Children of the Enemy

by Steven DeBonis

  Finally, in 1969, the Thieu government forced us to relocate. One day American soldiers came to our village in GMC trucks. We were used to seeing Americans. They often went out on patrol near our village. This time though, they came to relocate us. They were polite, but they told us we had one hour to move. Some of the villagers protested, especially the wealthier ones, who didn’t want to leave their homes and fields; but there was no choice, everyone had to go. I was not sorry to leave, the village had become too dangerous. The soldiers helped us get our belongings on the trucks and moved us to an ARVN base about twenty kilometers away.

  Our village was one of many in the area that was being relocated. We were sent to the ARVN camp and then told to clear land about a kilometer away. We were paid sixty dong a day for our work. A camp for the evacuees was to be built here. Dwellings were built, one for each family, about twenty in a row, each house six meters away from the last. They just built a cement frame, like columns, and a corrugated iron roof. We had to make the walls. The richer people made wooden walls, and the poor people used thatch. We made ours of thatch, and it took me ten days to finish. As dwellings were completed, families were moved in one by one. My family was the last on the list, and the last to be called. It was six months before we were able to move off the ARVN base and into our new house, and while I waited to be called, I worked clearing land for dwellings for other villages that had been relocated.

  The American military offered jobs on the base to all those from my village who wanted to work. Those that didn’t went back to farming or worked at the market. I took a job as a housekeeper at the U.S. army base at Bien Hoa, near Lai Khe, working with the Second Batallion, Eighth Cavalry, First Cavalry Division. For me, it was easier than working out in the hot sun like I had always done. A bus came and took me to work and took me back home again.

  After six months, the army moved to Dong Nai, and I went with them. I rented a house there in the town of Tam Hiep near Long Binh in Dong Nai. I left my children with my family in Song Be, and each week on my days off I would travel the fifty kilometers back there to see them.

  While I was working on base as a housekeeper for the communications section of the first cavalry division at Bien Hoa Army base, I met one American. His name was Lloyd. I knew that he had a wife and children in the States, but he was very good to me, and we became like boyfriend and girlfriend. Sometime we stay together in his room, but in the day, not in the night. One day his officer saw me and him in the room. He told me to come into the office. I say that Lloyd is my boyfriend. He said that he didn’t like GIs to have Vietnamese girlfriends. I didn’t speak English very well. Some things he said I couldn’t understand. I told him that we weren’t doing anything, just sitting and talking, but after one week, he took my boyfriend and sent him to the fire zone. My boyfriend, he told me, but I didn’t understand. I thought he went home to America. I was five months pregnant with his baby.

  Excerpt from letter to Lang from Lloyd dated March 14, 1990:

  I knew you were expecting a baby before I departed Vietnam, but I was not sure it was mine. Captain Vitachi, The officer who caught us in the hootch, asked me when I had to report to his office. Since I was put on a plane and sent to the fire base, I did not get a chance to ask you about it. When I departed, I was not sure . . . .

  My mother was angry that I’m going to have an American baby. She sees I am pregnant with American baby, she’s very sad. She says that a Vietnamese woman to be pregnant with no husband, that’s very bad. My mother loved me, but she was ashamed of me. When I gave birth to my baby son, I was scared of my mother, so I went to Dong Nai city and rented a house. I lived there alone. After my baby was born, three months, I went back to see my mother. I say, “I’m sorry, I very love my boyfriend. I didn’t take care of myself. Mother, you understand me.” She sees my baby, she loves him, and she’s not angry no more.

  In 1972, after I have Lloyd’s baby son, I moved to live with my sister in Vung Tau. I sent Lloyd a letter to America. I could not write English very well, I look in the dictionary to help me. I had his address, he gave it to me before he left. [Lang carefully unwraps a piece of waxed paper and takes out a yellowing slip of paper. On one side is Lloyd’s military address in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. On the other is his address in Minnesota. Lang kept this piece of paper well hidden in the years after ’75, for fear of reprisals from the government.] Lloyd, he sent me a letter back too. In 1974 I wrote him again. He wrote me back and said he would send me money, but we moved to live in Xuan Loc, Dong Nai province. After we moved, I didn’t get any more letters. In 1975 the VC came, and I scared if I write a letter to America, the VC say, “You have a husband in America,” and he take me to jail. I’m scared of that, so I cannot write.

