For many in Denver’s Vietnamese community, the fall of Saigon 50 years ago brought a new beginning

When Joseph Dang and his parents fled Vietnam in they escaped by boat Dang then years old recalls the terror he felt as one of people crammed into the small vessel floating in the vast ocean Only sky and boat and water recalled the Rev Dang now a Catholic priest It was scary Decades later Dang resides in Denver and is a leader in its Vietnamese locality He is a chaplain for the Denver Police Department and serves as a group liaison for Denver Wellbeing Dang promoted vaccinations during the COVID- pandemic to promotion residents healthcare outreach and he s encouraged people to vote in elections Now as the th anniversary approaches this week for the fall of Saigon which marked the end of the Vietnam War he is ready to lend his help to his countrymen once more Wednesday will be a heavy day of remembrance about what Vietnamese immigrants sacrificed in their native land to reach safety in the United States and beyond Every time I see the Vietnamese I see what we went through and that we become fruitful Dang revealed This is our second home RELATED Little Saigons have blossomed across the U S in the years since the end of the Vietnam War Nearly Vietnamese people live in Colorado according to census statistics cited by the Colorado Lotus Project They count as the fifth-largest population among Asian American Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander communities throughout the state Much of the initial Vietnamese resettlement in the Rocky Mountain West was spurred by the siege of Saigon the former capital city of South Vietnam by communist forces on April bringing a bitter end to decades of war Around million Vietnamese people left their homeland with the majority risking their lives at sea after the nation s borders were closed according to estimates by the Canadian Red Cross In the early years about refugees were resettled in Denver History Colorado says The state s Vietnamese area has expanded since then In current times its impact can be seen firsthand at restaurants and shops in Denver s Little Saigon Business District on South Federal Boulevard at annual events including the Mid-Autumn Festival and even in an official state holiday the Lunar New Year Linh Luong Carpenter and her daughter Kyra Carpenter laugh after giving money for good luck to one of the dancers with the Ascent Dragon and Lion Dance group as they perform during Lunar New Year celebrations at the Far East Center in Denver on Feb This is the th year of the festivities at the center Photo by Helen H Richardson The Denver Post Gov Jared Polis of late declared Wednesday s anniversary as Vietnamese Remembrance and Resilience Day He met a dozen public members and advocates including Dang at the state Capitol on April to present the proclamation to Nga V ng-Sandoval a Vietnamese refugee and the executive director of Refugees Immigrants United Colorado The difficulties of V ng-Sandoval s journey to the U S as a child shaped her in avenues similarly felt by plenty of other members of Colorado s Vietnamese public leaving impressions not only on those directly impacted by the war but also on the increasingly Americanized generations that have followed We re really recognizing the challenges that Vietnamese refugees faced in the wake of the Vietnam War Polis narrated The Denver Post after the ceremony Dang had stood behind V ng-Sandoval as she accepted the document from the governor Both Vietnamese public leaders wore pattered o d i formalwear from Vietnam and Dang raised the yellow and red flag of the former South Vietnam An exodus after the war Dang was born a month before the war ended in Vietnam had been plagued by bloodshed for decades following the August Revolution in with marking the country s separation into the communist Democratic Republic of Viet Nam in the north and the Republic of Viet Nam in the south Other global powers had become involved in the fight by The U S backed the south while China and the Soviet Union supported communism in the north The American military sprayed millions of gallons of herbicides like Agent Orange from to which killed crops and other vegetation according to a assessment in the National Library of Medicine But exposure also caused cancers birth defects and other diseases in civilians and operation members U S troops were deployed to Vietnam in Despite a hiatus in with the striking of a peace agreement the conflict restarted in In South Vietnam Saigon fell on April Since then the country has operated under a communist dictatorship As victorious North Vietnamese troops ride past on a tank defeated South Vietnamese troops discard their uniforms in Saigon April the day the South Vietnamese capital fell to communist forces ending the Vietnam War AP Photo Yves Billy As hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people left their country by boat certain nations hosting refugees Indonesia Malaysia the Philippines Singapore and Thailand among them began to turn people away according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees When Vietnamese boat arrivals escalated dramatically in with more than arrivals in June alone boat pushbacks became routine and thousands of Vietnamese may have perished at sea as a consequence says a chapter on the exodus from Southeast Asian countries in that period from a summary by the UN refugee agency It details that other countries including the U S Australia France and Canada resettled refugees between and although foreign enthusiasm to help was strained by the late s After the North Vietnamese took power Dang s father was held as a prisoner of war for a decade He recalled growing up without him until his dad s skinny frame evidenced up at the door of their home Soon after Dang reported his parents lied to him saying they were going to go to a wedding Instead in the trio left Vietnam on a boat After Dang struggled with seasickness for two nights his group was picked up by a French battleship that took them to the Cap Anamur a humanitarian ship that was one of three vessels sharing that name that sailed from to to rescue Vietnamese refugees at sea They were brought to the Philippines where Dang s family lived in a refugee camp for more than two years In a teenage Dang and his family arrived in California At age Dang left for a Vietnamese monastery in Missouri with the goal of becoming a priest He served as a pastor for five years at the University of Kansas before a yearlong sabbatical brought him to Denver This day Dang has come to terms with the likelihood that he cannot return to visit Vietnam He s applied for a visa twice but its executive rejected both attempts Dang believes it s because he was labeled as anti-communist By escaping Dang announced I paid the price Tears welled in his eyes I m not able to go back to Vietnam freely We don t want this day to be forgotten V ng-Sandoval s parents also made the decision to flee Vietnam by boat She was when her family left their motherland on a cargo ship While it s a unique situation for my family and I it s not so unique for millions of us who had to flee she reported referring to the collective experience of the Vietnamese diaspora Vietnamese refugees are packed onto a ship while fleeing from Da Nang harbor two days before the city s fall March AP Photo Decades of upheaval in the Southeast Asian country had led up to the war which is known as the American War in Vietnam The ongoing looming anxiety and apprehension had been going on for quite certain time mentioned V ng-Sandoval After the fall of Saigon refugees left Vietnam in waves from to V ng-Sandoval noted For selected to remain in the country would mean persecution torture exile or death At refugee camps in the Philippines and Guam she recalls waiting in lengthy lines for food on hot days Just that daily monotonous routine V ng-Sandoval declared As refugees scattered across the globe we were one of the lucky ones where my immediate family was intact V ng-Sandoval announced There were various families that were not able to do that because of family separation as well as other decisions Once in the United States her family landed in Arkansas in the late s spending one year there That was quite the values shock V ng-Sandoval commented and I think it was a society shock for the people who saw us as well There had never been such a large influx of refugees in the modern day during that time After another year in Alabama the family definitively arrived in Colorado In adulthood V ng-Sandoval has grown into an outspoken advocate for marginalized communities and served as a refugee representative at the UNHCR Her nonprofit group Refugees Immigrants United Colorado is partnering with the Denver Vietnamese restaurant S p S a to host a free commemoration event in honor of the th anniversary of the fall of Saigon from to p m Sunday at the Sie FilmCenter E Colfax Ave Gov Jared Polis left shakes hands with society leader Nga V ng-Sandoval during an event where he proclaimed April a remembrance day for the Vietnamese area at the Colorado State Capitol Building in Denver on Wednesday April Photo by Hyoung Chang The Denver Post Her goal Reclaiming that day for what it is which is a huge day of mourning and loss V ng-Sandoval wants to honor those who didn t survive the journey from Vietnam The Canadian Red Cross says an estimated refugees died at sea But she also aims to uplift the stories of survivors and educate the society We don t want this day to be forgotten V ng-Sandoval disclosed Healing is absolutely doable The society s epicenter in Denver The advocacy work done by V ng-Sandoval and Dang is part of the fabric of Colorado s Vietnamese area which