I started my journey back in 2000 when I started to wonder about my heritage when my birth brother, also adopted, asked me to search for our family. It took us about three months to actually find them but it took me almost 28 years to build the courage to get to that point. In April of 2001, we found our birth family and our family continues to grow even to this day with our own children. My experience of finding my family gave me the idea to form an organization to help others in the future navigate their own search. I also found out through this process of connecting with adoptees that not all of them wanted to search for birth parents, some just wanted to connect with other adoptees with similar experiences. I was able to respect that but also tried to help them talk about their culture and heritage which was very different for most adoptees growing up in a foreign land. The internet has helped us rejoin as a group though social networks (facebook) and skype. We started having mini reunions all around the globe and then someone had a great idea of doing a reunion in Vietnam for the 35th Anniversary. We were doing weekly skype meeting and formed the planning committee and stayed true to the ideas of being there to support each other along the way. We talked about adoption issues and invited guest speakers like Tammy Nguyen Lee; producer of “Operation Babylift, The Lost Children of Vietnam”, and our group grew. Everyone also had a desire to find out more about their genealogical connections. Is it possible that we might have siblings within the adoption community? So, we brought in Family Tree DNA to help us.

We just returned from the Operation Reunite Adoptee Tour. We planned this trip for over a year and it was so rewarding to see our hard work pay off. Operation Reunite and Project Return II (Le-Thanh) organized events during this two week period. The activities included a pool party at the Rex Hotel, initial gathering at the Caravelle Hotel, tours of Saigon, District 5 and 7, VAD to be Back dinner, a bonding day at Dam Sen Park, the emotional memorial at the C-5A crash site, and many group dinners that were planned when we arrived in Saigon.

The most impressive accomplishment was to be invited on the top rated TV program in Vietnam and the coverage in the newspapers was wonderful. We launched a project called “Operation DNA” in Vietnam. This is the first ever project to reunite Vietnamese Adoptees with their genealogical lineage. Within the first hour of broadcasting live, the show received over 240 birth mothers calling in. The segment was aired three times later that week and we’re waiting to hear the outcome. Our DNA tests are the newest on the market and still in the beta phase so you can’t even get these kits without going through our DNA project. This DNA project can connect up to five generations of families with just a swap sample in the cheek area. Operation DNA will help to reunite mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, siblings and even half siblings. We hope to find funding to help include all of these people in our DNA database. We are also accepting private donations to help fund the birth mother’s tests in Vietnam. All donations are tax deducible and will help bring us closer to healing after 35 years of separation.

I wanted to comment that the trip was a collaborative effort with all the adoptees planning and making the reunion what they wanted it to be. We did it together so it made it even more special. A special thank you to Son Michael Pham (Kids without Boarders) and Tammy Nguyen Lee (Against the Grain Productions for sponsoring the tour buses for this trip. The trip went so smoothly because of the help of Chu Son and all of the press coverage via Tuoi Tre and the reunion Show in Vietnam. Thank you for everyone’s participation and we look forward to the next reunion.

Sincerely,
Trista Goldberg
Founder of Operation Reunite

By Tricia Houston

During our two week reunion, there were too many signs that this was the right time for our gathering of the first generation Vietnamese adoptees from all over the world to come to our homeland of Viet Nam. I heard over and over from my fellow adoptees, “I didn’t know there were so many of us.” There were 40 of us on the reunion. It was a humbling to know there were many brothers and sisters who have not met before. There are so many more of the first generation adoptees in the world. The number is over 5,000. Adoptions of Vietnamese babies started in the 1960s and ended 1975 before the fall of Saigon.

A huge sign of this being the right time for the reunion were wonderful stories of questions that were answered or meeting significant people from our past. Registries were books of answers for many adoptees. Mike, an adoptee from America, went up to Da Nang to find his orphanage. He found so much more. Mike was in doubt that he would find anything in the registry because his name and birth date were made up. That was a very common occurrence in our Vietnamese adoptee community. Actually, in the registry, Mike found his real name and birth date. Thuy, an adoptee from America, who looked in a registry at her orphanage with doubts of finding anything, discovered her real birth date and year. She happily discovered that she is two years younger than she once believed. A find that she jokes about with us at a dinner one night. Of course, many questions were answered at that moment for them.