  I stay in Xuan Loc and work in the fields. In 1978 a former soldier of the Thieu regime escaped from reeducation camp, where the Communists had sent him in 1975, and came to Xuan Loc. He worked for many people as a farmer. In the morning he goes to work, in the afternoon the landlord pays him, and he goes to buy rice to eat. I see him, he works for everybody. I tell him, come work for me too. So he works for me in the morning, and in the afternoon I pay him the money. He goes home, he stay together with my brother. He sees that I no have husband, that I am a widow. He comes to talk to me, he says he loves me. He wants to marry me, so we get married and we be together for seven years. We had three children, two girls and a boy.

  In 1985 the army come to Xuan Loc to find him. They know he escaped from reeducation camp, and they take him go to jail again, to P4 prison in Tay Ninh. I traveled there many times, but they never let me see him. I ask, “Why I can’t see my husband?” but they don’t answer me. I bring him food, but I don’t know if they give it to him or not. I never get letter from him. I never saw him again.

  One morning in 1990, I go to the market and buy a newspaper. I see in the newspaper that the court of Tay Ninh sentenced my husband to death. They killed him on June 27, 1990. They never tell me about it. I only found out in the newspaper, they say he die. They never even let me know, I don’t know why.

  You know, my brother was killed fighting the VC. Another brother also a soldier, was wounded, and cannot use one leg.

  Before the Communists came, one person could work and take care of a family. Under the Communists, even with a whole family working we could hardly survive. We had to sell a part of our crops to the Communists and a part we could keep or sell outside. The Communists paid a very low price for our rice, but the price of food was very high, the price of fertilizer too. So we could barely afford to buy food after growing and selling our rice.

  Before the VC, I used to go to the Cao Dai temple, but after ’75 I didn’t go because I was afraid that the Communists would see me. The Cao Dai opposed the Communists before 1975, and I was worried. So I just prayed at home and kept an altar.

  Nguyen Thi Lang and her family outside their billet in the PRPC

  Hanh, my American son, went to school six years. Some people are very cruel. They say to him, “Hey, you, American . . . you don’t have father. I am Vietnamese, I have a father.” Hanh says to me, “I don’t remember my father.” I tell him, “I had many pictures, but the VC come, I burned all.”

  My son has many problems because he is Amerasian. I tell him, “I am your mother, I will take care of you. I have your father’s address. Maybe one day we can see him.” But I never really believed this.

  Then one day we heard that Amerasians can go to America. My son, he say, “Mother, you have my father’s address. Let me see.” So I show him. He says, “Mother, now we make paper to go to America. You say one day you write father. Mother, now you write.”

  So I write a letter to Lloyd. I tell him that now Amerasians can go to America. I say to him that the Communists are no good. If you can help us go to America, you write me a letter back. I write many letters. Finally, I get a letter from him.

  Letter from Lloyd to Lang dated February 19, 1990:

  My Darling Lang,


  I received your letters and the pictures of Minh. I tried to answer your last letter, but it was returned, you must have moved to a new address. Since I’m unable to read and write in Vietnamese, I have found a family who can interpret for me. We are pressed for time now. I must receive a copy of Minh’s birth certificate, as soon as possible. I must register him as a child of a U.S. [citizen] born abroad before his 18 birthday. Once registered, both of you will be able to come to the U.S. on the Orderly Departure Program of the U.S. This program is handled by the U. S. embassy in Bangkok, Thailand. You need to contact them immediately. They have all the info on me and have been trying to contact you. Please hurry, I hope to be able to bring you to America before the end of this year. I hope you can find someone to interpret this letter for you. I’m rushed so will close this and get it in the mail. Thinking of you both, and hope to have you here with me soon.

