Down And Out In Saigon

A moving portrait of the lives of six poor city-dwellers, set in early twentieth century colonial Saigon Historian Haydon Cherry offers the first comprehensive social history of the urban poor of colonial French Saigon by following the lives of six individuals—a prostitute, a Chinese laborer, a rickshaw puller, an orphan, an incurable invalid, and a destitute Frenchman—and how they navigated the ups and downs of the regional rice trade and the institutions of French colonial rule in the first half of the twentieth century. “Down and Out in Saigon is marked by three qualities that endow it with unusual value: the originality of its subject matter, as the first and only history of colonial Saigon’s poor population, the excellence of its research, and Cherry’s elegant prose.”—Peter B. Zinoman, University of California, Berkeley “This is more than a corrective of revolutionary historiography—it is a tour de force that brings marginal and forgotten lives into the story of modern Vietnamese history.”—Charles Keith, author of Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation

A “captivating” (The Washington Post) true story of “courage, resolve, and determination” (Christian Science Monitor), author Ralph White’s successful effort to save nearly the entire staff of the Saigon branch of Chase Manhattan bank and their families before the city fell to the North Vietnamese Army. In April 1975, Ralph White was asked by his boss to transfer from the Bangkok branch of the Chase Manhattan Bank to the Saigon Branch. He was tasked with closing the branch if and when it appeared that Saigon would fall to the North Vietnamese army and ensure the safety of the senior Vietnamese employees. But when he arrived, he realized the situation in Saigon was far more perilous than he had imagined. The senior staff members there urged him to evacuate the entire staff of the branch and their families, which was far more than he was authorized to do. Quickly he realized that no one would be safe when the city fell, and it was no longer a question of whether to evacuate but how. Getting Out of Saigon is an “edge-of-your-seat” (Oprah Daily) story of a city on the eve of destruction and the colorful characters who respond differently to impending doom. It’s a remarkable account of one man’s quest to save innocent lives not because he was ordered but because it was the right thing to do.

Moving to America turns H&à's life inside out. For all the 10 years of her life, H&à has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by, and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. H&à and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, H&à discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape, and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.

This riveting, beautifully produced graphic memoir tells the story of the early years of the Vietnam war as seen through the eyes of a young boy named Marco, the son of a Vietnamese diplomat and his French wife. The book opens in America, where the boy’s father works for the South Vietnam embassy; there the boy is made to feel self-conscious about his otherness thanks to schoolmates who play war games against the so-called “Commies.” The family is called back to Saigon in 1961, where the father becomes Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem’s personal interpreter; as the growing conflict between North and South intensifies, so does turmoil within Marco’s family, as his mother struggles to grapple with bipolar disorder. Visually powerful and emotionally potent, Such a Lovely Little War is both a large-scale and intimate study of the Vietnam war as seen through the eyes of the Vietnamese: a turbulent national history interwined with an equally traumatic familial one. Marcelino Truong is an illustrator, painter, and author. Born the son of a Vietnamese diplomat in 1957 in the Philippines, he and his family moved to America (where his father worked for the embassy) and then to Vietnam at the outset of the war. He earned degrees in law at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, and English literature at the Sorbonne. He lives in Paris, France.

For anyone who has ever felt like they don't belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature. In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age memoir told through the themes of great books such as The Metamorphosis, The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, and more, Tran navigates the push and pull of finding and accepting himself despite the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, and teenage rebellion, all while attempting to meet the rigid expectations set by his immigrant parents. Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man’s bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the ‘80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes—and ultimately saves—him.

Follow Sherry Buchanan on a journey by an author who has long had a passion for Vietnamese art and for the sketches produced under the duress of the Vietnam or American War (1965-1975). Though she was familiar with and had traveled in Vietnam, she had never attempted the Trail before. The epic military road through the spectacular Tru'ò'ng So'n Mountains was built by North Vietnam to bring about the unification of North and South Vietnam, promised in the 1954 Geneva Accords. The United States, allied with South Vietnam to defeat the communist North, deployed close to eight million tons of bombs against it. Buchanan encounters totemic locations from Hanoi in the north to Ho Chi Minh City in the south, and records her interactions - both scheduled and spontaneous - with North the South Vietnamese, Laotians, and Americans, who were actors or participants in the Vietnam War. Buchanan reveals the stories of the women who defended the Trail against the sustained American bombing campaign - the most ferocious in modern warfare - and of the artists who drew them. She focuses on what life was really like for the women and men under fire, bringing a unique perspective to the history of the Vietnam War. She discovers an inspiring postwar legacy of personal healing, forgiveness, and atonement. She talks to the Vietnamese women veterans who encouraged a culture of forgiveness toward the foreign enemy and continued their fight for social justice; to American veterans who returned to Vietnam to take responsibility where their government had failed to do so; and to women in the former South Vietnam who brought reconciliation through art. Interspersed with these accounts are excerpts from memoirs and chronicles that reveal logistical details of the Ho Chi Minh Trail which were hidden until now.

Lieutenant "El Tee" Carroll was drafted into the U.S. Army and thrown into the Vietnam War at a firebase camp on the Cambodian border in 1969. His band of colorful warriors, led by Cajun "Sarnt"Jesse Parrod and Specialist Gordon "Ratman" Withers take the reader into ambush with crawling bugs and the smell of burning bodies. The story examines military doctrine, and the lives of those brave young men who wear our uniforms. Orphaned Heroes are those who have always fought in battle and are ignored by their leaders and countrymen back home. This book will put you into the action of flying bullets, and learn the thoughts and hopes of those desperate to survive their orphaned status.

Austin Bain liked working for the CIA, especially exercising his intellect to be one step ahead of a challenge. But deviating from his deciphering routine seemed to open another door to reality. Escaping death by minutes in Panama might have been a fluke, but it was enough to remind him of the dangers of his vocation. Resigning from the CIA he returned to civilian life, until a former cohort tracked him down vacationing on a remote Bahamas island. That surprise encounter, catapulted Bain back into the Agency to help track and apprehend one of the most dangerous individuals the Armed Forces and CIA had ever dealt with in Vietnam. the French National and former college roommate of Austin Bain had developed a deadly profile, bent on revenge, as a result of tragic events involving the eventual deaths of a sister and father. Working under a pseudonym, Bain's search took him through numerous provinces in Vietnam when the US military presence was growing by the tens of thousands each month. At one time the fugitive's roommate, Bain was considered the most likely to be able to identify the Saigon Cowboy, the freshman he lived with ten years ago at Syracuse University. Both the bold aggressiveness and clandestine actions of the Cowboy continued to baffle those in pursuit. with his apparent ease of movement in highly secure areas, he continued to meet his objective of eliminating high ranking military and CIA agents.