Tia, an adoptee from America, searched for the hospital where she was born in Da Nang. A nun took her to the site that was set to be demolished soon. She explained to the security guard that Tia was born here and has returned from America to see the hospital. He agreed to let them through to walk in the abandoned building. As Tia, her husband, and the nun were walking on the tile floors, Tia whispered to her husband to pick up something so she could keep it. The souvenir was a loose tile piece. Now she has a piece of where she was born.

Joakim, an adoptee from Sweden, who came to this reunion with no expectations, was surprised by what could happen on his journey. Joakim discovered information about himself in a registry in Da Nang. Later in the reunion, he put pieces of a picture together. He brought a photo of a nun holding him when he was a baby at the Sacred Heart Orphanage in Da Nang. Joakim spent a couple of days searching for the nun without expecting to find her. He found her on his last day in Saigon. Sister Xuan Thanh came home from the states to find that the baby she once held was all grown up. I had the honor to witness this reunion. Joakim gave so much to Sister Xuan Thanh at that moment. She did not want to let go of him at the end of our visit.

The reunion meant so much to many adoptees, mothers who accompanied their sons or daughters on the reunion, and volunteers who were in Viet Nam during the same time. To see all the adoptees in one place at one time was overwhelming and a humbling experience. It was the right time to have a reunion.

The reunion has officially ended, most of the adoptees have already left and the collective presence and energy has quickly faded from this place. Or has it? Now, every time I visit the rooftop lounge at the Caravelle Hotel my mind still sees our opening reception in full swing. I can still picture each of us seated or standing around our respective tables, meeting one another for the first time, catching up with old friends, and sharing our life stories together. I don’t just see a mass of people, I can see specific faces and I distinctly remember who was talking to whom. I recall the taste of the wine, the flash of the cameras and how I struggled to quickly register new faces and associate them with the names I’d become familiar with over the months leading up to the reunion. I remember particular smiles, distinct laughter as well as hugs and kisses between friends who had gone without seeing each other for too long. I hear Kim Browne asking me to model the Operation Reunite t-shirts and I can still imagine Tricia helping me to distribute them one by one. 

But the Caravelle is not the only place where I feel our reunion. I’m still surrounded by the feeling of friends all over this city and in other parts of the country too. Danang, Hoi An and Nha Trang will hold memories of fun times with other adoptees for me. Since the reunion’s end, Jimmy has returned from Cambodia, Kim has been stranded here due to volcanic ash, Anh Dao is still clicking away with her camera and Ben just returned to Vietnam for the very first time. Brent, Zion, Kevin, Kym and other adoptees I didn’t have a chance to meet this time around continue to live here indefinitely or at least long after the end of this particular reunion.

This is the fifth time I’ve had the opportunity to visit Vietnam and every year I’ve watched the country change on its own. But even if the country’s evolution were to grind to a complete halt tomorrow, this reunion would forever change Vietnam for me, personally. I can’t see the sights of Saigon in the same way. I can no longer look at orphans or pick them up and hold them as I once did. I’m unable to view other adoptees in the same light as before and I may never be able to look at myself in quite the same way either.

Where do we all go from here? After coming together briefly, only to then part from a reunion such as this one, are we meant to once again diverge as we did 35 years ago? Or, are we meant to continue from here on, joined by a sense of unity, bound together not only by our common heritage and war but now, perhaps more importantly, by our shared experience in April 2010?   

I wonder what the coming months and years will be like in the wake of such a reunion, for myself and for others. I can’t help but consider the age of 35 to be a crucial turning point in my life. Perhaps I was supposed to have a life affirming experience, one that reminds me just how fragile my life once was and also that I’m not alone, in fact, I’ve never been alone. There’s still so much to discover about who I am and who I want to have in my midst for the years to come. To all of the Vietnamese adoptees and to all of the family and friends who participated in our reunion, thank you for being a part of that experience and for being an indelible part of my life!

