The Vietnam War
•
The Vietnam War •
Background
The Vietnam War was a costly and controversial war that took place from 1954 to 1975. The war consisted of the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam with its principal ally, the United States, and coincided with the ongoing intensity of the Cold War (1947-1991) between the United States and the Soviet Union.
In 1968, 550,000 US troops were in Vietnam, with over 16,500 killed and 110,000 wounded that year. 40,000 men were drafted each month, and in 1969, every 2 Americans personally knew someone who have been killed or wounded in Vietnam. By the end of the war, 58,000 American soldiers and about 1.5 to 3.6 million military and civilian North and South Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians were reported dead.
“The Vietnam War made Asian identity much more clear. It clarified in many minds what racism was all about”
— Kazu Iijima of Triple A
Anti-War Movement
The Vietnam War created a divide among American citizens, and growing opposition against the war led to the Anti-War Movement (1964-1973). The Anti-War Movement began in small numbers as critics began to question the government’s assertion that the Vietnam War intended to liberate the South Vietnamese people from Communist aggression to make way for democracy. In the beginning, the movement began as a small outspoken minority, mostly including artists, intellectuals, and members of the “hippie” movement during the rise of the Counterculture Movement of the 1960s and 70s. The Anti-War Movement began mostly on college campuses but soon spread throughout the nation.
Asian Americans' Role in the Movement
In 1969, Asian Americans became more prominent in the Anti-War Movement–collectively and as leaders. That year, Asian Americans for Peace in Los Angeles was formed; Shinya Ono (a member of the Weather Underground) was arrested during the Days of Rage in Chicago; Warren Furutani spoke at the first national Moratorium Against the War at Long Beach State College; Professor Isao Fujimoto spoke at the Moratorium at UC Davis; The first Asian contingent was created; 300 strong, marched in the second national Moratorium in San Francisco; and Pat Sumi helped organize a third Anti-War Moratorium in Oceanside as part of the Movement for a Democratic Military. Additionally, more Asian American contingents appeared in marches and rallies, and Asian-specific anti-war organizations were created, such as the Bay Area Coalition Against the War and the Asian Coalition in New York.
On April 24, 1971, the largest bi-coastal demonstration against the war brought an estimated 200,000-500,000 protesters to Washington DC, and 15,000 to San Francisco. In New York, a flyer spread to organize an Asian American contingent to Washington, DC, which rhetorically asked, “Why an Asian Contingent?” and answered, “Because…America is perpetuating a systematic cultural and physical genocide of Southeast Asian people.”
Activism among Asian Americans was generated by the discovery that the “enemy” (the Vietnamese) bore physical characteristics similar to themselves; however, anti-war activists’ lack of acknowledgment of the racial issues contributing to the war caused many Asian Americans to divert their efforts towards other movements (ie. the Third World Liberation Front).
“The vicious imperialism which seeks to commit total genocide against the proud people of Indochina is the same imperialism which oppresses those of us here in the US by creating dehumanizing conditions in our Asian Communities.”
— Patsy Chan (San Francisco rally)
The Emergencia Summit Conference
“The Emergencia Summit Conference of Asian, Black, Brown, Puerto Rican, and Red People against the Vietnam War” took place on June 3 and 4 in 1972 at the Holiday Inn in Gary, Indiana. The conference showcased the differences between the mainstream Anti-War Movement and that of activists of color, creating “the meeting of Third World People.” The conference contained over 300 delegates, including representatives from more than fifty grassroots organizations, meeting for the first time on a national scale.
The Emergencia Summit Conference had two main political principles: victory for the Vietnamese and other Indochinese people and complete support for the Seven-Point Peace Proposal of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam–2 points Asian American contingents regularly stressed.
At least 12 Asian Americans attended from throughout the United States, which formed an Asian Caucus that selected its representatives for the People’s Solidarity Committee. The Asian Caucus included the following people: Yiri (then known as Mary) Kochiyama; Dr. Anthony Kahng of Triple A from New York; Russell Valparaiso from Los Angelos; and Roy Nee from San Francisco.
“All of us who met at Gary have been daily faced with the problem of not only the aggression of the US against the Indo-Chinese people but also how to deal with the concrete problems that we face as oppressed nationalities in North America.”
—–Differences between Third World and mainstream perspectives, according to a conference report
Asian Hate
The Vietnam War was seen as the latest episode in a prolonged history of racism against Asians. Placards at anti-war rallies read “Makibaka!” (Tagalog for struggle), “Remember Manzanar!” and “Remember Hiroshima-Nagasaki!” connecting the Vietnam War with other past injustices against Asians by the United States (learn more about the Japanese Internment).
Some people related the Phillipine-American War (1899-1902) to the Vietnam War. In 1971, after the My Lai Massacre–the mass murder of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by the United States on March 16, 1968–and the broadcasts of stories about the atrocities in Vietnam, Pat Sumi wrote an article called “US War Crimes in the Philippines,” which sounded eerily close to the injustices taking place during the Vietnam War.
Racism against Vietnamese
Asian American contingents against the war began to be formed due to racism against Asian American soldiers in the US military, as well as Vietnamese and Americans of Asian descent back home in the US, particularly against women.
