The War We Inherited
The Refugee as Abolition: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon
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The Refugee as Abolition: Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Fall of Saigon -
Elliana Xiong
A Hmong Soldier
It’s been two years since I came to America and about five years since the Vietnam War ended. After we realized we lost the war, many of us fled to our families, preparing them for what we knew was coming. The Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces would come, and we needed to be gone before they could reach us. We spent weeks on the run, only to spend months in an overcrowded refugee camp, where many of us had nothing to do but sit with the echoes of the painful decade our people had endured.
Although I haven’t set foot in the mountains of Laos in years, glimpses of life before the war continue to remind me of what I lost. My mother had just given birth to my baby sister. My father had been a well-respected leader in the clan. Our village had just begun to flourish. Life was peaceful. Then the war came, and it was only chaos.
I still remember everything. The violent kick of the large gun against my shoulder. The deafening sounds of the bombs and gunfire. The ground trembling beneath my feet as I ran for cover. The constant overwhelming fear for my life and for the lives of my loved ones. Watching my friends fall to the ground, taking their last breaths, never to be seen again. These memories have kept me awake at night, lingering in my mind since I made the decision to give up my guns and flee.
There was another boy from my village who was a couple of years younger than me, just fifteen. We were recruited together, trained together, and even placed in the same combat unit together. As we dragged around rifles that were way too big for our bodies, we formed a bond – laughing in times that weren’t appropriate, crying in secret about how much we missed our homes and families. We fought and survived every battle together, and when the time came, we fled together, going back to get our loved ones and leading everyone to the refugee camps. But the journey was merciless. He struggled with infection, and I watched as he became weaker and weaker with each passing day. He eventually gave in to the infection, and we were forced to leave his body behind. There was no time for mourning or for rituals to put his body and spirit to rest. We needed to get to safety as quickly as possible.
I feel lucky to be alive, but what is luck? Is it still being able to have a heartbeat while the bodies of those I once knew are now lost under the ashes of war or were abandoned on the perilous journey to the camps? Is it being able to be in America while there are still thousands of Hmong families sitting in refugee camps, waiting for their turn to be resettled? I know that I’m lucky compared to so many others. Yet, as I sit in my tiny shared apartment in Sacramento, I sometimes wonder if I will ever be lucky enough to fully heal the open wounds the war has left on my heart and mind – or if I will need more than luck to move forward from the pain that remains.
This is my home now. As much as I’ve wanted to give up, I know that I can’t. I have to keep going. I have to live for my lost relatives, my fallen friends, and all of the brave Hmong men who fought alongside me and gave their lives up to protect our people. Their spirits live within me, and I carry their memory with me every day — a heavy burden that will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Being Hmong in America
I was only twelve the first time I got jumped. A group of white teenagers, around sixteen or seventeen, saw me walking home from school alone, and they thought I was the perfect target. They chased me through six blocks of the run-down neighborhoods of Sacramento, only getting closer and closer with every block. By the time they reached me, my heart was pounding from fear and exhaustion, my body already tired.
I blocked out most of the beating from my memory, but I remember them calling me all kinds of slurs, telling me, “go back to your country.” The only thing that hurt more than the black eye they left me with was my dignity. They cemented an idea that had already begun to harden in my mind — no matter how hard I tried to fit in, I will always be an outsider.
From then on, until high school, I ran into trouble multiple times. I never suffered from any serious injuries, but I was sick and tired of being the punching bag for others who had unprovoked anger towards people that looked like me.
A friend of mine started getting close to a group of Hmong boys, many of them a couple of years older than us. He would tell me about all the things they did together, the good and the bad, and one thing that he kept saying was that he never had to worry about being a target anymore. Everyone looked out for each other. He would invite me to hang out with them, but knowing the reputation of the gangs in the area, I was reluctant to become involved with their group. Eventually, though, I agreed to go with him, and I began to see why my friend stuck with them.
At first, I would just watch and listen as they joked and laughed with each other, sharing stories of their own lives and of the times they had together. They seemed to have an understanding of each other that I’d never witnessed before — a bond created from shared experiences and hardships. The more I was with them, the more I found a strange sense of comfort and protection. I didn’t have to worry about hearing any racist remarks or being cautious about every move I made. They were no different from me, and I felt like I had finally found a family outside of my blood.
And so I became one of them. We did everything together, like brothers. We were your typical troublemaking teenage boys — sneaking out late at night, going to parties, getting into street scuffles and occasionally worse. Coming home with visible scars and bruises, I have no doubt my parents knew about my involvement in these activities, even if they didn’t say anything. Sometimes, I would hear them praying for my safety, asking Tswv Ntuj to guide me back to my senses. As much as I wanted to reassure them that nothing would happen, I couldn’t bring myself to make a promise that I knew could be broken at any time. It was a topic that we all tried to avoid. They had other worries to invest their energy into, with money being tight and barely enough food on the table every day for the eight of us. I knew they didn’t have it in them to constantly lecture me and tell me to stay out of trouble. They knew that I wouldn’t listen.
It wasn’t that I wanted to be disobedient, but I knew they wouldn't understand. They didn’t know what it was like for me when I did try staying out of trouble, only for it to constantly find its way back to me in the form of beatings. They didn’t know how it felt to walk through the streets or the halls of school, every step filled with anxious preparation for the chance of being confronted by any group of teenagers in sight.