Kevin Maes

Tricia Houston

It is my last night in Saigon and I feel a sense of peace within myself. I have found more than I thought I would during my first visit to my homeland. Of course, the many friends I have made on this reunion. The adoptees I have met are so very supportive. We have a unique community that only another Vietnamese adoptee can understand the importance of visiting our motherland for the first time. The support of each other in our searches of our identity was overwhelming. For me I had a fellow adoptee, Anh Dao, support me when I visited my orphanage, Hoi Duc Anh. I was fortunate to be present at Kim’s meeting with a nun who was in his baby picture. I was there to support my brother. Then the meeting the Vietnamese family and them showing me the Vietnamese culture was what I wanted in this visit. The Go Vap orphanage kids have my heart forever. I will remember their eagerness to learn and their smiles upon greeting me. The one event that I did not expect was to find the nurse that carried me to the World Vision Baby Home from Hoi Duc Anh. There are many stories like mine that were repeated throughout the two weeks here in Viet Nam.

This trip was 35 years in the making. This was the right time for me to return on my personal journey. There were too many events that were signs that this was the right time for me to visit Saigon, my birth place. In the future, I know I will return.

Last year I asked Kim if I could teach a lesson at the orphanage that she volunteers at and was once a home for her. This has been in the planning stages for a long time. The lesson became a reality on Monday at Go Vap Orphanage. I had help from a translator, Diana, who was from Australia and recently moved to Vietnam and very fluent in Vietnamese. She wants to become a teacher and has the talent to do so. The class was a special education class with students from middle to high school age with the learning level of five years old. There were students with mental challenges, physical disabilities, and brain damage.

I taught a GLAD lesson about different kinds of homes such as a suburban home, farmhouse in the country, and apartment buildings in the city. This tool is called a pictorial. I started with tracing the home that would be found in the suburban neighborhood. Then I drew a farmhouse in the country and an apartment building in New York City. With each house we stopped to label the vocabulary words I was teaching such as window, door, house, barn, building, etc, which we acted out the objects (window – made a square in the air and then looked through). At first, when I asked for volunteers, they did not do anything. I called on a young man who had brain damage from a car accident, and he was the class helper, to come up first to place a label on the pictorial. Everyone clapped when he placed the word “house” onto the large white paper. Then the hands started to rise in the air to participate. I had a student who we had to help walk to place a label on the pictorial. Two students had to crawl on the hard tile floor to place the words “door” and “window” on the pictorial because they were unable to walk. At the end of the lesson, I asked the students to draw a picture of a house. As I was passing out the white plane paper, I heard many times over students saying, “Window, window, window.” I knew that they understood the lesson at that moment. Their pictures of their houses were very well done. They were trying their best to copy the pictorial. Diana and I helped the students draw their homes. At the end of my time in the classroom, I gave the class a set of bookmarks that my students made for them and then Hershey Kisses candies. I do not hand out candy to my regular class back in the states.

It was the first time that I taught in a special needs classroom. It was amazing how they wanted to learn within an interactive environment. The students only watch TV during the day and the teacher calls that learning.

It was an honor to teach the Go Vap children. Mrs. Loan, the director of the orphanage, asked me to teach on Friday for a different class. I will be teaching the same lesson to seven year olds, which I am familiar with that age group.

My homecoming day is April 8. That was when I was named Patricia Anne Houston and given to a family to start a new life. I love you mom!

Tricia Houston

Tonight was a special evening. Four weeks ago I met a woman, Tho, who worked at the World Vision Baby Home in Gia Dinh District. She gave me a book to give to her sister, Mai, who lives in Saigon. When I met her on Sunday, she promised to pick me up to help buy an Ao Dai and to experience a Vietnamese meal.
Mai sent her son, Ky Anh, to translate for her. Ky Anh arrived at the hotel promptly and before his parents who were driving in traffic to my hotel. He was a young man who studied in Singapore but was back in Viet Nam for awhile. Ky Anh wanted to help me as much as possible. He asked me where I was from. Then I started to talk about my orphanage, Hoi Duc Anh, and how it is now a school for the blind. Ky Anh offered to look at the address I had for the school. He explained to me that was very close by my hotel. “Do you want to go to it now?” he asked me and I was unprepared to visit a place that was home for me for seven weeks of my young life. I agreed to go and look at the buildings.

