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Vietnam War - History - 12th grade

Vietnam war - history - 12th grade presentation, free google slides theme and powerpoint template.

The Vietnam War was a pivotal conflict in world history, and as a history teacher, you have the opportunity to educate your 12th grade students about this important topic. With the aid of this amazing template, you can prepare and design an engaging and educational class about the Vietnam War. This template contains multiple entertaining and informative exercises that will captivate your students and challenge them to think critically about the conflict. All you need to do is add your own expertise and knowledge, and you'll have a class that your students will remember for years to come.

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The Vietnam War - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Vietnam War

The vietnam war was the longest and most unpopular war in american history. during the war: ... in typical kennedy fashion, the president chose a middle route. ... – powerpoint ppt presentation.

• Basically to hold the line against the spread of world Communism. America paid for the war the French fought against Communist Vietnam as a part of the Truman Doctrine (1947) to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against totalitarian regimes. In the 1950s, America became involved again.
• The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular war in American history. During the war
• 58,000 Americans lost their lives.
• The oldest man killed was 62 years old the youngest, 16.
• 61 of the men killed were 21 or younger.
• 304,000 were wounded.
• 75,000 were severely disabled.
• The United States spent over 200 billion dollars on the war.
• The Vietnam War grew out of the long conflict between France and Vietnam.
• In July 1954, after one hundred years of colonial rule, a defeated France was forced to leave Vietnam.
• Nationalist forces under the direction of General Vo Nguyen Giap defeated the allied French troops at the remote mountain outpost of Dien Bien Phu in the northwest corner of Vietnam.
• The Geneva Peace Accords, signed by France and Vietnam in the summer of 1954, provided for the temporary partition of Vietnam at the 17th parallel, with national elections in 1956 to reunify the country.
• In the North, a communist regime, supported by the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, set up its headquarters in Hanoi under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh.
• The United States prevented the elections that were promised under the Geneva conference because it knew that the Communists would win.
• Secretary of State John Foster Dulles thought the Geneva Accords granted too much power to the Communist Party of Vietnam.
• He and President Dwight D. Eisenhower supported the creation of a counter-revolutionary alternative south of the 17th parallel.
• This was accomplished through formation of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).
• Using SEATO for political cover, the Eisenhower administration helped create a new nation in southern Vietnam.
• In 1955, with the help of massive amounts of American military, political, and economic aid, the government of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) was born.
• The following year, Ngo Dinh Diem, a staunchly anti-Communist figure from the South, won a dubious election that made him president of South Vietnam
• American policymakers developed the Domino Theory as a justification for the involvement. This theory stated, If South Vietnam falls to the Communist, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, India and Pakistan would also fall like dominos. The Pacific Islands and even Australia could be at risk.  
• Diem claimed that his newly created government was under attack from Communists in the north.
• In late 1957, with American military aid, Diem began to counterattack.
• He used the help of the CIA (through Operation Phoenix) to identify those who sought to bring his government down and arrested thousands.
• He passed a repressive series of acts known as Law 10/59 that made it legal to hold suspected Communists in jail without bringing formal charges.
• The outcry against Diem's harsh and oppressive actions was immediate.
• Buddhist monks and nuns were joined by students, business people, intellectuals, and peasants in opposition to Diems corrupt rule.
• The more these forces attacked Diem's troops and secret police, the more Diem complained that the Communists were trying to take South Vietnam by force. This was "a hostile act of aggression by North Vietnam against peace-loving and democratic South Vietnam."
• The Communists supported the creation of a broad-based united front to help mobilize southerners in opposition to the government in South Vietnam.
• On December 20, 1960, the National Liberation Front (NLF) was born.
• It brought together Communists and non-Communists in an umbrella organization that had limited, but important goals
• Anyone could join as long as they opposed Ngo Dinh Diem and wanted to unify Vietnam.
• In a series of government "White Papers," Washington insiders denounced the NLF, claiming that it was merely a puppet of Hanoi. They called it the "Viet Cong," a derogatory and slang term meaning Vietnamese Communist.
• The NLF, on the other hand, argued that it was autonomous and independent of the Communists in Hanoi and that it was made up mostly of non-Communists. Many anti-war activists supported the NLF's claims.
• In 1961, President Kennedy sent a team to Vietnam to report on conditions in the South and to assess future American aid requirements.
• The report, known as the "December 1961 White Paper," argued for
• An increase in military, technical, and economic aid
• The introduction of large-scale American "advisers" to help stabilize the Diem regime and crush the NLF.
• As Kennedy weighed the merits of these recommendations, some of his other advisers urged the president to withdraw from Vietnam altogether.
• In typical Kennedy fashion, the president chose a middle route.
• Instead of a large-scale military buildup or a negotiated settlement, the United States would increase the level of its military involvement in South Vietnam through more machinery and advisers, but no military troops.
• To counteract the NLF's success in the countryside, Washington and Saigon launched an ambitious military effort in the rural areas.
• Called the Strategic Hamlet Program, the new counterinsurgency plan rounded up villagers and placed them in "safe hamlets" controlled by the government of South Vietnam.
• The idea was to isolate the NLF from villagers, its base of support
• This culturally-insensitive plan further alienated the peasants from the Saigon regime and produced more recruits for the NLF.
• By the summer of 1963, because of NLF successes and its own failures, it was clear that the government of South Vietnam was on the verge of political collapse.
• Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, had raided the Buddhist pagodas of South Vietnam, claiming that they had harbored the Communists that were creating the political instability.
• The result was massive protests on the streets of Saigon that led Buddhist monks to self-immolation.
• The pictures of the monks engulfed in flames made world headlines and caused considerable consternation in Washington.
• By late September, the Buddhistprotest had created such disloca-tion in the south that the Kennedyadministration supported a coup.
• In 1963, some of Diem's own generals approached the American Embassy in Saigon with plans to overthrow Diem.
• With Washington's tacit approval, Diem and his brother were captured and later killed.
• Three weeks later, President Kennedy was assassinated on the streets of Dallas.
• At the time of the Kennedy and Diem assassinations, there were 16,000 military advisers in Vietnam.
• The Kennedy administration had managed to run the war from Washington without the large-scale introduction of American combat troops.
• The continuing political problems in Saigon, however, convinced the new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, that more aggressive action was needed.
• After a dubious North Vietnamese raid on two U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, the Johnson administration argued for expansive war powers for the president.
• In August 1964, in response to American and South Vietnamese espionage along its coast, North Vietnam launched an attack against the C. Turner Joy and the U.S.S. Maddox, two American ships on call in the Gulf of Tonkin.
• The first attack occurred on August 2, 1964.
• A second attack was supposed to have taken place on August 4, but authorities have recently concluded that no second attack ever took place.
