The Summer/Fall issue of the Friends of the Vietnam Center newsletter is available for download on our website.  Articles include information about the Texas Tech student trip to Southeast Asia, a call for papers for our Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium, an update on the Graffiti Project, and more.

If you would like to receive a full color printed version of this newsletter in your mailbox, please consider becoming a friend of the Vietnam Center.  Membership information can be found at this link.

Links:

Newsletters: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/newsletters.php

Membership Information: http://www.vietnam.ttu.edu/friends/

The Vietnam Center and Archive was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. Gerald Hickey in Chicago, Illinois on November 9, 2010.  Hickey was a prominent anthropologist who was best known for his work with Montagnard tribes in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  His first work in Vietnam was with Michigan State University from 1956-1959 to help rural South Vietnamese develop a modern nation-state.  During this time he particularly became interested in working with the Montagnards.  In fact, Hickey returned to Vietnam in 1964 as an employee of the RAND Corporation where he spent nine years tirelessly fighting for improved political rights and economic conditions for the Montagnards.

We are proud to have close to 20 linear feet of material at the Vietnam Center and Archive in the Gerald Hickey Collection to include photographs, textiles, swords, and carvings as well as many rare books on Montagnard culture in French, Vietnamese, and English.  More than just being an important donor to the Vietnam Center and Archive, Gerald Hickey was a good friend.  He will be greatly missed.

Hickey’s Funeral Mass will be held at 10:00 AM on Saturday, November 13 at Immaculate Conception Church, 1415 N. North Park, Chicago, Illinois.  Visitation will begin at 9:00 AM and last until the beginning of Mass.

For more information about Gerald Hickey including two issues of Friends of the Vietnam Center featuring articles on him and a list of the contents in his collection at the Vietnam Center and Archive, please view the following links:

Summer/Fall 2008 Issue of Friends of the Vietnam Center

Summer/Fall 2010 Issue of Friends of the Vietnam Center

Link to the contents of the Gerald Hickey Collection

The staff of the Vietnam Center and Archive wishes to say thank you to all the veterans and their families for their service.  Happy Veteran’s Day!

Written by: Ann Mallett

The Vietnam Archive is pleased to announce that the archive’s Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association (FVPPA) Collection, donated by the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation, is spotlighted in the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) publication, The American Record. The spotlight can be found on page 44 of the Spring/Summer 2010 issue, The American Record: Success Stories from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission. The feature is titled Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association, and contains the caption, “Archives provide people with the access to records that protect individual rights. The Families of Vietnamese Political Prisoners Association continues to help political dissidents find asylum in the U.S.”

This is the third article NHPRC has written on the FVPPA Collection. They previously published an article in their September 2009 Newsletter, and posted an entry on their Facebook page on February 23, 2010.

Click here to read the NHPRC’s The American Record article on the FVPPA.

**The deadline for proposals has been extended to December 1, 2010** 

The Seventh Triennial Vietnam Symposium will take place on March 10-12, 2011, and will be held at the brand new Overton Hotel and Convention Center in Lubbock, Texas.

Vietnam Center symposia are open to presentations that examine any and all aspects of the United States involvement in Southeast Asia. This includes activities before, during, and after the war in Vietnam. Papers can examine any aspect of the experience to include early interaction and diplomacy, activities in theater during the war, the international dimensions of the war for all sides involved, activities in the US and elsewhere in support of or in opposition to the war, postwar issues, etc.

We encourage anyone interested in presenting a paper to submit a one page proposal and a short CV for consideration. As always, graduate students are highly encouraged to submit proposals. Please format proposals to resemble an abstract to include the author’s name, title/affiliation, and contact information, along with proposed title, thesis/purpose, and main points. Please limit proposal length to a single page and submit them electronically to VietnamCenterConference@ttu.edu. If you make an email submission but do not receive notification of receipt within seven days, please call 806-742-3742 and ask for Steve Maxner, Ph.D., Director, Vietnam Center and Archive.

The deadline for submitting proposals is December 1st, 2010.

For more information, please visit www.vietnam.ttu.edu/events/2011_Symposium/

Thank you and we look forward to you joining us for this event.

