Vietnamese Re-Education Camps: A Brief History

After the Fall of Saigon on April 30^th, 1975, every South Vietnamese man, from former officers in the armed forces, to religious leaders, to employees of the Americans or the old government, were told to report to a re-education camp to "learn about the ways of the new government." Many South Vietnamese men chose to flee on boats, but others had established lives and loved ones in Vietnam, so they willingly entered these camps in hopes of quickly reconciling with the new government and continuing their lives peacefully. According to my father, the government said re-education would only last for ten days, and at most two weeks. However, once there, the men were detained for many years in grueling labor camps.

Excerpts from My Father’s Oral History

The best way to describe these camps is through the words of someone who lived through it. In Spring 2003, I interviewed my father and learned about his experiences in totality for the first time.

I was astounded at all the suffering he endured and the persecution he overcame to survive the grueling conditions of the camps. First-as a newlywed, he was forcibly separated from my mother and unable to keep stable communication with her during his imprisonment. They were only allowed to write once every 3-5 months, and have visits once a year. During his time, he was only given one bowl of rice per day, just enough to survive and work, but not enough to escape. He did hard physical labor like carrying bamboo and water and clearing forested areas to construct buildings from sunrise to sunset under the supervision of cocky young communist officers. At night, he slept in cramped, disease-ridden living quarters, where he lay awake, fearing death from fatigue, lack of medical attention and malnutrition. "Since we lacked food and medicine many people died. Sometimes I’d lie awake at night, not knowing when my turn would come, because a friend had died just two days ago, and a week after I would bury another friend in the fields. I’d bring another friend to the hospital, only to have him die. So I didn’t know when my turn would come..."

Learning about my father's experiences has influenced the way I view the world. After hearing his stories, I wanted to give voice to all the Re-Education Camp survivors whose voices have not been heard. Many of these Vietnamese men have immigrated to the US, and like my father, many are working in menial, labor-intensive jobs so their kids could have the opportunities they never had. As a machinist who has little knowledge of English, my father has few people with whom he could share these stories, and I know he appreciated the opportunity to share them with me and have me spread them to a wider audience.

The process of writing the oral history helped me better understand my father's experiences, but I needed to create something else to share these stories with other people. I was struck by certain images my father evoked in retelling his stories, like "canned sardines" to describe sleeping conditions. I was also inspired by anecdotes about hunger, work, and camaraderie in the jungles, and created five pen and ink drawings, illustrating the experiences as I imagined them.

Conclusions

My intentions for creating these paintings is not to horrify anyone, or remind ourselves of atrocities we can commit upon each other. Rather, these paintings are meant to honor my father's experiences and those of the men who suffered alongside him. Furthermore, these paintings are a testament to these men's strength and courage in the face of devastating conditions.

The Vietnamese have deep beliefs in ancestral worship, Buddhist notions of karma, and superstitions. In the scroll-like paintings, my intention is to evoke the spirits of the Vietnamese people who have survived and transcended these re-education camps. Moreover, I want the work to pulsate with life and with the daily struggles of re-education camp detainees.

Despite the many instances of inhumanity portrayed in these works, there was also a lot of humanity shared among the prisoners as they supported each other in their quest for survival. The men who suffered through the worst of the corporal punishments still had a lot of life left in them to persevere, leave the camps, and create lives anew both in Vietnam and in the United States. Unfortunately, many of these re-education camp survivors have been unable to speak about their experiences, and their stories are left unheard. These paintings are meant to evoke the stories we all carry within, so that we can celebrate our lives and those that came before us.