They grew a ‘Little Saigon' in the shadow of the Pentagon
Dodging artillery fire and the blooms of fiery explosions, the family of 10 ran fiercely toward the promise of America.
'It was to find freedom,' said Vinh Nguyen, who was 15 when his family almost died while fleeing Saigon 50 years ago. And 'liberty.'
By car, on foot, by boat and several planes, they made their way to Northern Virginia, in the shadow of the Pentagon, where a tiny Vietnamese enclave had been growing since the 1960s — the manifestation of decades of U.S. intervention in Southeast Asia.
U.S. involvement with what was then called Indochina began after World War II, both to allocate aid to cities damaged in the war and to begin building a strategy of containment against encroaching communist influence. Soon enough, the CIA was tasked with implementing that strategy.
A marketing plan started in 1950 helped establish trust. A shrewd government worker named Charles 'Mark' Merrell wanted Vietnam to know exactly where the Marshall Plan's allocation came from.
From sewing and road-making machines to penicillin and pencils, the aid that Merrell steered to Vietnam through the Commerce Department was branded with a symbol that prominently included the American flag, Andrew Friedman wrote in 'Covert Capital: Landscapes of Denial and the Making of U.S. Empire in the Suburbs of Northern Virginia.'
'He wove the symbol into blankets to cover shivering refugees in the northern mountains. He printed it on armbands worn by DDT spray teams,' Friedman wrote. 'He even insisted upon the symbol's presence on notebooks, pencils etc. for schoolchildren.'
That connection was imprinted on many refugees. They linked help and safety with America.
'The CIA agents who created the very shape of South and North Vietnam, who laid the groundwork for the U.S. empire in Vietnam, either came from Northern Virginia or returned to settle in McLean,' Friedman wrote. 'Over a twenty-five year period, these agents went to and from Vietnam and Virginia so many times it would be hard to call one or the other place their home.'
In the years leading to the bitter end to the war in Vietnam, when South Vietnamese engineers, officials, officers or diplomats left for America, they usually settled near the people they knew — the government operatives in Northern Virginia.
There, a small Vietnamese community of around 3,000 was built in part by years of collaboration with the U.S. government.
'When communists took over a city, the flag comes up and the flare goes up,' Lieu Nguyen said in a Virginia Tech oral history project, Echoes of Little Saigon, by Elizabeth Morton and Judd Ullom.
She was 10 years old when the flags and flares got close enough for her parents to decide it was time to run.
They loaded up their car in Danang to head to the place where they would meet a helicopter pilot they had paid to get them out. But when they arrived at a field with about 20 helicopters, they ran from pilot to pilot, offering the password they were given.
They got blank stares in return.
There were eight children, the youngest just a year old. Their 7-year-old sibling could not walk. 'He was handicapped, so I had to carry him plus two bags,' said Vinh Nguyen, who was was 15, the second-eldest sibling.
'If you remember 'The Sound of Music,' the part where they're escaping in the middle of the night? ' said Ava Nguyen, who was 3 when they fled. 'We were not as smooth.'
It was more like 'the movie 'Saving Private Ryan,'' her big brother said. 'Explosions, missiles coming in everywhere, very terrifying. And that's why everybody ran for their life, and that's why the family got split up.'
They reunited and headed to the river, to make their escape by water.
Plucked from a dodgy barge in the mouth of the Mekong Delta that nearly capsized, shuttled through a stop in the Philippines and then Guam, the family kept pushing and pushing, as far as they could get from their fallen city and to the United States — to 'liberty,' as Vihn Nguyen remembers.
And for the Nguyen family, the U.S. meant Washington. It looked far. And safe. Familiar, even. The father, Minh Nguyen, knew someone in Washington who worked for Voice of America.
'My dad said, 'We live where the president lives because it's the safest place,'' said Bich-Lien Kaldahl, who at 13 was the third-oldest Nguyen child.
