communist flag," Michelle Le, a Seattle-based real estate broker who flew the banner at the rally, wrote in a Facebook post, which has been deleted.
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