  Love,

  Lloyd

  Letter to Minh Hanh: Dear Minh,

  I’m writing you from far away. I only wish we could have been together when you were growing up. There are many things I could teach you. Thank you for being a loving son and taking care of your mother. I’m trying to get you out of Vietnam and to the U.S. I need a copy of a birth certificate before your 18 birthday. I need it immediately, your date of birth and place of birth. As soon as I can find a way to send money, I will do so. I owe you a lot. Your brothers and sisters say hello, and hope to see you soon.

  Love,

  Dad

  [Although it seems clear that Lloyd is welcoming Lang and her family into his life, she still is preoccupied.]

  Lloyd is sponsoring me . . . but I worry. I worry that he is married. I know that he got divorced in 1976, but I don’t know if he married again. I hope not, I hope we can be together.

  My two sons from my first husband are still in Vietnam. I could not take them with me. They are over twenty, and my oldest son has no name in the family book, so I could not bring them. When I get to America I will send money to them. I hope I can sponsor them to come to the United States too.

  Excerpt of Lloyd’s letter to Lang of March 31, 1992:

  It’s a 90 mile trip from the airport to the house. Home is 4 bedrooms. It’s warm. I have 30 lbs. of rice and 25 lbs of deer meat and about 20 lbs. of fish stored. My daughter Susan will be there to help you and the children learn to use appliances. The children will have to learn to use the bathroom facilities, the hot and cold water so they won’t be scalded. We hope to make the transition a smooth one, but life is very different than in Vietnam.

  In Vietnam, I always worked as a farmer. I like farm work very much. I can plant rice and coffee. You think I can work farmer in your country?

  Postscript: Lang and her four children left for the United States in the spring of 1992. The day of her departure she was understandably uneasy about the transition she was about to face. A few months after her arrival in the United States, she wrote Cora Alcalde, her English teacher in the Philippine Refugee Processing Center. The following is a translation of that letter:

  Dear Cora,

  Today I write this letter to you, I hope you receive it. First, may you have luck and beauty forever. Now I would like to tell you what has happened to my family since leaving the PRPC.

  It took three flights to get to Michigan. When we arrived at the last airport, my son carried the suitcase and walked ahead. When he met his older half-sister, she was so happy that she ran quickly to her father and shouted, “My young brother looks just like you.”

  I recognized my husband immediately. . . . His appearance had not changed very much. We looked at each other, but could not speak. Finally, he took my hands and said, “Lang . . . how do you feel, seeing me again?”

  I felt so shy and embarrassed I could not answer his question.

  He held me closer and said, “I am so happy, why don’t you say something to me.” Finally I got my voice, and I answered, “I am happy too.” We were taken with emotion and wept.

  I met his older sister and his daughter. We went to his sister’s house, where they had a lot of food prepared for us, but we could not eat, we were so tired from the trip . . . .

  Lloyd then drove us to his house. It was a three-hour drive. On the way he told me that when he divorced his wife fifteen years ago, he decided that he would wait for me on the chance that we could be together again. Now, he said, it had come true.

  I asked if he still loved me as before, since I had three kids with another man. He told me that he loved me, he loved my children too, and he accepted them as his own children.

  Now we are living happily. On my son’s birthday we had a party with Lloyd’s brothers and sisters. My husband’s sister took me aside and told me, “When my brother divorced fifteen years ago, I advised him to remarry, but he refused. He thought of you, he wanted to wait for you. Now his dream has come true, and I share your happiness, because my brother will never be lonely.” Her words touched me deeply.

  Lang and Lloyd were married on December 26, 1992.

  Dung

  “I’m not scared of nothing.”