largely resides in metro Denver The state capital is home to almost people of Vietnamese descent according to census details while the seven-county metro maintains about people The drive along West Alameda Avenue toward the Little Saigon Business District signals the diversity of west Denver with messaging by local businesses alternating between English Spanish Chinese and Vietnamese A green street sign on South Federal Boulevard welcomes passersby to the official business district near the pagoda-style entrance of the Far East Center On an afternoon last week the shopping center at S Federal Blvd was bustling Wind chimes clanged against the door of the Little Saigon Supermarket as customers left the store with cardboard boxes of groceries and a trio chatted in Vietnamese in the parking lot outside Viet s Restaurant The Far East Center located in the Little Saigon Business District on Oct The centers has long served as a hub of Asian American heritage in Denver Photo by Hyoung Chang The Denver Post Inside Truong An Gifts goods were displayed in every nook and cranny of the shop Pok mon keychains and giant jade frogs incense and skincare products golden dragons and bamboo plants The center is part of Thanh Luong s family legacy in Denver But it s a long way over miles from where his life began Luong was raised in Saigon Before its fall in he worked as a high school tutor His father owned a bank and his aunt was an English translator at the U S embassy She married an American general Just before Saigon was captured Luong reported his father received a call from the embassy instructing their family to stay at home and prepare to leave the country At that time it was really dangerous because everybody panicked Luong announced Everybody tried to run away In the early morning hours U S embassy administrators brought the family to a military base and loaded them onto a cargo plane flying to a refugee camp in Guam From there they were brought to Arkansas then Oklahoma Technically my family is the first Vietnamese refugee family that came to Oklahoma Luong mentioned With relatives already residing in Denver they headed for Colorado next Luong s first job was as a bus boy at the now-shuttered Top of the Rockies restaurant downtown Then he and his brother worked night shifts at King Soopers stocking shelves But at the store they could find only short-grain rice not the long-grain variety they ate back in Vietnam Thanh Luong right helps a customer at his store Truong An Gifts in Denver on Saturday April Photo by Andy Cross The Denver Post It helped spark the decision of Luong his brother and his cousin to open a small Asian grocer Thai Binh Oriental Foods in near Dayton Street and East Colfax Avenue to cater to the local Vietnamese population They get homesick Luong remembered of population members then Two years later the entrepreneurs opened a second location near West Alameda Avenue and South Federal Boulevard the site of his shopping center in current times Luong s future wife Phung arrived in the U S in Her family was stuck in Vietnam for several years and escaped by boat in They made it to Hong Kong first but they needed a sponsor to trip to the U S Phung s brother knew Luong s cousin and Luong agreed to sponsor the family Once he met Phung it wasn t long before they wed In Denver Phung Luong opened a video store Truong An Video which catered to an Asian customer base It eventually evolved into Truong An Gifts one of several shops that make up the Far East Center which opened in In current times Thanh Luong has lived in Colorado twice as long as he lived in Vietnam Although the Vietnamese locality is a little bit bigger than it once was Luong announced Denver s sprawling enhancement has kept the population from being as concentrated as communities in Texas and California He wants his children and grandchildren to remember where their elders came from Luong taught his kids the Vietnamese language but he says not everyone is able to do so My family is lucky he stated Because a multitude of parents in their district often work long hours to advocacy their families they have less time to teach their children Vietnamese Luong noted Instead the younger generation predominantly learns English through the American mentoring system They lost their language Luong commented They lost their root That s a sad story His daughter Mimi Luong was born and raised in Denver I saw the struggle she stated I inevitably wondered why my parents had to work so hard In this undated family photo Phung Luong and her daughter Mimi Luong pose for a picture in Phung s video store Truong An Video in Denver Photo courtesy of Mimi Luong It s been almost years since the end of the war and the start of Thanh Luong s new life outside Vietnam Now the U S is my country he explained But sometimes I still miss it Raising the next generation In southeast