“The Nature of GI Racism,” written by Norman Nakamura in the June-July 1970 issue of the Gildra, was one of the first reports of the United States military racist behavior. The report documented the reason behind the mistreatment of Vietnamese by how “the land is not populated by people but by Gooks.” American GIs were taught not the trust the South Vietnamese or the Vietnamese soldiers. GIs felt immune to guilt and blame and felt culturally and physically superior to the Vietnamese.
“It seems ridiculous and hypocritical to be antagonizing the very people you are supposed to be aiding…Rather than bringing civilization to Vietnam, the American GI has brought racism to the Vietnamese people.”
— Frank Orr
Winter Soldier Investigation
In January 1971, the Winter Soldier Investigation was held in Detroit. The investigation was sponsored by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War and shared testimonies of Vietnam veterans. The focus of the investigation was to inspect how US soldiers mistreated the Vietnamese. The testimony emphasized the racism in the military that started in the US. 109 veterans and 16 civilians spoke at the Winter Soldier Investigations.
At the investigation, Mike Nakayama spoke out about the dehumanization of the Vietnamese by the military. Nakayama was one of the most outspoken Asian American veterans against the Vietnam War. He talked at campuses and communities across the country and testified at the Winter Soldier Investigation sponsored by the California Veteran movement in LA. During his talks, he explained how in the military, he was often used as an example of “the enemy” despite his status of being awarded a Bronze Star. He laid out how he was almost left for dead because he still looked like “a gook.”
Scott Shimabukuro declared while the focus of the investigation was how the US soldiers mistreated the Vietnamese, “it goes deeper than that. It goes into American society, which is all you people out there.” During his testimony, he emphasized the racism in the military started at home in the United States.
Mike Nakayama – “1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division”
Scott Shimabukuro – “L/Cpl. (E-3), ‘C’ Battery, 1st Bn, 13th Marine Reg, 3rd Marine Division”
-
“Once [Americans] get into the military, they go through the brainwashing about the Asian people being subhuman- all Asian people”
“All during boot camp, I was used as an example of a gook. You go to class, and they say you’ll be fighting the VC or the NVA, but then the person giving the class will see me and say ‘ He looks just like that, right there’”
“We won the right to be Americans. I fought for you to be an American”
Nakayama and Shimabukuro both linked the racism they experienced in the military to the racism their families and communities expereinced at home in the United States. At the Winter Solider Investigation, they also told the story of two of their friends that were mistaken for Vietnamese and beaten up so badly that they were in the hospital for months.
The Murder of Le My Hanh
Asian women in Vietnam and the United States were often targets of the Vietnam War’s physical and psychological violence. A GI soldier admitted, “In the Nam you realized that you had the power to take a life. You had the power to rape a woman and nobody could say nothing to you.”
Le My Hanh was a 17-year-old honors student living in Queens. On April 15, 1997, her trussed body was found stuffed in a closet after being beaten, raped, sodomized, and strangled by Louis Kahan, a Vietnam veteran. His defense attorney said that Kahan had done what he was trained to do. Kahan was found not guilty by reason of insanity. According to Chris Iijima, “Asians in America were fighting for self-determination at the same time, people who lived just like us in Vietnam were fighting for their lives.”
“It’s like institutionalized insanity. When you’re in combat, you can do basically what you want as long as you don’t get caught”
— American GI Soldier
Anti-Imperialist Women’s Conference
From March 31 to April 7, 1971, the Anti-Imperialist Women’s Conference was held at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. 6 women from North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and Laos met with 200 women from North America, sharing experiences to help end the war.
Pat Sumi asked Mike Nakayama to act as security for the Vietnamese women. Mike Nakayama, in a 1971 article in the Gidra, wrote, “Knowing that, as veterans, we had invaded and destroyed their land, and murdered and raped their families and friends, yet these women met and talked with us as brothers and sisters - stone revolutionary examples.”
End of the War
Asian American opposition to the war spawned from empathy for and identification with the Vietnamese. On July 1, 1971, the United States settled a date for the complete withdrawal of US troops and weapons. The United States agreed to stop meddling in South Vietnam’s internal affairs and end support for dictatorship.
The New York Asian Coalition wrote that since it was “possible for a small nation to defeat the most powerful nation on earth,” Asian Americans, a small group in the US, might also be“capable of winning a victory for the control of our own lives.” The Vietnam War instilled solidarity among Asian Americans within the racism of the United States, coinciding with the Asian American Movement of the 1960s and 70s (read more about the Third World Liberation Front).
The Vietnam War Memorial
In 1981, Maya Lin, a Chinese-American undergraduate at Yale University, won a design contest to design the Vietnam War Memorial, beating out 1,400 other competitors. The memorial includes a massive wall that lists the names of the more than 58,000 servicemen and women who passed during the Vietnam War.
The need for the names to be on the memorial would become the memorial. There was no need to embellish the design further. The people and their names would allow everyone to respond and remember. It would be an interface between our world and the quieter, darker, more peaceful world beyond.
–Maya Lin
Like the war, Lin’s design raised controversy. Despite the monument’s attempt to be apolitical, some critics saw the V shape design as an anti-war message or believed the design lacked resolution of the national conflicts over the war. There were many attempts to stop the construction of Lin’s plans, and some critics even used Lin’s Asian heritage as a reason not to continue the project, as the war took place in Asia. Nevertheless, on March 26, 1982, the Vietnam War Memorial was finished and has now become one of the most visited monuments in Washington, DC.
Written by Alana Arcilla