On Mother’s Day and to mark the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, writer Erin Loury reflects on her Vietnamese family’s harrowing escape from war-torn Vietnam and the life they built in the United States. Now a new mother herself, Loury contemplates the dual legacies of survival and resilience passed down to her son — and the importance of sharing her family’s refugee story without passing down its trauma.
Erin Loury
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
Scanning family photos helped me connect to my Vietnamese identity and to the MAH’s new ‘Sowing Seeds’ exhibit
Erin Loury is trying to re-create her family’s past by scanning old photos. She is particularly interested in her family’s life before the Vietnam War forced them to flee. “War destroys so much,” she writes, “disrupting what gets passed down to the next generation in diaspora: heirlooms, stories, language, tradition. I’m trying to counter that loss one photo at a time.” She is also finding startling connections with the Museum of Art and History’s new exhibit, “Sowing Seeds” about Filipino American stories from the Pajaro Valley.