On April 30, 1975, the Vietnam War ended after North Vietnamese forces captured the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon.
In the final stages of the conflict, the United States evacuated thousands of Vietnamese orphans, some of whom were born to foreign servicemen, during Operation Babylift. The children aboard these flights were adopted by families in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia, while others remained behind.
In the years following the end of the war, some adoptees have traveled back to Vietnam in the hopes of reconnecting with their birth families.
Huyen Friedlander was one of those adoptees, born to a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier. She was evacuated on the last Operation Babylift flight out of Saigon in April 1975, and taken in by a family in Sacramento.
Friedlander set out to reconnect with her birth parents, eventually reuniting with her birth mother, Le Thi Dem, in Vietnam in 1996. She later got in touch with her birth father, Gerry Paluzzi, in the early 2000s.
Huyen Friedlander (left) and her birth mother Le Thi Dem (right) after reuniting in 1996.Courtesy of Huyen Friedlander
Friedlander spoke with Insight Host Vicki Gonzalez on the 50th anniversary of the end of the war about her most recent trip to Vietnam with other Operation Babylift adoptees, to help them try and find their relatives.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
This was your seventh time traveling back to Vietnam, what made this journey different from the others?
It was definitely going with other adoptees. Sister Mary Nell Gage was a humanitarian worker in Saigon during the war… she led this reunion and tour. We started at the Presidio where most of the adoptees were received in the United States, and we did a tour of Harmon Hall where the emergency nursery was set up. It was just incredibly moving, and to be there with other adoptees and feel this connection to one another… I’d like to say that we’re sort of trauma bonded. It’s so easy to think of each other as brothers and sisters in this experience, it’s so unique to us.
Tell us about the other adoptees that you traveled with?
One person in particular that I'm thinking of right now is Rohan. He's from Australia and I had an opportunity to have dinner one night. My birth mother was there, my cousin was there, and then several other adoptees were with us. Part of why I had wanted to do this dinner was for the people who hadn't found their families yet. I wanted them to see my birth mother and to just have that exposure to her and hear in her words why she made the decision she made, and I just knew that it was going to be comforting.
We're sitting around the dinner table and you can hear the emotion in Rohan's voice, and his question is his fear - what if my mother doesn't remember me?
[Your mother] is telling Rohan, “your mom will remember you… will love you very, very much,” like she loves you, Huyen.
Yeah, can you imagine what that feels like for a 50-year-old man who’s still carrying that pain? So many of us are still carrying that pain of, “was I important? Was I rejected?” These are some of the core issues of adoption, that feeling of rejection and loss and fear of, “will people accept me or not?”
How are adoptees from Operation Babylift - like you and Rohan - seen when you go back to Vietnam, trying to find family members? Is there a general sense of how you are accepted?
I think times have really changed, because we know originally there was so much racism against mixed-race kids. Now the tides have turned and there are TV shows… reunion shows about people coming back and finding family members.
One of the most moving experiences of the trip [was] doing a food distribution. The adoptees and support people were standing on stage in front of 160 people who had been specially selected… they were elderly women, single mothers, the most impoverished in the community.
The leader of the town came on stage and he said, "we recognize you. We see you as Vietnamese, and we welcome you back to this country." That just got everyone crying because of this core need to feel belonging and acceptance, and to receive that from the people was part of the magic of the trip.
Operation Babylift adoptees distribute food parcels in Vĩnh Long, Vietnam.Courtesy of Huyen Friedlander
Not everyone had great or safe experiences during Operation Babylift. I’m sure you’ve met a lot of adoptees who had different experiences than yours, even if they go back to Vietnam to try and reconnect with family. What would you like people to understand about the range of experiences that people go through?
We don't know what's going to happen. I think that if you are able to get on a plane and go there and just experience what it's like to breathe the air, be among other Vietnamese people, experience the food and culture, there's healing even in that. It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's a step towards [what] I think of as an integration of identity. For so many Vietnamese adoptees, when we were adopted I feel like there was a split that happened. There was our life before in Vietnam, and then there was our life here in the United States, or Australia, or wherever we ended up. Part of the work has been, for me, reintegrating who I am as a Vietnamese woman and reclaiming that. Even if that is what's available for you to do, there's healing in that.
There are thousands of children like you who were adopted overseas, but there were many who were not and remained in Vietnam. You met some of those adoptees as well on your journey.
This story again is about Rohan. We went to his orphanage in Sóc Trăng… we wanted permission to deliver food. And this woman comes out, and she’s smiling huge because she sees Rohan. This woman was in the orphanage at the same time that Rohan was, and they call each other brother and sister. They're not biologically related but she remembers him. It was just so profound and humbling.
Her name is Bich. She was the only child not adopted… she has spent her whole life living in the orphanage. The pride and love was just evident in her. She showed us her two rooms that she has, and she's so happy because it has air conditioning, and she has a fish tank. In those moments, like, that could be me…just how life turned out differently for each person - if it was fate or providence, the universe, God. How did one person end up here, and someone [else] in such a different circumstance?
Why are you so passionate about the community service aspect of this trip, and will you continue that in the future?
This is the first time that I went back with service. I don't think I'll ever go back without some kind of service or community work. I think over the course of the trip we had 30 requests for DNA kits, which is statistically a high number. When we distributed the food, [the recipients] got a survey and it said, "have you been separated from a family member?" And if they said yes, there was follow-up if they wanted to do the DNA testing.
It's going to be ongoing work because there needs to be more education. How is this helpful [and] what does it mean? It's not just something that you can do in a one week journey. I know that I will be going back, and continuing with that work.
How are you reflecting on this moment, the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War?
There's so much separation and loss and trauma going on for children now in the world. I think about what are these kids going to need 50 years from now to heal themselves? I really want to give that more consideration as we move through the world, and what the impacts of these decisions are.
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