• The Johnson administration used the August 4 attack to obtain a Congressional resolution, now known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, that gave the president broad war powers.
• The Resolution was followed by limited reprisal air attacks against North Vietnam.
• In early 1965, the NLF attacked two U.S. army installations in South Vietnam, and as a result, Johnson ordered sustained bombing missions over North Vietnam.
• The bombing missions, known as Operation Rolling Thunder, caused the Communist Party to reassess its own war strategy
• Operation Rolling Thunder was backed up by phosphorous and napalm bombs the latter causing dreadful burns to thousand of innocent civilians.
• When this failed to break down the jungle cover the USAF started Operation Ranch Hand the defoliation program, using Agent Orange.
• This deadly chemical cocktail, containing dioxin, killed off millions of acres of jungle to try to weaken the Vietcong but left a horrendous legacy in Vietnam.
• The dioxin got into the food chain causing chromosome damage to humans. There were hundreds of cases of children born with deformities.
• Of all aircraft, the helicopter was the most useful, dropping platoons in the jungle clearings and out again. They were excellent air ambulances.
• The North Vietnamese used classic Maoist guerrilla tactics. Guerrillas must move through the peasants like fish through sea, i.e., the peasants will support them as much as they can with shelter, food, weapons, storage, intelligence, recruits.
• In areas held by the NLF, the Communists distributed the land to the peasants. (By 1973, the NLF held about half of South Vietnam.)
• Their weapons were cheap and reliable.
• The AK47 assault rifle out-performed the American M16
• The portable rocket launcher took out many US vehicles aircraft.
• They recycled dud bombs dropped by the Americans. Deadly booby-traps could inflict huge damage on young American conscripts!
• The Vietnamese built large tunnel complexes such as the ones at Cu Chi near Saigon. This protected them from the bombing raids by the Americans and gave them cover for attacking the invaders.
• The United States countered with Search and Destroy tactics. In areas where the NLF were thought to be operating, troops went in and checked for weapons. If they found them,
• they rounded up the villagers and burned the villages down.
• This often alienated the peasants from the American/South Vietnamese cause.
• As one marine said If they werent Vietcong before we got there, they sure as hell were by the time we left.
• The NFL often helped the villagers re-build their homes and bury their dead.
• After Operation Rolling Thunder, the Communist Party moved to a protracted war strategy the idea was to get the United States bogged down ina war that it could not win militarily and create unfavorable conditions for political victory.
• The Vietnam War had a major impact on everyday life in America, and the Johnson administration was forced to consider domestic consequences of its decisions daily.
• Since there were not enough volunteers to continue to fight a protracted war, the government instituted a draft.
• As the deaths mounted and Americans continued to leave for Southeast Asia, the Johnson administration was met with the full weight of American anti-war sentiments.
• Protests erupted on college campuses and in major cities at first, but by 1968 every corner of the country seemed to have felt the war's impact.
• One of the most famous incidents in the anti-war movement was the police riot in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
• Hundreds of thousands of people came to Chicago in August 1968 to protest American intervention in Vietnam and the leaders of the Democratic Party who continued to prosecute the war.
• By 1968, things had gone from bad to worse for the Johnson administration. In late January, North Vietnam and the NLF launched coordinated attacks against major southern cities.
• These attacks, known as the Tet Offensive, were designed to force the Johnson administration to the bargaining table.
• A serious blow to U.S. credibility came with the exposure of the My Lai massacre (March 1968).
• Hushed up at the time and only discovered by a tenacious journalist, this involved the killing of 400 men, women and children by US troops. 
• In late March 1968, a disgraced Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek the Democratic Party's re-nomination for president and hinted that he would go to the bargaining table with the Communists to end the war.
• Negotiations began in the spring of 1968, but the Democratic Party could not rescue the presidency from Republican challenger Richard Nixon who claimed he had a secret plan to end the war.
• Nixon's secret plan involved a process called Vietnamization. This strategy brought American troops home while increasing the air war over North Vietnam and relying more on the South Vietnamese army for ground attacks.
• The Nixon years also saw the expansion of the war into neighboring Laos and Cambodia, violating the international rights of these countries in secret campaigns, as the White House tried desperately to rout out Communist sanctuaries and supply routes.
• The intense bombing campaigns and intervention in Cambodia in late April 1970 sparked intense campus protests all across America.
• At Kent State in Ohio, four students were killed by National Guardsmen who were called out to preserve order on campus after days of anti-Nixon protest.
• Shock waves crossed the nation as students at Jackson State in Mississippi were also shot and killed for political reasons, prompting one mother to cry, "They are killing our babies in Vietnam and in our own backyard."
• In December 1972, the Nixon administration unleashed a series of deadly bombing raids against targets in North Vietnams largest cities, Hanoi and Haiphong.
• These attacks, now known as the Christmas bombings, brought immediate condemnation from the international community and forced the Nixon administration to reconsider its tactics and negotiation strategy.
• In early January 1973, the Nixon White House convinced Saigon that they would not abandon the South Vietnamese army if they signed the peace accord.
• On January 23, therefore, the final draft was initialed, ending open hostilities between the United States and North Vietnam.
• The Paris Peace Agreement did not end the conflict in Vietnam, however, as Saigon continued to battle Communist forces.
• From March 1973 until the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the South Vietnamese army tried desperately to save the South from political and military collapse.
• The end finally came when North Vietnamese tanks rolled south along National Highway One.
• On the morning of April 30, Communist forces captured the presidential palace in Saigon, ending the Vietnam War.
• They underestimated the tenacity and organization of the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front.  
• Despite dropping more tonnage of high explosive on Vietnam than the whole of World War II, the Americans could not stop the movement of troops or supplies to the south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.  
• The North Vietnamese conducted a Peoples war in which everyone played a part.
• At first, most Americans supported the war. But by 1970, the Peace Movement had support from all parts of society and no government could ignore it.
• After 1969, there were deep questions about the efficiency of US troops. There was a serious drug problem desertion rates were high and morale low. Many troops were time-servers, i.e., counted the days until the tour was over.
• The US never really understood the culture of the Vietnamese people. Coca Cola, chewing gum, ball point pens, and ice cream cones could not dislodge their ancient beliefs.
• America was not prepared to keep losing high numbers of casualties for such limited progress in a difficult jungle war, for which they were not suited.  
• The strength and resourcefulness of the NLF. For example, the highly complex Cu Chi tunnel system the U.S. never shut down.  
• Battlefield Vietnam A Brief Historyhttp//www.pb s.org/battlefieldvietnam/history/index.html
• Vietnam Revision Guidehttp//www.learnhistory.org .uk/vietnam/ustactics.htm

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Vietnam War Google Slides and PowerPoint Templates

Four Noded Vietnam War Theme Slide

Consider this well-designed Vietnam War Google Slides to make creative presentations about the Vietnam War. This template has a variety of illustrations and graphics related to the military and soldiers . This template is beautifully designed and affordable. It is also 100% editable according to your needs. If you're planning to present the Vietnam War, this template can help you create an effective slide show. 

