What my mother carried: A refugee story of courage, 50 years after the fall of Saigon

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This is a spring of remembrance for my mom’s family, and for other Vietnamese refugees like them. April 30 marked 50 years since the fall of Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, to North Vietnamese forces in 1975. A definitive end date to the sprawling Vietnam War that spanned nearly two decades. 

For me, it’s a family story, one that resonates this Mother’s Day as I reflect on how my life is tied to this historic event through my own mother, and what legacy I want to pass down to my infant son as a new mother myself. 

My family fled Saigon just days before its fateful fall, part of an exodus that would number more than a million people, and setting them on a journey that brought them to the United States, where my mother met my father, and where I was born. 

Every Vietnamese refugee family has some version of this story – the story of how they left. As the North Vietnamese advanced on the South in the spring of 1975, my grandfather tried multiple ways to get his family out. In the end, it was his friendship with the regional director of Caltex, a branch of Chevron, that came through. My grandfather, a law professor, had consulted with the oil company to settle a legal dispute. Rather than receiving payment, he asked for his family to be put on the American company’s staff roster for evacuation.

The call came around 5 p.m. on April 24. My mom took it at a neighbor’s house, since my family did not have a telephone. My family had a planned departure date of April 28 – but a family ahead of them on the waiting list was not ready to leave. Could they be ready in just two hours to take the spot?  

Yes, somehow, they could. 

With time ticking, my 20-year-old mom raced to the nearby law school on her moped to find her father, only to speed back when she discovered he had already left for home. Each family member had a small bag packed as though for a short trip – not enough to arouse suspicion or panic among people who might see them trying to leave for good. My grandmother sewed pieces of gold leaf into the hems of their clothing. 

They gathered their few things and left their home behind.

My mom, aged 20, traveled with her parents and four of her five siblings, ranging in ages from 12 to 23. The eldest of her younger brothers had started university in France the year before – a major stroke of luck, since Vietnamese men of military age were now prohibited from leaving the country. They would not have left without him.

The remaining family traveled to Tan Son Nhat airport in a bus with the curtains drawn to hide how many people were attempting to leave. In the dark of the early morning, away they flew in the belly of an American cargo plane, with many sitting on the floor. They landed at a military base on Guam. It was there on April 30 that they learned South Vietnam had surrendered. That they had lost their country as well as the war. That the money in my grandfather’s suitcase was now worthless paper. That this was truly a one-way exodus, and they would not be returning.

Camp Pendleton and seeking sponsorship in the U.S.

The family arrived at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, on May 3. They slept on cots in army tents set up for the wave of refugees. My mom remembers the weeds growing knee-high, and the cold coming as a shock compared to the humid heat of Vietnam. Our family was then transferred to Hope Village, a resettlement center in the small town of Weimar among the pine trees of the Sierra Nevada foothills, 50 miles north of Sacramento.

As summer faded, anxiety among the refugees ran high. Everyone was waiting for someone to sponsor them out of the camp. Would they have to spend the winter on this foreign mountain?

Then Stan and Helen Steed, an older couple from Stockton, arrived looking to sponsor a student to live with them while attending college. My grandfather approached my mom, who had been one year into medical school in Saigon. Would she consider living with these strangers for a few years to further her education, and gain a toehold in this new country? 

My mom agreed.

The Steeds’ church soon sponsored the entire family to relocate to Stockton, where my grandparents put down roots and my mom and her siblings lived before dispersing to the San Francisco Bay Area, where my own story unfolded. As a sixth grader, I first asked my mom about how she came to the U.S. Naively, I was disappointed to learn our family was not part of the gripping narrative of the Boat People, the majority of Vietnamese refugees who made the harrowing escape by sea. Now I understand how fortunate and privileged my family was to leave the way they did. They all stayed together, and they made it out safely with relative ease.  

Fifty years after the war, Vietnam has become a popular tourist destination. As evidence of how dramatically things can change, I spent my honeymoon there in 2023. At the end of our trip, my husband and I departed what is now Ho Chi Minh City, riding toward Tan Son Nhat International Airport in the darkness of the early morning. I thought of my mom making this same journey by bus decades ago, leaving one life behind and moving forward into an unknown new one.

How do we pass down legacy without trauma? 

My family rarely talked about the war or their lives in Vietnam. 

When I was growing up, my mom often reminded me that she had lived in the United States longer than she ever did in Vietnam. This had been true since I was 10 years old, and she was 40 – the age I am now. She and her siblings embraced their new country, building families and successful careers. They focused on the present and the future, while I’ve spent years trying to reconstruct the past.

I fixated on the Vietnam War during middle school, searching for my own identity in a romanticized idea of that tragic conflict. Decades later, I recognize the war created a pivotal turning point in my family’s history – but the war alone doesn’t define us, and is not our only legacy. 

Our family history is so much greater than a single war, stretching centuries deep in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. I am descended from poets and scholars, teachers and civil servants. The war uprooted my family and changed their trajectory, but that trajectory made my life as I know it possible. I can hold both of these complicated truths.

One of my closest childhood friends is a refugee from the former Soviet Union. She and I recently mused together on how to share this type of family story with our kids. How, we wondered, do we pass down legacy without trauma? 

As we keep moving forward, our past becomes a story that we can choose whether and how to tell. But whether we tell it or not, we still carry its imprint.

My family story has started a new chapter with the recent birth of my son. One day, when he’s ready, I want him to know how the events of the Vietnam War are one part of his own family history. To somehow feel grounded in the past without being burdened by it. 

My family sought refuge in America and were granted it, met with the generosity of a community that rose to the occasion and welcomed them. My son and I are both here thanks to the courage of our family to seek a new life, and a country that gave them a safe landing when they needed it most.

Erin Loury is a writer and fish scientist who has lived in Santa Cruz since 2008. A graduate of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories and the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication program, she currently works as the communications manager for the Coastal Watershed Council. Erin is working on a memoir about her journey into Vietnamese identity and family history, as well as a decade of working in fisheries conservation in Southeast Asia, which she updates occasionally on Instagram @motherriverdragonfish.