Defense Department said in a 1970 statement. 'The care and welfare of these unfortunate children.has never been and is not now considered an area of government responsibility,' the U.S. Their destiny was to become waifs and beggars, living in the streets and parks of South Vietnam's cities, sustained by a single dream: to get to America and find their fathers.īut neither America nor Vietnam wanted the kids known as Amerasians and commonly dismissed by the Vietnamese as 'children of the dust'-as insignificant as a speck to be brushed aside. Schoolmates taunted and pummeled them and mocked the features that gave them the face of the enemy-round blue eyes and light skin, or dark skin and tight curly hair if their soldier-dads were African-Americans. Many were abandoned by their mothers at the gates of orphanages.

They grew up as the leftovers of an unpopular war, straddling two worlds but belonging to neither. At a similar gathering, many in the audience wept when an Amerasian family that had just arrived in the United States was introduced. Once shunned by many, Vietnamese Amerasians now celebrate their heritage (a San Jose gala in 2008).

Man of war vietnam editor