The Vietnam War Google Slides have an image holder with an HD image of the military force. It has four text holders with information about the Vietnam war. With this template, your audience can get knowledge about this war. The minimal design and black and color scheme given in this slide will give a professional look to your presentations. You can also try our National Vietnam War Veterans Day PowerPoint Template .

Features of this template:

1. 100% customizable slides and easy to download.

2. Slides available in different nodes & colors.

3. The slide contained 16:9 and 4:3 format.

4. Easy to change the slide colors quickly.

5. Well-crafted template with instant download facility.

6. It has minimal designs.

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New HBO series looks at Vietnam War from Vietnamese perspective

Marc Rivers

William Troop

Christopher Intagliata

Ailsa Chang

NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with actor Hoa Xuande about the new HBO show 'The Sympathizer' — a rare piece of Hollywood entertainment that tells the story of the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese perspective.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

The new HBO show "The Sympathizer" is a rare piece of Hollywood entertainment that tells the story of the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese perspective. The series is based on Viet Thanh Nguyen's 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, and it centers on a Vietnamese double agent known simply as The Captain. But you won't find much gunplay with this spy.

HOA XUANDE: It's more true to the humanity of a person who has to wade through these allegiances and loyalties and friendships. It's more about the human behind having to trade his identities and his beliefs - more than running around with a gun.

KELLY: That's Hoa Xuande, who plays The Captain. He told us he could relate to the role in part because of his own history, wrestling with his own Vietnamese identity, being born and raised in Australia, where his parents fled to after the war.

XUANDE: Growing up in Australia, I inherently just didn't feel like that part of my identity was ever really something that I could be proud of, which is kind of shameful to say because I just didn't grow up thinking that was who people thought of as important. And then, you know, being Asian, it's just like, I could never be Australian enough either.

KELLY: Right.

XUANDE: So I guess I was walking this fine line between who I was for a long time and I guess fighting with myself, fighting with my parents, fighting with what I thought my idea of the perfect person should be. And it's a form of assimilation, if you think...

KELLY: Absolutely.

XUANDE: ...About it that way.

KELLY: Yeah.

XUANDE: And so inherently, when I read the book, it was just in me. I could understand what it was to feel like an outsider all the time, to feel like regardless of what I tried to do, that I would never fit in. Yeah, so that part of The Captain was something that I was easily drawn to and understood from the moment I worked on his character.

KELLY: I can imagine. So I want to talk more about that assimilation you refer to because I read that as you were getting into professional acting, you decided to change your last name from...

XUANDE: I did.

KELLY: ...Nguyen, a really common Vietnamese last name...

XUANDE: Right.

KELLY: ...To Xuande, which is this totally...

XUANDE: Yeah. Yes.

KELLY: ...Made-up, ambiguously Asian-like last name.

KELLY: And you did that - right? - so you wouldn't only get cast as Vietnamese characters. Tell me more about that decision to change your name.

XUANDE: Yeah. You know, it's hard enough trying to be an actor, let alone being an actor of Asian descent.

XUANDE: And when, I guess, I started out trying to have a career in this industry, I wanted to just open myself up to as many opportunities as I could. But I guess I'm harping back to the idea that I knew I could never be whatever the so-called ideal image of being an Australian was. But at least if I could play, you know, the gamut of Asian stereotypes, then I thought I could at least forge a career that way. So I tried...

XUANDE: Yeah, it's sad to think about, but...

KELLY: I'll be the token Asian. Sign me up.

XUANDE: Yeah, that's - I mean, honestly, that's exactly what I was thinking. And I just wanted to - I didn't want to completely just, you know, make up an entirely random name. And I just thought I'd use my middle name, which is X-U-A-N, Xuan, and then put a D-E behind it just to give it that, I don't know, flair. I don't know what that was, but - yeah.

KELLY: Yeah, a je ne sais quoi.

XUANDE: Yeah.

KELLY: Well, what was so funny was that this TV series makes a joke about how Hollywood does clump Asians together a lot. Like, there's this scene where your character is a Vietnamese consultant on a...

KELLY: ...Big-budget Hollywood movie about the Vietnam War, and the director, played by Robert Downey Jr., is told that his, quote-unquote, Vietnamese extra is actually Chinese.

XUANDE: Yeah, right.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SYMPATHIZER")

XUANDE: (As The Captain) None of them speak Vietnamese. That's the thing.

ROBERT DOWNEY JR: (As Claude) None of the extras speak Vietnamese. I see. Did you know this?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I speak Vietnamese.

XUANDE: (As The Captain) Are you an old lady?

DOWNEY: (As Claude) Somebody explain to me why I'm shooting a Vietnam War movie with Vietnamese extras who aren't Vietnamese.

KELLY: I mean, how did that scene feel to you? - because you had changed your own...

KELLY: ...Last name professionally to encourage the industry to cast you as any kind of Asian, right?

XUANDE: Right. I mean...

KELLY: (Laughter).

XUANDE: It's actually quite funny, even on the day as we shot that because, like, it - I think a lot of the crew and us and people laughed because the woman who played the old lady was so funny and great. But also, it's funny because it's sad. It's sad that for a long time, our Asianness (ph) was just sort of seen as the same.

KELLY: I understand that the author of the novel, "The Sympathizer," Viet Thanh Nguyen, he had said that in early meetings with Hollywood producers, they were uneasy about his demand that the show center Vietnamese people speaking Vietnamese. How much do you think the TV series benefited from casting actual Vietnamese people?

XUANDE: Yeah. Look, I - fear at being confronted with that, to me, is not surprising. I think sometimes Hollywood is scared to approach new shows in a foreign language because they don't believe that their audiences want to see these things or that they can financially benefit from them. But, you know, as we've seen in even the last five years, with so many movies and TV series that I could sit here and name for 10 minutes, they have been hits. And they've had second seasons renewed, and they've had - they are shows that have big, significant cultural influence as well.

