Cookeville Vietnam veteran meets Vietnamese-American son after 50 years, hosts family reunionPosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Family/Parenting, Media Archive, United States on 2019-01-19 03:24Z by Steven |
Cookeville Vietnam veteran meets Vietnamese-American son after 50 years, hosts family reunion
The Nashville Tennessean
2019-01-14
Yihyun Jeong, Veterans and Military Affairs Reporter
 Hugh Nguyen as a boy in Vietnam, teased for being “Amerasian,” a child born during wartime from an Asian mother and an American solider. (Photo: Family handout) |
His life was hell because he looked different than the other boys that played in the streets of Saigon.
His light skin, light hair and light eyes.The father he never knew.
These were all reasons that made Hugh Nguyen the target of bullies who mocked him for being an “Amerasian,” — though they used more deragatory terms — a child conceived in wartime by a Vietnamese mother and an American military father fighting abroad.
Not fully belonging to America or Vietnam, these kids were commonly dismissed as “children of the dust,” leftovers of an unpopular war. They were left discarded by both governments and left to be taunted by schoolmates who teased them for their features that resembled the face of the enemy.
Most never knew their fathers.
 Roy Patterson, as an 18-year-old American soldier stationed at the base in Nha Trang during the Vietnam War. (Photo: Family handout) |
“They disliked us tremendously,” Nguyen said in an interview with USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee. “We were treated like garbage. We were talked down to and looked down on.”…
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