Vietnamese Repatriation
Although most Vietnamese refugees made their way from Guam to the continental US, around 2,000 refugees asked to be repatriated to Vietnam. Their reasons varied from seeking family left behind in Vietnam to political and national commitments. Given the lack of diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam, American governmental officials were initially opposed to the idea of repatriation. However, after the refugees staged public protests, hunger strikes, and violent riots to pressure the federal government to give in to their demands, 1,652 repatriates were allowed to sail back to Vietnam. Although the repatriates tried to avoid retaliation for fleeing, the government of Vietnam suspected the repatriation as an act of sabotage and all repatriates were imprisoned in reeducation camps upon their return. Below are some materials from the repatriation effort alongside reflections from repatriates themselves.
In his memoir, Ship of Fate, Trần Đình Trụ details his multiple experiences of forced displacement, structured by Western intervention into the decolonizing country of Vietnam. Born in 1935 in Ninh Bình Province in northern Vietnam, Trần joined other Catholic families in moving south in 1954, following the French colonists’ defeat at Điện Biên Phủ and the political division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel. He then volunteered for the RVN Navy and after two years of training became a naval officer. Displaced from the land to the sea, Trần would sail far from home for months at a time. Right before the Fall of Saigon, Trần and his crew evacuated Vietnam on a ship bound for Subic Bay in the Philippines, initiating a months-long separation from his family left behind in Năm Căn. On May 13, 1975 Trần landed in Guam, where he was interned first at Tent City and then Camp Black Construction Co. and Camp Asan, following Tent City’s closure in June 1975. Unable to imagine life without his family, Trần joined the repatriate movement to reunite with his loved ones. After five months in Guam, Trần captained the Việt Nam Thương Tín ship back to Vietnam, only to be incarcerated in a reeducation camp until 1988. In 1991, Trần moved a final time: bypassing Guam, he flew to the continental United States under the tutelage of the US government, this time accompanied by his wife and children.
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In this letter dated September 6, 1975, the 1,600 repatriates in Camp Asan implore the “Guamanian people and American people” to support their request to return to Vietnam.
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