KELLY: I couldn't agree more. How hard was it for you to get your own Vietnamese language skills up to par?

XUANDE: Yeah. Growing up, I didn't speak the language very well 'cause I just never wanted that to be a part of who I was or a part of who - what my identity was 'cause I never saw myself that way.

KELLY: Yeah, yeah.

XUANDE: So it just sounded really foreign for me to ever even try to attempt to speak Vietnamese. But yeah, I think it's probably more when I started to realize that, you know, if I'm going to have a career in this, then I'm probably going to have to touch on speaking Vietnamese once in a while.

KELLY: Says the man who changed his Vietnamese last name to something not very Vietnamese (laughter).

XUANDE: Right. It's like I tried to get away from it, and then I guess doing projects like this brought me back to it. And I'm hugely appreciative of it because I guess it's taught me a big part of my identity that I never felt comfortable talking about or even getting in touch with, but also a big part of the language that I - that is a part of me that I never felt comfortable speaking.

KELLY: I think it's so amazing that doing this work on the show reconnected you with that past shame you felt when you were much younger about being Vietnamese because, I mean, I can relate to some of that. As a girl, I hated going to Mandarin school on Friday nights.

XUANDE: Right. Oh, you did that? Yeah.

KELLY: Yeah. And I was such a bad student in Chinese school, and I so regretted that years later.

XUANDE: Right. Yeah.

KELLY: But now you get a chance to redeem yourself.

XUANDE: Yeah, I love that. I've kind of redeemed myself, maybe. I mean...

KELLY: Yeah, I think so.

XUANDE: Yeah. Like, I guess I've found a little bit of redemption even in my parents' eyes, potentially, I'm sure. You know, I brought them to the premiere to watch this 'cause I thought it was important for them to, you know, forget about me. It's - like, I didn't bring them so that they could watch me. I brought them so that they could watch a Vietnamese story being told in the Vietnamese language from the Vietnamese perspective. And I thought it was really important for them to see that and for them to get to see me speak Vietnamese was a bonus, so I feel redeemed in that way.

KELLY: Hoa Xuande is the star of the new HBO series "The Sympathizer." You can watch the first episode now on Max.

(SOUNDBITE OF COMMON AND KANYE WEST SONG, "THEY SAY")

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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

How ‘The Sympathizer’s’ Depiction of the Vietnam War Helped Its Cast Make Sense of Their Heritage

By Selome Hailu

Selome Hailu

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About a month ago, “ The Sympathizer ” star Fred Nguyen Khan lost his grandmother.

She was a Vietnamese refugee who sought asylum in Canada, enduring a “staggered escape” that left her and her siblings terrified they wouldn’t survive or see each other again. But were it not for the show, in which Khan now plays a refugee himself, he may never have heard that story.

Popular on Variety

“People from that generation, they don’t like to talk about the traumas they endured. They like to bottle it in. The only way they can cope with it is: They work hard. They get results,” says Khan, who grew up in Montreal. In an interview alongside three of his castmates, Khan recalls that for several of the show’s older actors, revisiting this moment in history made for a major moment for catharsis: “There’s a lot of crying, there’s a lot of hugging, and then actually starting to talk about it. It was such a big breakthrough for a lot of people, and even in my family. Once I wrapped the show, I was able to ask questions. [My grandmother] sat us all down and told us the story about how they escaped. I didn’t know what it was like, because as a kid, you don’t ask.”

Duy Nguyễn — who plays the Captain’s handler and best friend, Man — grew up in Hanoi within the culture that produced those hurdles.

“When I read the book for the first time, actually, I was mad,” he says. “What I’ve been taught in Vietnam, it’s only one side of the truth — just like American movies. I was like, ‘You’re not supposed to do this! That’s not the teaching!’ But then I read it again. And I read it again. And I read it again.”

“I understand that deep down, despite the political spectrum, whatever — these are just human beings,” he continues. “Their actions are what they think is best for their country. Neither is right or wrong. I am a completely changed human being after all the research I’ve done. I have become the sympathizer by the end of it.”

“My parents, I remember them telling stories of the past, and you’re just always brushing it aside,” says Xuande. “Maturing now, I was ignorant to these parts of the story that are really a part of who I am now. I feel a little bit ashamed that I never really took that part of my parents’ story seriously.”

Sandra Oh, who plays the Captain’s eventual girlfriend Sofia Mori, challenges Xuande: “I always want you to be gentle with yourself. Because the shame of not knowing the history, actually, I think comes from a deep need to assimilate. There are complicated things of why we assimilate the way that we do, and what we need to reject just to survive. But what is very, very healing is embodying the story that has not been told.”

Take it from her character: Sofia “believes she is a very liberated woman, a very progressive woman. But through this series, you see her start questioning her identity and wondering where she actually comes from,” Oh says. Though her character is Japanese, while Oh is the daughter of Korean immigrants, she relates to the way Sofia’s life changes after realizing the way she’s been prioritizing her Americanness above all.

“It’s Ms. Mori questioning her own hypocrisy, and I always do. Here I am, an Asian American woman of this era — you need to do this all the time, to wonder where you stand on things, and how deep you are actually going. Most everyone does have generations of trauma, and people don’t want to talk about it. My parents went through occupation, two world wars, then immigrated here. They don’t talk about it.”

“The Sympathizer” also allowed its cast to satirize the role American culture has played in sweeping their family history under the rug. In one episode, the Captain works as a cultural consultant on the set of Hollywood film about the war with a not-so-subtle resemblance to Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”

"The Sympathizer" star Hoa Xuande on working opposite Robert Downey Jr. in the HBO series: "He's just so crazy and fun and generous…He invokes that play in you." https://t.co/N7EjvV0Sda pic.twitter.com/h2f507Bb39 — Variety (@Variety) April 15, 2024

“It was such a brilliant directorial choice, that casting,” says Oh about Downey’s five roles. “The persona and who Robert is, and who he has represented in other characters — you can’t help but have that lend meaning that he is playing these archetypes of Western white patriarchy.”

In particular, she notes how Downey’s years of playing Marvel’s Iron Man — a character who works in weapons manufacturing — colors her view of his performance in “The Sympathizer.”

“Here you are, bringing that history to play, again , these archetypal pillars of education, of arts and culture, of politics, of spycraft, of government. It pushed all of the satire. He has so much strength as an actor. He is willing to go into the satire, he’s willing for his character to go into the racism.”

