Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian Testimony: In Search of the “Place” in Displacement |
Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian Testimony: In Search of the “Place” in Displacement
The Global Viet Diaspora
2009
This documentary was produced/directed by Rojelio Vo, Long S. Le, and Aaron Hedge. The documentary is based on the lived-experience of a Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian, Khanh Le.
“If the individual black self could not exist before the law, it could, and would, be forged in language as a testimony at once to the supposed integrity of the black self and against the social and political evils that delimited individual and group equality.” – Professor Henry Louis Gates
Khanh Le is a Vietnamese Afro-Amerasian, fathered by an African American serviceman during the Vietnam War. Khanh has no information about his father, and his mother abandoned him when he was an infant. He was raised by a surrogate family. As a “half-breed” black child (con den lai) and a child of the enemy (con cua ke thu), Khanh did not exist before the law in Vietnam. His displacement experiences entail physical, cultural, psychological, and intellectual of which he suffered humiliation and discrimination. His search for a “place” came in 1986 when he arrived to the U.S. through the Orderly Departure Program (ODP). The ODP allowed Amerasians to bring their mothers but restricted surrogate or extended family members. Thus, at the age of ten, Khanh came to the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor, living with foster families and later in sheltered homes for Amerasian young adults…
Read the article here.
View part one (of five) of the documentary here.