After two years of being in the group, the older members started to become involved in more serious activities. As they began to take on more responsibilities in their home lives, they needed to find ways to support themselves and their families. It wasn’t long before they turned to a common way to make quick and easy money — drug trafficking. At the time, drugs like cocaine and marijuana were in high demand, so that’s what they started selling. I was against it, at first. Then, my little sister began to have heart problems, which meant hospital visits and hospital bills. As the oldest son, I knew I had to find some way to help my already struggling family. So when they offered me a chance to get involved, I took it without hesitation.
During one of my deals, I got caught by a police officer. The other guy ran, while I sat, frozen in fear. The officer, a middle-aged Hmong man, took me to the station, where he asked me questions, trying to gauge who I was and what I was doing. When I told him who my parents were, his eyes widened in recognition, and then narrowed in anger and disappointment.
“What are you doing?” he asked me. “I know that your family is struggling — we all are — but this isn’t helping anybody. You can’t let yourself fall down this hole because the further you fall, the harder it is to crawl back out.” He paused, forcing me to sit with those words ringing in my ears. Then, before letting me go, he said, “Your parents, your people, did not sacrifice their lives and come to America just for you to throw away the chance at living a better life than they could.”
His words felt like a punch to the gut. I knew he was right. My parents don’t talk much about their past, but I know that it still haunts them. I see the way they react to loud noises, their avoidance of anything reminding them of the war; and the way my father speaks, as if he’s still in the military. They’ve always been on the go, constantly working to avoid confronting their pain. They have poured their everything into ensuring my siblings and I didn’t have to carry the same burdens they did and still do.
I went to sleep that night full of regret and confusion about how I can break this cycle of hardship that seems to never have an end in my family. I thought about my parents and their hopes and dreams for us, their children. I thought about my younger siblings and how I wanted them to be able to feel like they had the opportunity to take different paths than I had. I swore to myself that when I was given the chance to give myself and my family a better life, I would take it. I would not let my parents’ sacrifices be made in vain.
Hmong American
Every year, amidst the excitement of Thanksgiving and the anticipation of Christmas, there is one weekend that I can never escape — Hmong New Year. Despite our busy schedules, my parents insist that my sister and I accompany them. So every year, I struggle to put on my uncomfortable traditional Hmong clothes, brace myself for the relentless blaring music, and wear my friendliest smile just to make my parents happy.
Surprisingly, my grandma decided to join us this year. She used to never miss Hmong New Year. Growing up, I remember waking up at the crack of dawn and coming here as early as possible so that we could help my grandparents set up their booth. My sister and I would stay with them while they talked to customers interested in buying their handmade Hmong jewelry. Many people would come to look at what they had, and only on rare occasions would they leave empty-handed.
Three years ago, though, my grandpa passed from a heart attack, and things haven’t been the same since. My grandma stopped making jewelry and saw no reason to attend Hmong New Year. It’s been harder to communicate with her, as my grandpa knew English and was able to bridge the language gap between the two of us. I would spend hours in their home, watching them in adoration as they made their intricate jewelry together, and listening to my grandpa tell stories about the adventures the two of them used to have. As I got older, I spent less and less time with them, and after he was gone, the visits became harder. I knew my grandma was hurting, but she was never one to openly express her painful emotions — especially not to her grandchildren. As much as I wanted to talk to her about the loss and ache that she must have been feeling, I didn’t even know how to begin or how she could respond in a way that I would be able to understand.
This distance between me and my grandma only reflects a larger disconnect I felt with the Hmong culture as a whole. As I followed behind my mom and grandma while they went from vendor to vendor, I felt very out of place. I saw groups of teenagers talking and laughing together, a reminder of something I never had while growing up in a predominantly white suburban neighborhood. Everywhere we went, the air was filled with conversations in a language that was familiar to my ears, but meant little to me since I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I felt like an outsider, watching others embrace a collective history that I knew little about, as though I was witnessing a celebration and remembrance that belonged to everyone but me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a booth displaying black and white photographs–a large contrast from the vibrant colors of the decorations and clothing associated with the Hmong culture. I left my mom and grandma, approaching the booth, and scattered on a plain white wall, I saw photos of Hmong people from the Vietnam War and after. An elderly woman at the booth handed me a booklet that included the pictures people submitted to be showcased along with their personal stories from the war and its aftereffects.
One photograph in particular looked very familiar to me. It was a picture of three men and a woman in the center, holding a baby in her arms. They were sitting by a river, all wearing somber expressions on their faces. Next to the picture was the name Niam Yaaj — my grandma’s name. The men with her were her two older brothers and my grandpa. The baby was her child. Underneath her name, both in Hmong and English, was a story that described her journey: from fleeing the war to staying in the refugee camps to being resettled in the U.S. It was a moving story of strength and courage, but also of loss and pain, as she recounts the feelings of being the only one from the photograph still alive.
As I sat in shock, trying to process these stories that I had never heard before, I saw my grandma approach the picture she submitted, gazing mournfully at the faces of her loved ones. She had always put on a strong front, but seeing her standing there with her shoulders slumped and eyes filled with tears, I saw the weight of the memories and agony that she has had to carry throughout her long life.
In that moment, the divide between who she was and who I was felt even larger. She had endured so much suffering in hopes of a better future for her family only for me to struggle to embrace the culture that made her who she was. As I wrapped my arms around my delicate grandma, I made a silent promise to honor and amplify the stories of my ancestors, and to preserve our shared history for the future generations.