Sandra Oh, who stars in "The Sympathizer," unpacks Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as multiple characters in the HBO series: "He is playing these archetypes of Western white patriarchy…You're going to glean a lot of meaning from that." https://t.co/N7EjvV0Sda pic.twitter.com/r0iZns18ug — Variety (@Variety) April 15, 2024

Though “The Sympathizer” is billed as a limited series, the cast seems open to returning for more. The material is certainly there, as Nguyen published a sequel titled “The Committed” in 2021.

“There’s some stuff that I feel like I can’t yet talk about because this is a series of books. Viet has not yet finished the third book,” Oh says. “But I think in that, he’s also interested in exploring much more of where Ms. Mori is coming from.”

That would also allow more depth and backstory for the brotherhood between the Captain, Bon and Man, who sliced their palms together in childhood as a vow of devotion. That oath contorts over time, stretching in an attempt accommodate the political divides that open up between three characters. It’s their ties to each other as the war ends and Vietnam transforms that gives “The Sympathizer” its title.

“To speak about the bond between the blood brothers, chosen family — I came to Montreal alone. I craved a family here in Canada, and then I found Fred,” says Nguyễn, as he and Khan’s friendship predates their casting in the show. “Immediately I was like, ‘OK, he’s my family now.'”

“I’m glad we get to show that,” he concludes, in tears. “No matter who you are, you can still treat other human beings like human beings.”

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‘The Sympathizer’ depicts war from a Vietnamese point of view, but how does the community see it?

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Never before has a television series garnered so much excitement, attention and concern among California’s expatriate Vietnamese community, the world’s largest, as “ The Sympathizer .”

HBO’s seven-part espionage thriller depicting the Vietnam War and its aftermath — or the American War, as seen on the title card that opens the series — premiered Sunday and new episodes will air weekly through May 26. It was co-created by South Korean director Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar , and features Oscar-winning actor Robert Downey Jr. in several roles (he is also an executive producer). “The Sympathizer” is based on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, which follows a French Vietnamese communist spy.

The series is groundbreaking for casting actors who are Vietnamese or of Vietnamese descent in lead roles and much of the dialogue is spoken in Vietnamese, though it was made for American audiences. And the opening episode takes place in Vietnam, depicting the fall of Saigon and a harrowing escape on an airstrip.

For a younger generation, the series is an opportunity to showcase Vietnamese stories globally, but for an older generation, “The Sympathizer” has stirred some discontent, especially among those who fought in the war. They point to the show’s lead character, the Captain — a communist spy who infiltrates the South Vietnamese army and follows the General, his boss, to Los Angeles, where they resettle — saying it glorifies the communists, the enemy — by presenting the spy’s disparaging viewpoints about the South.

How the creators of HBO’s ‘The Sympathizer’ explore the ‘American War’ through a Vietnamese lens

Park Chan-wook and Don McKellar, the creators of HBO’s ‘The Sympathizer,’ discuss how they adapted Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

April 11, 2024

Such sentiments were among those shared at a viewing party organized by Alan Vo Ford, held at Pink Moon, a Chinese restaurant in Beverly Hills, where the premiere episode was streamed for 30 friends from the Los Angeles and Orange County area on Sunday. Ford, 49, a Westminster resident, real estate broker and film producer of Vietnamese movies such as “A Fragile Flower” and “Journey From the Fall,” said he felt compelled to organize the event because it’s so rare for a major Hollywood series about Vietnamese people to be made.

“I felt it was my duty as a Vietnamese American to spread the word so the world would know about Vietnam and American history during this historic period of time,” he said. Ford said when he was a baby, his mother held him while “running and dodging bombs during the final days,” just like in the last scenes of the first episode. His father was in a reeducation camp for 9 years, and his family arrived in the U.S. in 1985.

“This is a breakthrough series for the Vietnamese community to be on HBO and work with superstars like Robert Downey Jr.,” said Don Nguyen, 55, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel and cybersecurity consultant, who attended the party. He said that as someone who was part of the first generation of Vietnamese to join the U.S. military, he knows what it’s like to break barriers. “It’s a signal to the global community that we’ve arrived in Hollywood.”

“We have many talented doctors, lawyers, engineers [in the community]. But in films we’re still in the infant stage,” he said. He’s the son of Thanh Tuyen, a Vietnamese singer whose trademark Bolero songs were popular during the war.

Despite some of the generational differences, there is agreement in the community that this is a significant moment for Vietnamese representation in Hollywood that furthers their desire for more Vietnamese stories to be told.

And that’s what Viet Thanh Nguyen advocated for, to have the series, like his book, present a Vietnamese point of view on the war. He said that for too long, Hollywood has portrayed “Vietnamese characters to be killed, raped, wounded, silenced, demonized, or rescued while we serve as the backdrop for American moral dilemmas.” The war and its aftermath have been depicted in pop culture largely through an American lens in films such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Rambo.”

“We should have at least as many Vietnamese perspectives on this war being told as we have American perspectives,” he said.

Viet Thanh Nguyen tackles Vietnam War’s aftermath in ‘The Sympathizer’

Much of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel, “The Sympathizer” (Grove: 371 pp., $26), takes place in the bland stucco flatlands of Los Angeles between the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the staging and aftermath of a failed counterrevolution by members of the displaced anti-communist Vietnamese diaspora several years later.

April 10, 2015

The cast of the series is predominantly Vietnamese, with Hoa Xuande, an Australian actor of Vietnamese descent, in the lead role as the Captain. Other actors in supporting roles include Kieu Chinh , Toan Le, Fred Nguyen Khan, Vy Le, Nguyen Cao Ky Duyen and Alan Trong.

“This is a historical moment for Vietnamese artists, writers and filmmakers in Hollywood,” said Chinh, an acclaimed Vietnamese actress who plays the mother of the Major (Phanxinê, a Vietnamese filmmaker in his acting debut), a character whose story comes into focus midseason. She knows firsthand what the war was like, having lived through it. The chaotic evacuation scene at the end of the first episode was familiar.

“I heard loud bomb explosions all around us as we were trying to flee. It was frightening and very emotional,” Chinh said. “During the filming, I just relived my past. I didn’t have to act.”

The actor is well-known for her role as Suyuan Woo in 1993’s “ The Joy Luck Club ,” an adaptation of Amy Tan’s bestselling novel. It marked the first time that a film featuring a nearly all-Asian cast was a Hollywood box office success. However, despite the film’s success, it did not bring an increase in Asian-centered films or roles for Asian actors then. Chinh said she believes that “The Joy Luck Club” was too early for a breakthrough. Now, she thinks that it is time for a Vietnamese series to be featured on mainstream TV.

