Author Description

Leaving Saigon chronicles the Nguyen family's flight from North Vietnam in 1954 to escape the communist takeover and begin anew in Saigon. The family of nine began their new life in a house in Saigon with a dirt floor and coconut leaf roof. Xuan (Swan), the oldest daughter, recounts her life from the rural North through the last stages of the Vietnam War and how it was to "grow up ugly" in a culture that was undergoing change. She worked for the Americans on Saigon's giant Tan Son Nhut Airport and became involved in the black market. Her marriage to an American soldier resulted in more hardship and ostracized her from her family and neighbors. The forty-year family journey goes from Nam Dinh to Saigon; from Kontum and Pleiku through the fall of Saigon, The Trail of Tears, ten years of political prison, and escape to freedom by boat. Xuan's peasant-to-American journey was one of personal trial, a new life, and changed fortunes. This is a 50-year story about a war, about adopting a new culture, making new friends, and becoming an American. Over 100 photographs document the story.