• Submit Proposal: VietnamCenterConference@ttu.edu

Charcoal Mooncake and Cantonese Mooncake. Picture courtesy of wikicommons

 Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010 marks the Mid Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon or Full Moon Festival. Traditionally celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon appears larger than it does on any other night of the year, the Mid Autumn Moon Festival (Tet Trung Thu) is the second biggest holiday in Vietnam and is widely celebrated throughout Asia.

Mooncake paper box package. Photo courtesy of wikicommons.

  It is a time for family and to celebrate life, prosperity, and the harvest. During the Mid Autumn festival, parents prepare their children’s favorite dishes and buy them new toys. Children hear the story of Chu Cuoi (the man in the moon) and other fairytales. Hanging and floating lanterns are set out to decorate and people dance the lion and dragon dances. Mooncakes (made from lotus seed, ground beans, and containing a bright salted egg yolk in the center) are given to family and friends. Pomelo fruit and watermelon seeds are a special treat. At night children parade through the streets to the beat of drums wearing Paper Mache masks and carrying lanterns in the shapes of stars, rabbit heads, fish (carpe), butterflies, or lanterns with a lit candle inside that makes shapes spin representing the seasonal spinning of the earth.

Mooncake. Photo courtesy of wikicommons.

Photos courtesy of wikicommons

September 1 is the beginning of the Vietnam Archive’s fiscal year and we have raised our photocopying fees and rights and reproduction prices.  To see a copy of our new prices click here.

The cost of providing these services has gone up over the years and, while we try to keep our prices to a minimum, we have raised our fees to cover these increased costs.  Any order received on September 1, 2010 forward will be subject to the new prices.

Tuyen Nguyen, University Students' Military Services, 1968

The ODP was a humanitarian program instituted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to assist Vietnamese refugees in emigrating from Vietnam in a safe and legal manner after the Vietnam War. The FVPPA assisted former Vietnamese Political Prisoners and their families in applying to the UNHCR’s ODP and aided them in resettling in the United States. Professor Nguyen’s hoped to find his friend by finding his friend’s older brother. Professor Nguyen knew that his friend’s older brother, Pham Van Sat, was a major in the South Vietnamese Marine Corps and had been a political prisoner sentenced to reeducation in the Vietnamese reeducation camps after the war. Professor. Nguyen had heard that Pham Van Sat had resettled in the U.S. after his release from the camps and hoped that the FVPPA had been the organization to assist him and his family in the application and resettlement process, and therefore he could find Mr. Pham’s ODP application at the Vietnam Archive.

Once Professor Nguyen found Pham Van Sat’s ODP application in the FVPPA collection it would give him a starting point to search for his friend’s brother, and once he found the brother he could find his friend. This was an insurmountable and difficult task with the odds laid heavily against him for ODP application files were filled out in the mid 1980’s through the early 1990’s while the ODP applicant still resided in Vietnam and was applying to the ODP. Submitting an ODP application did not guarantee approval for emigration nor did the application list the address of where one would resettle upon approval in the U.S. or other country of one’s choosing.

Tuyen Nguyen, Thu Duc Military Academic School, 1973

The Vietnamese American Heritage Archivist, Ann Mallett, was given Professor Nguyen’s inquiry from the Archive’s Reference Archivist, Amy Mondt. Ms. Mallett answered his inquiry and gave him information from Pham Van Sat’s ODP application in order to determine if the file did indeed belong to the correct Pham Van Sat Professor Nguyen was searching for. This was made substantially easier, as it happened to be the only application under that name in the collection. The archivist gave Professor Nguyen several suggestions on how to search for Pham Quang Minh, provided contact information for Vietnamese American organizations and publications, along with the following information on Pham Van Sat: date and place of birth; address in Vietnam; spouse’s name; distinguished record as a Major in the Vietnamese Marine Corps; wounded six times and awarded U.S. Bronze Star Medal by U.S. Dept. of Navy; was Deputy Chief, Division Office of Operation and Battalion Commander of a Vietnamese Marine Corps Division; trained in the U.S. twice after graduating from Vietnamese Military Academy in 1962, Quantico, Virginia 1964-1965, and Monterey, CA; spent five years in reeducation camps; names of his military advisors; and the names of his Sponsor and U.S. contact he listed on his application.