Anna Chi, a filmmaker whose work includes “ The Disappearance of Mrs. Wu ,” worked on “The Joy Luck Club” as a director’s assistant while studying at UCLA’s film school; she attended the viewing party with her husband, Douglas Smith, a visual-effects Oscar winner for “Independence Day.” She agrees with Chinh that “The Joy Luck Club” was ahead of its time. Although progress has been made, Chi said there is still much work to be done for Asian cinema. She sees “The Sympathizer” as an important step toward this goal.

‘The Sympathizer’ is a tense black comedy that’s also a moving story about friendship

HBO’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning post-Vietnam novel is the portrait of a divided people and a divided person.

April 13, 2024

While “The Sympathizer” isn’t the first time a story from a Vietnamese point of view has been told, previous efforts haven’t been as well received because of tensions that have lingered since the war. In January 1994, when Le Ly Hayslip , author of “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places,” visited Orange County on a press tour for the Oliver Stone film based on her memoir, dozens of protesters called her a traitor. It was billed as the first movie about the Vietnam War from a Vietnamese perspective, but anticommunist protesters were incensed that she had aided Viet Cong soldiers.

The premiere of “The Sympathizer” comes two weeks before the 49th anniversary of the fall of Saigon on April 30, known as Black April or Tháng tư đen in Vietnamese. The Vietnam War, the second longest war in U.S. history, killed hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people and American soldiers. For those who fought on the side of the South and were displaced, the wounds from the war remain unhealed.

“Viet sensationalized things to fit the American spy novel and from that perspective, the show is very intriguing to the viewers. He wrote it from the perspective of a Viet Cong communist spy and therefore the South Vietnamese were depicted as corrupted and cruel,” said Quan Nguyen, a physician and director of the Museum of the Republic of Vietnam , a nonprofit in Little Saigon in Orange County. It was opened in 2016 to honor veterans who fought for South Vietnam and to educate future generations.

“This could reopen a lot of deep wounds within our anticommunist community,” says Quan Nguyen, whose father was an army physician.

Jenny Thai, 58, a guest at the viewing party who is from Garden Grove, agrees. Thai said it has inspired her to make a film of her own that highlights South Vietnamese heroes. She recalls when she was a child in Vietnam, in the final days of the war, everyone was huddled around the radio and the announcement came that Saigon had fallen, and the adults around her broke down in tears. Weeks later, all the men and women associated with the former regime were sent to reeducation camps. She says her family later escaped Vietnam by boat in 1990.

“Most of the Saigoners stayed home and listened to the radio. It was the only way we could follow what was going on,” says Thai, who has produced short films. “Only a small portion of those who worked with the embassy or with U.S. officers knew about the evacuation.”

She adds, “I’m anticommunist, but I don’t hate the Northerners. We are all Vietnamese; we are all brothers and sisters from the same country. It’s the politics that destroyed us, the war.”

Though there are differing views, “The Sympathizer” has nonetheless spurred conversations about representation in Hollywood, how the story of the war is told and by whom. Ysa Le, executive director of the Vietnamese American Arts & Letters Association, a nonprofit that co-hosted a “Sympathizer” screening and press meeting with the show’s cast in Orange a week before its debut, says she welcomes the series.

“For the first time, we have so many Vietnamese talents, both in front of and behind the camera working on this American series,” said Le, 53, a pharmacist in Fountain Valley. She was 5 when the war ended, and her father was sent to a reeducation camp for six years after being unable to flee Vietnam.

“It could inspire aspiring filmmakers to pursue their own projects,” Le said.

Phong Dinh, 91, a former two-term councilman of the seaside resort city of Vung Tau, Vietnam, who spent three years in a reeducation camp, said he understands the antipathy toward the communists, but the spy character created by Viet Thanh Nguyen and depicted in the series doesn’t bother him.

“It was a well-known fact they infiltrated our government since President [Ngo Dinh] Diem’s regime, and continued with President [Nguyen Van] Thieu,” he said. A father of seven, Dinh experienced tragedy after the war, losing his youngest daughter to malaria because no medication was available, and his wife suffered permanent hearing damage from an artillery explosion near their home.

Now a Huntington Beach resident, Dinh joined his youngest son, Viet, former Fox Corp. chief legal officer and U.S. assistant attorney general, to watch the premiere episode. He gave it an A+.

“Our people have suffered immeasurably. I’m blessed to have my family. I want my children and their children to be good citizens, contribute to society in America and help our people,” he said. “If this TV series opens doors for our younger Vietnamese, then it’s worth it.”

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Vietnam War

Apr 03, 2019

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Vietnam War. Vocab: Ho Chi Minh Tet Offensive Vietcong Kent State Guiding Questions: 1. What was the war in Vietnam fought over? . Background Info . France colonized Vietnam in the mid-1800s Treated very poorly by the French

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Vietnam War Vocab: Ho Chi Minh Tet Offensive Vietcong Kent State Guiding Questions: 1. What was the war in Vietnam fought over?

Background Info • France colonized Vietnam in the mid-1800s • Treated very poorly by the French • Ho Chi Minh started a nationalist movement to free the Vietnamese from the French • Was Communist • Ho Chi Minh started revolting against the French after WWII • Called themselves the “Vietminh” • Used guerrilla tactics similar to the tactics the Americans used against the British in the American Revolution

France is defeated • America tried to help France by sending weapons and money • The French wanted the US to join the war effort but we wouldn’t (just got out of Korean War) • French signed a peace agreement which divided Vietnam • North: Communist (Ho Chi Minh leader) • South: French supported democracy (NgohDinh Diem leader)

Civil War • Both leaders were totalitarian and oppressive • Diem is assassinated by his own men • Ho Chi Minh wanted to unite Vietnam • His forces are now called Vietcong • US gives $$$ and weapons to the South • LBJ send first combat troops in Tonkin Gulf Resolution in March of 1965

US forces in Vietnam • Over 2.5 million Americans served in the Vietnam War • The draft was reinstituted • Very difficult war • Guerilla tactics • Very thick jungles (used Agent Orange to clear the jungles, but will have devastating effects on American soldiers health) • Vietcong had a vast tunnel system • Tet Offensive: Large scale attacks on South Vietnam by the Vietcong • Started with an attack on the US embassy in Saigon • The United States underestimated the power of the Vietcong • Nixon works to bring the troops in Vietnam home • US involvement in the war ended August 15 1973 • US had almost 60,000 causalities • Vietnam War ended in April 1975

Anti-War sentiment • Media played a huge role in anti-war sentiment • First time people saw real combat • Massive protests are held to show anti-war sentiment • Many always dodged the draft (refusing to go to war, move to Canada or going to jail) • Kent State: University brought in National Guard, who fired on students killing 4 and injured 9

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Private Patrick Halley receives retrospective service award in Hobart 53 years after returning home

A Vietnam War veteran who was involved in carrying out hazardous operations against well-armed Viet Cong guerilla forces and soldiers has finally received his award for service, more than 50 years after returning home.