  Dung brings out a dish of roast pumpkin seeds from the makeshift kitchen at the back of her billet. “I cut pumpkin all morning at work in Food Distribution,” she tells me, “and they let me keep the seeds.” Her survival skills are well honed. From the GI bars to the streets, from the New Economic Zone to Vietnamese jails, Dung has learned how to make do for herself and her two black Amerasian children in any situation. Her English, learned in the bars of Pleiku and Saigon, is direct and utilitarian, particularly when she describes her ongoing conflicts with the post–1975 Vietnamese government: “When they [the government] talk bad to me, I tell them, “VC, you know, I been four times in jail, five times in jail, and now I’m not scared of nothing.”

  Unschooled and illiterate in her own language, at thirty-seven Dung is learning to read and write for the first time. In a tiny student notebook, she shows me her early attempts at writing. “My name is Dung, I am from Vietnam,” is put down in tentative, skewed letters. “I practice many times,” she tells me, “and now I remember.”

  I COME TO SAIGON with my mother when I be a little girl. I never went to school, we be too poor, so I never learned to read or write. I had a friend who was up in Pleiku, working bar, making good money. I wanted to help my mother, to take care of her, so, in 1968, when I was fifteen, I go up there to work bar, too.

  The first time I go to work, I don’t know nothing. My friends at the bar, they teach me—how to drink Saigon tea, how to talk to the Americans, everything. So I work bar, and I get pregnant with my son. I’m not sure who the father was, maybe this guy Winger. You know, when I work bar, I have many boyfriends.

  In 1970 I go back to Saigon and work the GI bars down there. The next year I meet Johnson. He’s army, from Texas. I live with him one year, and I get pregnant with my daughter. When he goes back to America, I go back to the bar. Johnson, he sent me letters from the States, he sent me money, he sent me anything I want.

  Back at the bar, I meet Dinkins, a civilian from New York. He worked aero-science, he taught about planes. So Johnson, he’s still sending me letters and money, but I’m living with another guy, Dinkins.

  Early ’75, Dinkins, he had to go up to Da Nang. When he comes back, he says to me, “Dung, you better come with me to America. If you want, I’ll take care of you.” I say, “No.” You know, I never liked him too much. He had many girlfriends, and he always was telling me lies. Anyway, he tells me, “Soon, the VC will come to Saigon, and they will kill you.” I say, “The VC won’t come yet.” I never believe that the VC could come to Saigon.

  So he went to the airport, and that night he did not come home. But the next afternoon he came back, I say, “Mother fucker, you say you go to America, why you here?” He say, “They got no plane.” The next day he goes back to the airport, and this time I never see him no more. Before he leaves, he say, “Dung, in one week the VC come.” I don’t believe him, but he be right. />
  Before ’75, I had everything; my own house, papers [for residing in Saigon], ID card, my babies’ papers and ID cards. When the VC came to Saigon, they took it all. The VC tell me, “Get out, you have no job, leave Saigon. You have two American babies, you have two American boyfriends. Get out, you have to go away.” They sent me to Tay Ninh [to the New Economic Zone] to break stones. I didn’t have money, I didn’t have food to eat either. I work all day, you know what they pay me? Three cups of rice. I didn’t eat, I gave to my son and daughter to eat.

  So they send me out of Saigon, and I escape and come back. But I have no ID for Saigon anymore, the VC take that already, so they catch me and send me back to Tay Ninh. I escape back to Saigon again. I try to sell something to make money, the VC they catch me and send me to jail. Why? Because the VC don’t want you to make money, they don’t let you sell. If you don’t make money, how can you eat? So I go out to sell—shoes, clothes, anything. They catch me and send me to jail again. Sometimes I play cards, and they catch me and send me to jail then, too. I been in jail many times.

  When I go to jail, my children, they stay with my sister or my brother. When I come back, we all stay together. They didn’t go to school. You have to have money, you have to pay to go to school. My son, one time he tried to go. There were all Vietnamese children there. My son’s an American baby, he be very shy. All the children would be laughing. They say “American baby, American baby.” After that he don’t go no more.