European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 3, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Searching for dad amerasian in America by Dianne Klein los Angeles times h or Mother sent her Here she says 1 fidgeting a Tittle breaking into a Grin not quite sure if happiness is called for or not people around her Are speaking English a language that she recognizes Only for its incomprehensible sounds. When she Speaks her 1 words Are vietnamese thu Hale has been in Southern California s Little Saigon area in Garden Grove a week. She was born in Bien Homo of the outskirts of that other Saigon the one that no longer officially exists. It was the year of the , 22 years ago on Christmas Day. This makes thu a proud. Here in the United states she knows that Christmas is a big Day. Quot my Mother told me to come and find my father Quot she says. Quot she says that finding my father will mean that i will have a better  then thu a pauses looking Down. Her father is a Black american just a Story from the War. Her Mother is vietnamese. The mosaic of cultures shows on thu a s face and in her walk. She says that her father was an Engineer. Quot i m afraid to find him a she says More softly now. Quot i think he might have a family and not want me. The Flash of sadness however soon fades. She smiles a reflex mixed with Trust and lifts her eyes once again. Thu a says that she Wilt search for her father nonetheless a because it is her Mother s will. There is Hope she says. She knows her father s name. It is John. Nothing else. Mary Payne Nguyen at the end of a very Long week sighs loudly making a face. She has heard this too Many times before. She is coordinator of amerasian services at St. Anselm s immigrant and refugee Community Center in Garden Grove Calif., one of 48 so called Cluster Sites across the United states where volunteers arid near volunteers work against time and Odds to acculturated the often unwanted. Offspring of an unpopular War. The amerasian a 30,000, maybe More a Are casualties of America s National ambivalence about Vietnam. Never in the history of american warfare has the unit Etc states undertaken such a Mammoth Effort to own up to fathering so Many. But the Effort took 13 years. A. The amerasian Are too old for childhood now but not quite old enough to understand exactly Why it passed them by. Derided As Quot half Breeds Quot in Vietnam beaten Down by discrimination and hate they arrive in the United states with the expectation that their american blood will quickly restore a future denied. A 1quot it is cruelly untrue. Since the amerasian Homecoming act took effect in March 1988, More than 12,000 amerasian have entered the. United states from Vietnam three times As Many As had arrived since the fall of Saigon in 1975. The state department estimates As Many Ais 20,000 More a accompanied by some 60,000 vietnamese family members a will arrive by the end of next year. Thousands of them Are expected eventually to Settle in and around Little Saigon the largest vietnamese Community in the United states so far this year More than 600 have registered for help at St. Anselm s. That number is expected to double at least by the end of this year. The Story perhaps not quite As dramatic As in Little Saigon is much the same throughout the rest of the United states a few studies about what this Means in human terms have already been done others Are under Way. The key phrase always seems to be that the amerasian Are a at High risk Quot a for drugs pm afraid to find him. I think he might have a family and not want me. Thu Hale dependency and despair. They have grown up feeling abandoned by their fathers and at Best neglected by vietnamese society at Large. In America they feel out of place too. A they All need education. They need jobs. They need fathers and sometimes mothers As Well. They need their childhoods restored and failing that they need Luck yet they show an amazing capacity to survive. And to forgive. Quot there is no Way to Harden yourself to this Quot says Mary Nguyen. Quot there is just no Way. I come Home emotionally battered every night. What we need is a group Home some place where they could All live and learn. Except that they Are too old for  almost ail of the amerasian Hope to be reunited with their fathers some Day. They want to see How they look How they move and maybe connect with something inside them that will make them whole. Odds Are that maybe 1 percent will Ever get that Chance. Dai Nguyen 19, clings to a letter that his Mother Kim Lan Nguyen pressed into his hand moments before he stepped on the plane that took him from her and Vietnam. They were both in tears. Dai kept his Promise and did not open the letter until he reached his fathers land. It tells him everything that his Mother knows about his american father a a Man whom his Mother married a and includes two photographs of his father s Friend her English teacher in Kien Hoa province. Quot to Nguyen Kim Lan Quot the Back of one snapshot reads. Quot a very Good student and Fine human  the Date is oct. 11, 1969, Dai who has been in Little Saigon a month says that his Mother burned anything connected with her husband within hours of the communist Victory in Vietnam. It was too much  risk already their lives were very hard. Still Dai has a Complete name a military rank a year of birth and maybe even a City where his father lived. Quot dad and i Havu our own song never to be forgotten Quot Kim Lan Nguyen writes in the letter to her son. Quot it is my Sweet lord. A Hen you see your dad remind him of  most of the amerasian have had Little formal education in Vietnam illiteracy in vietnamese and English is Rife. Many cannot do simple math. Those with a Complete Happy family Structure Are rare. Morality was often Learned on the streets. Quot it s really hard to get along with them because they Are amerasian Quot says Dean be a 25-year-old employment development Counselor at St. Anselm a Quot the Way they talk the Way they eat the Way they walk it s different. They re different even than me and i was born in Vietnam they done to have a Confidence. That s what i try to teach them. Its going to be hard to get them jobs Quot the concept of delayed gratification of studying hard to one Day reach a goal is a particularly bewildering aspect of life in this new High