Private Patrick Halley thought he was just "going on a lark" when he was deployed to Vietnam with the Australian Army in 1968.

He soon found out the reality was vastly different.

As a 20-year-old, Mr Halley took on the perilous role as a door gunner, where he and nine other gunners carried out supply missions, search and rescue operations, and medical evacuations behind enemy lines.

Their motto was "get the bloody job done".

"I never thought it would be as rough as it was," Mr Halley said.

Despite the passing of half a century, he still vividly remembers how physically tiring the work was.

"After the day [was over] you were buggered. You virtually died on the spot," he said.

"We would leave at about 4am and would be going all day, and we were always late getting back."

Service formally recognised

Mr Halley was retrospectively awarded his Gunner Wings in recognition of his service in Vietnam at a ceremony at the Anglesea Barracks in Hobart on Wednesday.

"I am very excited. I never excepted it to go this far," he said.

Royal Australian Navy Commander Tony Everingham said it was necessary to honour Mr Halley's service.

"It was really important to draw the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Australian Air Force and the Army together here today to formally recognise Pat for what his contribution was," he said.

"That period he spent in Vietnam in 1968 was extremely challenging."

Why did recognition take so long?

Mr Halley's nine fellow door gunners were awarded for their service long ago, but it took the Australian Defence Force more than five decades to track down Mr Halley to present him with his "wings".

And it could have just as easily not happened.

It was by sheer chance that Mr Halley realised that he had missed out.

"I never realised there was such a thing until one of the blokes in the company wrote a book about memorabilia and I noticed there were only nine names on the list," he said.

"So, when we had our last reunion I asked how I could go about getting recognition."

Commander Everingham said the unit's unique make up contributed to the delay.

"In defence records at the time it took a long time for people to understand the unique unit, so a lot of research was needed, historians went through archives and it relied on word-of-mouth," Commander Everingham said.

"It took until last year for historians to find the tenth member that was part of the unit and now they have all been presented with their Gunner Wings."

The Fleet Air Arm Museum in the south coast town of Nowra in New South Wales now has all 10 of the names on their honour wall.

Speaking after the ceremony, Private Reg Poulson who served with Mr Halley in Vietnam said it was great to see him recognised years later.

"He was a very dedicated soldier … He did his job and I'm really pleased for him."

"We feel like brothers because we have known each other for that long and I'm just really proud of him," Mr Poulson said.

Mr Halley served in a unique unit made up of 50 per cent United States Army pilots and 50 per cent Royal Australian Navy pilots.

The experimental unit was attached to the 135th Assault Helicopter Company and nicknamed EMU.

Mr Halley said he plans to wear his Gunner Wings with his medals to commemorate Anzac Day.

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A protest 56 years ago became an important part of Columbia’s culture.

During the Vietnam War, students seized campus buildings for a week until university officials and the police cracked down.

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By Vimal Patel

• April 18, 2024

Columbia University is no stranger to major student protests, and the uproar that unfolded at the institution on Thursday had echoes of a much bigger revolt in 1968 — another time of upheaval over a war many students deeply believed was immoral.

That year, in April, in the throes of the Vietnam War, Columbia and Barnard students seized five campus buildings, took a dean hostage and shut down the university.

By April 30, a week after the protest started, university officials cracked down.

At about 2 a.m., police began clearing students from Hamilton Hall “after entering the building through underground tunnels,” according to the student newspaper , The Columbia Daily Spectator. Minutes later, police entered Low Library, again through tunnels, removing occupying students by force.

By 4 a.m., they had cleared all buildings, resulting in more than 700 arrests — one of the largest mass detentions in New York City history — and 148 reports of injuries, the student newspaper reported. Officers trampled protesters, hit them with nightsticks, punched and kicked them and dragged them down stairs, according to a New York Times report .

Most of the injuries were cuts and bruises, relatively minor as compared to some of the brutal arrests of protesters at the height of antiwar and civil rights demonstrations at the time. The university also sustained some property damage, including smashed furniture, toppled shelves and broken windows.

In the end, the protesters won their goals of stopping the construction of a gym on public land in Morningside Park, cutting ties with a Pentagon institute doing research for the Vietnam War and gaining amnesty for demonstrators.

The protests would also lead to the early resignations of Columbia’s president, Grayson L. Kirk, and its provost, David B. Truman.

The fallout from the violence hurt the university’s reputation and led to reforms favoring student activism. Today the university touts its tradition of protest as part of its brand.

On Thursday, another Columbia president, Nemat Shafik, took what she called an “extraordinary step” and authorized the New York Police Department to clear out a student encampment on campus.

Vimal Patel writes about higher education with a focus on speech and campus culture. More about Vimal Patel

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Russia says US facing humiliation in Ukraine like in Vietnam

• Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. More content below

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia said on Sunday U.S. lawmakers' support for $60.84 billion more in aid for Ukraine showed that Washington was wading much deeper into a hybrid war against Moscow that would end in humiliation on a par with the Vietnam or Afghanistan conflicts.

President Vladimir Putin 's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine has touched off the worst fall-out in relations between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, according to Russian and U.S. diplomats.

On Saturday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed with broad bipartisan support a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from some far-right Republicans.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was clear that the United States wanted Ukraine "to fight to the last Ukrainian" including with attacks on Russian sovereign territory and civilians.

"Washington's deeper and deeper immersion in the hybrid war against Russia will turn into a loud and humiliating fiasco for United States such as Vietnam and Afghanistan," Zakharova said.

Russia, she said, will give "an unconditional and resolute response" to the U.S. move to get more involved in the Ukraine war.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns warned last week that without more U.S. military support Ukraine could lose on the battlefield, but that with support Kyiv's forces could hold their own this year.

The United States has repeatedly ruled out sending its own or other NATO-member troops to Ukraine, which is fighting a grinding artillery and drone war with Russia along a heavily fortified 1,000-km (600-mile) front.

The United States lost more than 58,000 military personnel in the 1955-75 Vietnam War, which ended with Communist North Vietnam's victory and takeover of the South, while hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed.