Professor Nguyen confirmed that he believed the file to belong to the Pham Van Sat he was looking for. Ms. Mallett then provided him with the contact information for Mr. Pham’s sponsor and US contact listed on Mr. Pham’s ODP application. Professor Nguyen began his search by contacting Mr. Pham’s sponsor and U.S. contact. Remarkably, it just so happened that Mr. Pham’s sponsor, his sister-in-law, and his U.S. contact, his brother-in-law and former classmate at the Vietnamese military academy, had not changed residence in the twenty-one years since Mr. Pham had filled out his ODP application. They were still living in New Jersey and Professor Nguyen was able to contact them, and through them Pham Van Sat, and through Pham Van Sat his friend Pham Quang Minh.

Tuyen Nguyen, Thu Duc Military Academic School, 1973

Ms. Mallett has had approximately thirty requests of a similar nature, but this is the first one with a reunion and happy ending. Ms. Mallett was excited to learn of the success of Professor Nguyen’s search, and hopes there will be many more successful searches and reunions of friends and family. Ms. Mallett would like to share two e-mails from Professor Nguyen expressing his heartfelt thanks to the Vietnam Archive for aiding him in his search and his feelings on his story being written along with his hopes that it will give hope to others.

Dear Ms. Mallett,

I would like to inform you that today, I already contacted and had a long talk with Mr Pham van Sat as well as with his young brother, Mr. Pham quang Minh, my previous friend

Thank you very much for your enthusiasm and good will in helping me to find out my above-mentioned friend whom I have lost contact with over 40 years.

I won’t never forget your help in this matter and please send my enthusiastic thank to Ms. Amy too

Finally, I believe that God will reward and bless you and Ms. Amy later on as well

Yours Thankfully and Gratefully

Tuyen Nguyen

Dear Ms. Mallett,

Please do as much as you like about this. I think it’s a great idea that this story should be written in your Archive’s News and Updates so many other people who may have the same cases as mine to know about this effective and successful way and this would encourage and help them to find their relatives, friends, acquaintances etc… whom they have long time been separated from.

It is a very good job to help other people to be united with each other again after having been separated from each other for a long time.

It is a very great idea and I’m very happy to agree with you about this so please go ahead and

do this as much as you wish

May God Bless You do this good job for many other people who are experiencing the cases as mine

Yours Thankfully and Gratefully,

 Tuyen Nguyen

The Vietnam Center and Archive received a collection of artifacts and photographs from world-renowned anthropologist Gerald Hickey.  Items donated include textiles, smoking pipes, swords and wood carvings from Montagnard tribes Dr. Hickey worked with in Vietnam from 1950s-1970s.  Please click here for the official press release.

Photo caption: Y Bham Enoul, Rhade leader and founder of FULRO (United Front for the Liberation of Oppressed Races). FULRO was an organization in Vietnam and Cambodia that was established to fight for Montagnard autonomy within those nations.  This photo is just one of many donated by Dr. Hickey.

Our congratulations to Jake Bitonel, who has been with the Virtual Vietnam Archive as a student scanner for over three years, on his graduation from Texas Tech University.  In May 2010, Jake received a B.S. with a Major in Exercise Sports Science and a Minor in Military Studies, as well as being commissioned  as a 2nd Lieutenant into the U.S. Army.  As part of his ROTC awards, in April he attended the prestigious, three-day General George C. Marshall Army ROTC Awards Seminar in Lexington, Virginia, which is awarded to the top first-class cadet in each ROTC program in the country based on scholarship, leadership, physical fitness and community involvement.  At the TTU ROTC Awards Ceremony in May he was awarded the United Daughters of the Confederacy Saber for outstanding leadership and contribution as a cadet.  In October, Second Lieutenant Bitonel will attend Helicopter Flight School at Fort Rucker, Alabama.  We thank Jake for his contributions to the Virtual Vietnam Archive, both in helping to make documents available for researchers, and for sharing his extensive knowledge to identify all things military.