What Part of ‘No’ Do You Not Understand?

The headline in the LA Times read, “Children of Vietnam War servicemen seek U.S. citizenship”. A defiant sadness came upon me when I thought about the limbo that these men and women of Vietnamese and American heritage must still be experiencing. In many cases, they were abandoned by their anonymous fathers and rejected by their mothers, extended relatives and neighbors, as well as both the American and Vietnamese governments.

It is safe to say that humanity failed the Vietnamese Amerasians. None of them were asked to be born under inauspicious circumstances and, yet, each of them must answer for society’s general inattention and disregard. “Unwanted” is a term that is commonly used to emphasize the plight of the Amerasians and it is certainly not an exaggeration.

Consider this excerpt from the book Surviving Twice: Amerasian Children of the Vietnam War
by Trin Yarborough:

In 1970, faced with media reports of up to 100,000 Amerasian children (mostly abandoned) in Vietnam, the U.S. Department of Defense issued this statement: “The care and welfare of these unfortunate children…has never and is not now considered an area of government responsibility, nor an appropriate mission for the DOD to assume.”

I consider it a cold injustice to force this vulnerable population to beg for U.S. citizenship after many of them already had to beg in cities across southern Vietnam for a living.

One truly ironic twist in this battle for citizenship is that back in October 2000, the Child Citizenship Act was signed into law by President Clinton and officially took effect in February 2001.  It allows newly adopted children to automatically become U.S. citizens once they enter the United States. Now, think about all those Vietnamese infants who have been adopted by Americans over the past decade and currently enjoy the privileges and responsibilities of U.S. citizenship.

Too bad that famous American generosity isn’t retroactive so that it could finally rectify the sins of its fathers.

Resources:

H.R. 4007, The Amerasian Paternity Recognition Act

Amerasian Fellowship Association