In the 2001-2021 war in Afghanistan, the U.S. reported 2,459 dead and over 20,000 wounded in the conflict which ended with the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces and return to power of the Islamist Taliban movement.

The Soviet Union lost 14,453 personnel in the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan. Civilian deaths in both the wars in Afghanistan were vast.

UKRAINE WAR

Russia now controls about 18% of Ukraine - in the east and south of its neighbour - and has been incrementally gaining ground since the failure of Kyiv's 2023 counter-offensive to make any serious inroads against Russian troops dug in behind minefields patrolled by drones and guarded by heavy artillery.

Ukraine has for months been begging the United States to release more money and weapons to help it fight, though Russian officials have asserted that U.S. aid will not change the ultimate course of the war.

Zakharova said that ordinary Ukrainians were being "forcibly driven to slaughter as "cannon fodder" but that the United States was now no longer betting on a Ukrainian victory against Russia. Washington, she said, was hoping Ukraine could hold on until the U.S. presidential election in November.

The U.S. legislative package includes measures that would allow the U.S. to seize billions of dollars' worth of Russian assets frozen by sanctions imposed on Moscow. That, said Zakharova, was simply "theft", adding that the true beneficiaries of the whole package were U.S. defence companies.

The leaders of the West and Ukraine have cast the war in Ukraine as an imperial-style land-grab showing that post-Soviet Russia is one of the top two biggest nation-state threats to global stability, alongside China.

Putin presents the war as part of a much broader struggle with the U.S., which he says ignored Moscow's interests after the Soviet Union's 1991 break-up and then plotted to cleave Russia apart and grab its natural resources.

The West denies that it wants to destroy Russia, which in turn denies that it intends to invade any NATO member state.

(Reporting by Reuters; editing by Mark Heinrich)

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'it was extremely emotional,' the movie star of my childhood tells me about reliving the vietnam war in hbo's 'the sympathizer' miniseries..

On the red carpet recently for the Los Angeles premiere of HBO's new miniseries " The Sympathizer ," she is regal in gold and black silk – glittering among Hollywood stars Robert Downey Jr. and Sandr a Oh .

You'd never know that five decades ago this month, actress Kieu Chinh was " homeless among the clouds ," as she recounts in her memoir, " Kieu Chinh: An Artist in Exile ," about how she became an accidental movie star in her native Vietnam and her refugee journey as Saigon fell in 1975.

Yet, with the trauma of a survivor, here she is reliving the Vietnam War in " an espionage thriller and cross-culture satire " based on Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. The miniseries, also streaming Sundays on Max, features award-winning filmmaker Park Chan-wook and Downey, who just won a best supporting actor Oscar for "Oppenheimer."

"I am so proud of our entire production for bringing to life a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a Vietnamese story adapted and played by a majority Vietnamese cast – especially our new young star Hoa Xuande as The Captain ," Kieu Chinh told me of "The Sympathizer."

"As a period piece, you can imagine when we’re shooting some of these visually stunning scenes it was extremely emotional," said Kieu Chinh, 86. "For me, it was like reliving the past."

For Nguyen, the novelist who alluded to Kieu Chinh's refugee story in " The Sympathizer ," it's more than appropriate that she appears in the TV adaptation of his best-seller.

“Kieu Chinh is a legend of Vietnamese cinema and popular culture," he emailed me. "Vietnamese audiences adore her, and she has played prominent roles in American cinema as well, from ' The Joy Luck Club ' to ' Journey from the Fall .' "

Vietnamese Grace Kelly starred in 'M*A*S*H,' 'Joy Luck Club'

"A legend of Vietnamese cinema and popular culture." That's exactly what Kieu Chinh was throughout my childhood, even after my family escaped the fall of Saigon and resettled in Phoenix in 1975. For as long as I could remember, images of her beauty and elegance made me think that she rivaled American legend Grace Kelly.

In Saigon during the war, the “Kieu Chinh TV Show” featured Hollywood celebrities of the USO Tour who came to help entertain service members, such as Danny Kaye, Glenn Ford and Tippi Hedren.

It was Tippi Hedren , star of such films as Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" – and mother to actress Melanie Griffith and grandmother to actress Dakota Johnson – who sponsored Kieu Chinh to the United States in the late 1970s.

'Homeless among the clouds': My journey from movie star to faceless fall of Saigon refugee

Then in 1977, Alan Alda wrote and starred in a "M*A*S*H" episode in which Kieu Chinh played Hawkey's love interest , called "In Love and War."

Though "M*A*S*H" took place during the Korean War, the show premiered toward the end of the Vietnam War and was considered a commentary on how U.S. policy affected my birthplace. Watching that episode with my parents, I understood that they were proud of Kieu Chinh and sad at the same time – for her interrupted career as well as for our native land.

Cinema wasn't done with Kieu Chinh, however. She found herself starring in "The Joy Luck Club," which came out in 1993.

Coincidentally, I landed a role in an Oliver Stone movie that premiered the same year, "Heaven and Earth."

How I met the movie star of my childhood

It was unbelievable enough for me, a journalist, to have 15 minutes of dialogue in a Hollywood film. But at our movie premiere in Los Angeles, I turned around and was suddenly face to face with the movie star of my childhood – Kieu Chinh.

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That night I called my mom in Phoenix to brag about meeting the Vietnamese icon, and if my dad hadn't passed away just a couple of years before, he would have been so jealous.

Kieu Chinh and I have stayed in touch over the years. Recently, when I called to congratulate her on "The Sympathizer," the icon born in 1937 was just so thrilled to have found a new generation of young fans who follow her on Facebook and Instagram . Every time she posts something, she's excited they respond with so many likes and comments.

She's also excited about continuing to find work in Hollywood. Her social media posts are full of her leaving yet another airport: "On The Road Again!"

"If it seems like I’ve been working non-stop, it’s because I have," Kieu Chinh wrote me. "Since wrapping HBO & A24’s 'The Sympathizer' in Thailand, I literally went directly from set to set, landing in Philadelphia the next day, to film Apple TV+’s ' Sinking Spring ' by producer & director Sir Ridley Scott and creator/director Peter Craig ."

I asked what it was like working with Robert Downey Jr., who plays multiple "Ugly American" archetypes in "The Sympathizer." Kieu Chinh replied: "I was in awe of his work all season long. I wouldn't be surprised that the Academy Award winner will win an Emmy for this series."

Thuan Le Elston, a  USA TODAY Opinion  editor, is the author of " Rendezvous at the Altar: From Vietnam to Virginia ."