Mai, Ky Anh, and Mai’s husband drove me to my former orphanage. It has an entry way and a huge courtyard. I got out of the Toyota, and stood in the middle of where I lived as an orphan. The buildings were two levels with orange on the bottom half of the walls. There were pink doors to the various rooms of the school. I saw a sign that read massages. That was a business that operated nearby. I asked Ky Anh to ask the main entrance person if I can come back with another adoptee tomorrow for a tour. The man approved my return visit for tomorrow.

Then we went to get an Ao Dai made for me. We did not go to Ben Thanh Market to shop but far away from that ward. Mai explained that it was cheaper away from the tourist areas. We walked into a store that had many sparkling decorations on their fabrics. I did not like those patterns. Then we visited another shop where the young woman set out the purple fabrics for me to choose. I chose one with flowers flowing from the top to the bottom. Before I knew it, the young woman took us to another shop across the busy street. This was very Vietnamese. Apparently, a mature female owner owned two shops. Mai said that the owner was rich. I listened to the rhythms of the Vietnamese language being exchanged between her and Mai. To my surprise, Mai treated me to the Ao Dai. Ky Anh told me, “Yes, let my mom do that.” Mai wanted to purchase the special keepsake from my homeland for me.

Finally, Mai’s husband drove us to the restaurant, 94 Restaurant, for a traditional Vietnamese dinner. Since arriving in Saigon, I have only been to places that serve tourists, which are not traditional Vietnamese restaurants. Ky Anh led us into the restaurant and pass the two women cooking the food outside on the sidewalk with burning work spaces and hug pans filled with orders, and we went up to the second floor. It was a tiny non-smoking area of the restaurant. I thought it was strange that the non-smoking was above the smoking area, and one could still smell the smoke from below. It was a room with minimal decoration but a fan and air con on at all times. We had a crab themed dinner of crab soup, fried crab claws, crab meat with noodles, and spring rolls with crab meat. The first taste of the crab soup, I said, “Mmmmm,” out loud. Mai asked me if it was good and I said yes. The fried crab claws were nicely cooked with the meat melting in my mouth. Everything was great! It was a traditional Vietnamese meal in that we used one tiny green bowl and plastic green chop sticks for the food. Of course, the soup was in a tiny white bowl. I held my bowl up to my mouth as I shoveled the crab meat and noodles in my mouth. That was how the Vietnamese eat.

I asked Ky Anh and Mai questions about Vietnamese culture. Ky Anh went to school in the city and wore a school uniform, a requirement at Vietnamese schools. Children leave home to go to high school in a different city or country. Ky Anh left home at age 14 to go to school in Singapore. Recently, he applied for universities in America and hopes to move there next year.

A cultural difference between Viet Nam and America was that after the university, if the son gets married, he and his new wife live with his parents. I found it interesting that Mai kept asking me if I was married because I lived on my own in America. For a woman my age, I would not be living independently from my mom in Viet Nam.

At one point, I asked Ky Anh if women work after they get married. He said it depends if the husband has money or not. If he has money, then his wife does not need to work. To come to find out, Mai was a successful business woman in Saigon. She opened her own business selling gardening supplies. She has now retired.

As I was talking with my hands, as I sometimes do, Mai took my left hand and sighed. Ky Anh explained that she reads palms. I allowed her to read mine. She said that I am always thinking and I had a hard life.

It was a great dinner with many lessons of my birth culture. This was what I wanted from my trip to my homeland.

Tricia Houston

I did not realize that yesterday, April 5, was the day I left Saigon to a new home in America 35 years ago. Today, April 6 was when I touched down on American soil to start a new life. Here I am observing my personal anniversaries in my homeland. It still amazes me!

I spent today very quietly. In the morning I stayed in to blog and let myself rest. It was a good idea to process everything such as the babies in the orphanage. I made Nhu cry when I placed her back in her silver crib. She liked being held. Then when I was trying to place Minh back in his crib, he did not want to let go of my left arm. He was attached to me for awhile. I know that 35 years ago I was in a similar crib. I was not picked up but only for my medical evaluations. There were so many of us that no one could come around to hold us. As an adult, I know that was the reason why I did not like hugging people when I was a child. I did not have that close experience as a baby in my first 6 months of my life. After I understood that, I become more available to hug others. During my visit to the orphanage I wanted to hold as many babies I could because I know how important it was for the baby.

