Official Vietnamese flag provokes protests, pain
When students at an Olympia community college hung the official flag of Vietnam as part of a larger international display to honor foreign students in 2002, it was meant as a welcoming gesture. But to many Vietnamese Americans and refugees on and off the campus, the communist government's red banner with a gold star symbolized an oppressive regime they had been forced to flee, and as word of the flag's display circulated, hundreds protested and flooded the school with angry e-mail.
The incident fueled a larger movement in Vietnamese communities in the Puget Sound area urging local governments to either ban the official Vietnamese flag or accept the former Republic of Vietnam flag as an alternative banner at public schools, international festivals and other events. While some Vietnamese Americans believe it's not productive to focus on the past, anti-flag sentiments have become an issue in Vietnamese communities throughout the United States.
"We ran away from communism and that flag 30 years ago. And now it's following us in our own back yard," said Tuan Vu, 62, of Olympia, co-chair of the Vietnamese Committee Against the Viet Cong Flag, composed mainly of former Vietnamese prisoners of war and war veterans. While the red banner with the gold star is, indeed, the official flag of Vietnam — and has been since the fall of Saigon in 1975, when North Vietnam won the civil war — its display is especially offensive to older refugees who experienced decades of war between North and South Vietnam and who supported the fallen government.
The Metropolitan King County Council was to consider a resolution about the Vietnamese flag today but tabled the discussion until next month. Under the resolution, King County would recognize the flag of the now-defunct Republic of Vietnam — a yellow field with three red horizontal stripes — as a symbol of the Vietnamese community here, support its display at community events and encourage other cities and counties to follow suit.
"It's a very important issue to the Vietnamese community," said King County Councilman Rob McKenna, R-Bellevue, who sponsored the resolution with Councilwoman Jane Hague, R-Kirkland. "The resolution is an act of respect for the Vietnamese community and all they have contributed to our region."
Spurred on mostly by the communist flag-display in fall 2002 at South Puget Sound Community College in Olympia, Vu and other Vietnamese community leaders have been lobbying local governments. In the past few months, Pierce County and the cities of Tumwater, Thurston County; Lacey, Thurston County; Olympia; DuPont, Pierce County; Lakewood, Pierce County; and Puyallup have adopted resolutions recognizing the old flag.
'The flag of the enemy'
Cities elsewhere in the country have done likewise, partly to stop protests. Among other incidents:
• In 2001, large demonstrations started in San Jose, Calif., when the U.S. Postal Service issued pamphlets displaying the Vietnam flag. Postal officials pulled thousands of the brochures from post offices nationwide.
• In 1999, after a business owner in Orange County, Calif., draped the Vietnam flag in his video store beside a portrait of the late communist leader Ho Chi Minh, police estimated 15,000 Vietnamese Americans protested.
• Last year, a proposed Virginia law would have required all state-sponsored events and public schools and universities to fly the old South Vietnamese banner instead of the Vietnam flag. The bill didn't pass because the State Department warned it would damage trade relations between Washington and Hanoi.
Secretary of State Colin Powell sent a letter to Hanoi last year to reassure the Vietnamese government that he did not support the movement to discredit the Vietnam flag or support the flag of the former Republic of Vietnam. State legislatures in Washington and California have considered similar bills honoring the yellow flag, but both bills died.
Norman Le, 69, a refugee who lives in Lacey, spent 10 years in a re-education camp, rising at dawn daily to salute the communist flag before a day of labor. The government incarcerated him for his political activism and anti-communist activities. The image of the red flag and gold star still haunts him, he said, bringing back memories of the lost years away from families and the torture he endured.
"The flag is symbolic of a lot of pain they suffered from the government," said Jeffrey Brody, a professor at California State University, Fullerton, and an expert on Vietnamese-American issues. "Remember, the Vietnamese community here is a community of refugees. The (communist flag) to the refugees represents the flag of the enemy. For them, it is probably a symbol that they will never recognize."
Newspapers clash on issue
After South Vietnam fell in 1975, the communist regime ripped down all flags of the defeated government and mounted the red banners, signaling that the civil war was over. Many who opposed the communists were imprisoned. Many lost their property.
For some, the old flag symbolizes better times. For others, the issue is about rejecting the communist regime as the rightful ruler of their homeland. For many, it's a protest of the communists' poor human-rights records and the denial of freedom of speech. Dat Ho, 61, a Kirkland resident who works for the Postal Service, fled Vietnam in 1975, having lost many loved ones in the war. He traveled to Tumwater recently to urge recognition of the old regime's flag because the communist banner is offensive to refugees, he said, speaking in Vietnamese: "When I see that flag, it brings back the history, the hurt and the pain of the Vietnamese people."
In Seattle, the anti-communist sentiment has been the subject of controversy within the Asian-American community, prompting an unusual display of open debate between two of the most popular newspapers in the Asian community. On Feb. 7, the Northwest Asian Weekly published an editorial urging Vietnamese refugees to stop denouncing communist Vietnam and focus instead on helping the Vietnamese people back home or the Vietnamese-American community here, as many younger Vietnamese are doing.
"It's time for the Vietnamese American community to move on," the editorial began. About a week later, some 30 Vietnamese refugees, carrying the old flag, protested across from the newspaper's office in the Chinatown International District, denouncing the editorial as insensitive.
Some said it downplayed the emotional pull the flag has on refugees and former war prisoners. The protest was a lead news story in the International Examiner, a regional newspaper for Asians published in Seattle. The Nguoi Viet Northwest Newspaper, Seattle's largest Vietnamese newspaper, also berated the Northwest Asian Weekly editorial, acknowledging that refugees here must work toward the future but saying it must never be forgotten that "a democracy was snuffed out at the termination of the Vietnam war."
At South Puget Sound Community College, where the communist flag's display created such a furor, numerous debates and forums were held. In a compromise, student leaders decided the red flag would stay, though they would remove it during Vietnamese community events. "We are at a more peaceful place now," said campus spokeswoman Kellie Purce Braseth. "This is a very powerful issue for the Vietnamese community. And they still want that (flag) down."
By Tan Vinh - Seattle Times - February 23, 2004
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