Denver Thai Nguyen is performing an emotional balancing act recognizing her family s trauma from the Vietnam War and fighting against passing it down to the next generation We should honor the past but also try to move forward Nguyen commented Nguyen has lived in Denver for years She runs Kaizen Food Rescue one of the largest refugee-founded food access organizations in Colorado as its sole full-time employee after quitting her job at a Fortune company Nguyen is also raising three multiracial children Vietnamese Irish and German with her husband But as busy as her schedule is now it doesn t compare to the chaotic start of her life In she was born in a refugee camp run by Doctors Without Borders in Thailand Her father was a Buddhist monk but he and his relatives fought the north-aligned Viet Cong after Nguyen s grandfather great uncle and uncle were executed so that guerrilla fighters could gain possession of their acres of farmland Multiple of Nguyen s paternal family members joined the rebellion army and died at the hands of the Viet Cong Nguyen s dad trained with the U S Army and was permitted to resettle on American soil though Nguyen s mom and older brother had to leave Vietnam by boat From Thailand to Malaysia to Indonesia to Singapore they traveled the pipeline to America Nguyen declared and experienced misfortunes like robbery along the way With Nguyen then a toddler in tow her family entered the country through San Francisco They lived in Houston for a decade then New Orleans and Ft Walton Beach Florida Conclusively they settled in Southern California I m technically like a third-culture kid at this point Nguyen noted I m really Americanized but then also I have these roots of Southeast Asia Vietnam However for years Nguyen didn t know she wasn t an American citizen Instead she was a permanent resident with a green card because she lacked Vietnamese or Thai citizenship Her mother informed her during President Donald Trump s first administration out of a fear of deportation Nguyen has since become a naturalized citizen The th anniversary of the fall of Saigon has stirred up emotions as Nguyen has watched it trigger her parents memories The feelings tied to the upcoming commemoration include guilt for wanting to go back to Vietnam but that would be like a slap in the face to my parents she disclosed She wants to see her elders heal from the trauma they ve endured Nguyen says both pride and a cultural fear of losing face an Asian concept tied to losing social respect due to embarrassment or shame can prevent people of the older generation from fully addressing their suffering The past pain and anger and anguish is still seated there unprocessed Nguyen declared The older generations that s part of their core memory whereas for us we re the byproduct A South Vietnamese woman weeps as she and others flee for the safety of the capital area of Saigon from a rural district near the city on April AP Photo Related Articles A veto override in the works junk fees bill signed into law and more from the Colorado legislature Civil rights probe of antisemitism at U S colleges may target Denver s Auraria campus Fears of racial profiling swirl over registration guidelines for immigrants in the US illegally ICE is reversing termination of legal status for international students around U S FBI arrests a Milwaukee judge accused of helping a man evade immigration agents When she was years old Nguyen returned for a visit to the island of Hon Tre in the Kien Giang province of Vietnam where acres of her family s farmland part of its ancestral burial site remain She remembers leaving the airport and seeing beggars with missing limbs and deformities the human cost of the Vietnam War There has been no redress Nguyen stated There s still landmines And how do you take Agent Orange out of land However her father can never go back There he would be killed Nguyen says That s because in spite of his efforts to protect his family and land he was labeled as a traitor for fighting against the Viet Cong Nguyen explained Currently she s connecting her children to their maternal practices by teaching them to speak Vietnamese celebrating holidays and reading Vietnamese authors and poets She depicts Denver s Vietnamese locality as small but close-knit One day she wants to bring her kids to Vietnam and is even considering the possibility of moving there at a few point Over the past scarce decades the country has built a powerful manufacturing industry and transformed into one of the continent s fastest-growing economies fighting poverty nationwide The New York Times revealed last year But rights like freedom of speech and assembly are limited by the executive which still has the -year-old communist regime in place But much has changed In Nguyen s view modern Vietnam is really progressive and I just want to be a part of that progress