Tricia Houston

In the morning I met my dear friend, Kim, to travel to our destination. Our purpose for the morning was to participate in a VAN GO Conference at the orphanage. We drove through District 3 (I think that is what I read on a sign) to get to the Go Vap Orphanage. It was a very poor area. The streets appear to be narrower, too.

We were there for a conference, but it was all in Vietnamese. So Kim showed me around the orphanage instead. We wanted to see the children who I would teach on Monday. The tour of the facility started with visiting the terminally sick ward where the babies have Hydrocephalus. I understand the kids have big heads because they have too much fluid. There were babies, and some were full grown children, in cribs with nothing to see but painted cartoon characters on the ceiling. I touched a baby’s hand and he smiled at me.

Then she took me to the classrooms. We had to take off our shoes before we entered. It had tile floors and long wooden desks and benches for the students to sit at. Their name tags where placed in the front of the wooden desk. One classroom was for the kids who are mentally challenged. The kids range from teenage to 24 years old. We stepped in and the teacher left us there with them because he needed to do something outside. The kids were not learning a lesson but watching Vietnamese TV, which looked like a kids’ show. So Kim turned it off and turned to me to teach them something. I saw some pictures of common food and everyday objects (toaster oven, oven, etc.) on the wall. I gathered some of the kids who were willing to listen and did some repeating of the words and actions with them. The few of them that came over to me to listen caught on very well with the actions. There was this one boy, the 24 year old, who was the class helper who held my hand, showed me the classroom, and told me about the other kids. It was rather sweet of him.

Next I went to the baby ward. At first one is taken back by the rows of silver metal cribs that were lined up around the huge room. Then I walked around to touch the babies’ hands and talk to them. Each of the babies’ faces lit up in response. Kim asked me if I wanted to hold one of the babies. I took full advantage of that offer. As I was walking around with one of them, I saw a crib with a cute baby with big brown eyes and the same Vietnamese name as me. I quickly held Nhu who laughed and smiled when I picked her up from out of her ordinary crib. It was so nice to hold and talk to her for a while. We walked around to look outside the window and looked at other babies in the room. Then I fed a baby boy named Minh with a bottle. In the middle of feeding him, the electricity went off and the fans stopped. To say the least it was hot in the room. Minh seemed to be okay with what the adults were complaining about. He was so cute and responsive. When I was feeding Minh, the nurse came by and said to Minh, “She can be your new mom.” I said, “I wish!” Minh was probably three months old as well as Nhu.

It was lunch time for the students, too. I met the class that I will be teaching eating their rice and soup. They were a class of seven year old children who waved and smiled a mouthful of rice when they greeted me. There was a mix of average to below average intelligence in the class. I have designed a lesson with pictures, words for vocabulary building associated with different homes (city, country, and suburban), and actions. I hope the kids enjoy it next Monday.

As I was beginning to leave Go Vap, a nurse rushed in with a newborn baby wrapped in her arms. She must have come from the hospital. Son Michael had her stop so I could see the baby. She unwrapped the blanket to reveal a very cute baby, who had a split on the left arm. She pointed to the baby’s hands which were deformed. Then she pointed to the baby’s feet, which were covered with booties. I thought she was communicating to me that the feet were deformed, too. It made me wonder what kind of condition I was dropped off in at the Hoi Duc Anh Orphanage at six weeks old. How sick was I?

After my day at the orphanage, I returned through the dusty streets to my hotel in the city. My friend, Jay, and I went to have lunch at a French restaurant that I discovered with a group the previous day. A local adoptee led us there and it was wonderful. It was a few doors down from the KFC. Later that evening, we had a small group dinner at the new Hard Rock Café. It was interesting to see mostly tourist there because it was too expensive for locals. I am taking in Vietnamese culture through French food and 80s music in the HRC.

Today is the Galaxy C-5A Memorial Ceremony. To all of my brothers and sisters who I never met due to the tragedy on April 4, 1975, I will be saying a prayer for you at the crash site. To my special friends who are survivors, I am grateful to know you.
I recently learned that the Baby Home nurse took a group of babies, which included me, to the airport the morning of April 4 to board C-5A. We were turned away because there were not enough care givers on the plane for us. Four weeks ago when I discovered that about myself, I was silent. Whatever my life was meant to become, it was determined that day.