tech world. The amerasian have usually lived Day to Day a Many hand to Mouth. Even  Migrate toward Little Saigon where the familiarity of the vietnamese culture is a Strong lure they often Battle the ghosts of prejudice that they thought they had left behind. Quot these amerasian kids were discriminated against in Vietnam Quot says the Rev. Due x. Nguyen director of refugee programs for world vision one of eight non profit agencies helping to resettle the amerasian. Quot and now for the vietnamese Here Well they Don t change their attitude against them  others More Blunt say that the vietnamese women who mixed with americans were looked upon As traitors and prostitutes. Quot i remember when i was pregnant people would half smile and laugh Quot says Tho Nguyen who arrived in san Bernardino Calif., with her two daughters a the older amerasian and the younger vietnamese a in january of last year. Quot then when i have the baby they say some bad things because i have an american b Aby. When i have the baby i not talk to them. I stay inside. I Phuong Nguyen far right19, a Black amerasian worships in a vietnamese Buddhist Temple in Garden Grove Calif. She came to America searching for better future and answers to her past los Angela Titi 2 Don t worry about other people what they say. I love my  experts who have studied the new arrivals say that As a group they Are depressed and desperate for someone to Trust. Quot i Tyink there is Hope if we help them now Quot says psychiatrist Jean Carlin. Quot we should not just let these people go Down the tubes and then support them in prison later  in Little Saigon police say that some amerasian Are already joining gangs participating in Home invasions robberies and doing drugs. Gangs can offer a a family atmosphere Quot that some amerasian have never really had. For Black amerasian especially the sense of being an outcast can be acute. Loc Van Nguyen a 25-year-old amerasian transient says that he has been arrested Quot Many Many times Quot he has no Home in the United states and in Vietnam he says that it was the same. He does t know either of his parents. He says he Only knows that his father was Black. Before he is arrested yet again a for stealing an american Flag flying in front of the . Postal service station in Little Saigon a Westminster Calif., officer Robert Trotter recites Loc s name and Date of birth from memory As he writes it Down. Loc admits to stealing other american flags. Before. Quot to take them to throw them away Quot he says. Quot i want to expletive the american people. They Are very  Tai Tran 22, says he does not remember a thing about the first 10 years of his life. He never knew his parents. He lived with a Friend on the streets of Phan Thiet near the bus station where he worked loading cargo on buses about to depart. He says that a woman who sold Candy at the station began to look out for him after that. Quot one Day when i guess  about 12 years old my adopted Mother pointed out a woman on the Street Quot Tai says. Quot she said that that was my real Mother. But i did t believe  Tai has been in the United states six months. He is studying English in Garden Grove and one say Hopes to get a Job working on cars. He says that he is not particularly Happy but that he has Felt much worse. Quot it was the communists mostly Quot Tai says of his life in Vietnam. A / Quot they would Call me half Breed. They would say a Why done to you go to your father s country Well now i am Here. And i will  maybe he will find his father Tai says. Maybe not. Quot if i would find him a but How a i would say a so Long that i not see you. Why ddn t you take me with you Why did you leave me in Vietnam a Quot the delay in bringing the amerasian out of Vietnam a blame it on politics bitterness indifference racism or guilt a has detoured the course of thousands of lives. Nol All of them in Vietnam. Hundreds of veterans and other men who spent time in Vietnam have asked the government and the american red Cross for help in finding the amerasian children who share their genes. Very few searches produce a match. The vast majority of potential fathers however never ask. Quot i have one Friend from Texas who was in my unit Quot says Benjamin Romero vice president of the Vietnam veterans of America chapter in Denver. Quot and when he left Vietnam his vietnamese Girlfriend was three months pregnant. He tried to get her out but the military and the . Consulate there told him to forget about it that it Wasny this problem. Quot he lost track of her and he has no idea if the baby was Ever even born. He a married now and his wife does t know about it. I m surprised he brought it up to me. It Wasny to that Long ago that we  other american military men succeeded in getting their vietnamese loved ones out. Andy Stone born in Saigon 18 years ago arrived in Portland ore., in 1973 with his vietnamese Mother and older brother a and his american dad. Stone is curious but not Overly so about the vietnamese culture. Quot when i was Young my mom took me to a s Buddhist Temple Quot he says. Quot but i was t interested in it my Mother is a Buddhist and she prays every night. My dad is just a regular american. I m just totally americanized Quot even though the United slates pays the vietnamese government $137 for each amerasian and accompanying vietnamese leaving Vietnam . Officials acknowledge that the immigrants often pay bribes that favors Are traded for Cash and that false documents can be passed off As real. Estimates of Black Market rates per family Range from $300 to $1,000, a recent newspaper article published in Vietnam detailed the Trade As Well. An amerasian is one of the quickest tickets out of Vietnam. Dai Nguyen says that he misses his Mother More than Ever now that the Quot family Quot he arrived with wants to kick him out of  Home in Garden Grove. His aspirations Are vague. Thu Hale says that she has no idea what the future holds for her. Both new immigrants Hope to bring their mothers Here. Quot Here i have Freedom Quot thu a says. Quot i want to go to work but i Don t know where. I want to study maybe hairdressing. America is very different than i thought it would be. I thought it was going to be a lot easier. I thought More people would  Page 14 a the stars and stripes saturday August 3, 1991 the stars and stripes j a Page 15