Other refugees took different paths to America. Thu Bui accepted an offer to earn a university degree in the U.S. on a USAID scholarship over a promotion in the South Vietnamese navy. It was his reward for working with American naval forces, training more than 27,000 sailors.
Bui, now 90, came in 1973. His wife and children followed him on one of the last airlifts evacuating Saigon in 1975. Eventually he became an assistant principal at George C. Marshall, one of Northern Virginia's big high schools.
For most Vietnamese refugees who arrived in 1975 and the years immediately after, immigration was not a long-standing dream, an aspiration or a carefully composed plan. They just fled, some in a matter of hours.
The Nguyen family arrived in America with only six small satchels. Arriving with so little, the security of an enclave in a new world was important.
They settled in McLean, in a neighborhood with a 'Saigon Road' that was developed by Merrell after he left his government job and became a major real estate developer in Northern Virginia.
The Nguyen family of 10 bought a red Volkswagen Beetle, sent the kids to schools filled with the offspring of government workers and began looking for their place in this new community.
They saw the Vietnamese population of Northern Virginia double, then triple as the kids entered schools and learned American customs.
The Nguyen parents, who owned several businesses and a hospital in Danang before they lost everything in the war, saw an opportunity. 'They hit the ground running,' said Kaldahl, 63.
There was a marketplace for Vietnamese products. Like the entrepreneurs who built their wealth selling pickaxes and pans to the prospectors chasing riches during the California gold rush in the mid-1800s, the Nguyen family found success selling fish sauce and rice noodles to their fellow homesick refugees.
They found a cheap lease in an aging shopping center in Clarendon, a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia. Within a few years, that strip of shops anchored by the Nguyens' store became known as 'Little Saigon,' the 'Mekong Delta' or even the 'Ho Chi Minh Trail,' according to a Sept. 29, 1979, story in The Washington Post.
'In vivid contrast to their established neighbors, the Vietnamese shops are an island of sights, scents and language unfamiliar to most Americans — except GIs and journalists who once knew Vietnam,' The Post's Sandra G. Boodman wrote.
'After 20 years as a bustling neighborhood crowded with mom-and-pop stores that reflected Arlington's nearly all-white bedroom community character, Clarendon has become one of the largest Indochinese commercial centers on the East Coast.'
At the time, Arlington had the third-largest population of Vietnamese refugees in the nation behind California and Texas, where some of the large refugee camps were established in 1975.
'We exchanged advice to each other, how to survive in America and how to be happy — how to learn to be American,' longtime Northern Virginia resident Kim Cook said in a video from 'Echoes of Little Saigon.'
The Mekong Center store became a hub in for the Vietnamese community across the eastern seaboard, said Ava Nguyen, who was 3 when the family left Saigon. Customers would leave messages on a bulletin board to try to find lost loved ones or to get messages to those back home.
Little Saigons have flourished in other parts of America, their raison d'être more geographic than political.
The largest is in Orange County, California, with nearly 200,000 Vietnamese Americans, a vibrant enclave with thousands of businesses. The hospitals have signs in English and Vietnamese.
New Orleans was a natural draw for Vietnamese refugees because of the semitropical climate, the fishing and shrimping industry along the Gulf Coast, and the French and Catholic influence. A significant portion of the gulf's fleet is run by Vietnamese American fishing workers, and the Vietnamese American bakery Dong Phuong has won a James Beard Award and currently makes the favorite king cake in town.
Little Saigons can also be found in Houston and Dallas, Boston and Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Diego and Seattle.
In Northern Virginia, rising real estate prices and the opening of a Metro stop led the Vietnamese immigrants to another displacement. Little Saigon in Clarendon perished, but the shops and culture resurfaced in a new location in nearby Falls Church. Eden Center became a vibrant magnet for both Vietnamese Americans and non-Vietnamese foodies.
In 2021, the Falls Church City Council outlined a sweeping development plan that included Eden Center. This time, it was the children and grandchildren of those 1975 immigrants who banded together to create the Viet Place Collective to help fight another potential displacement. They lobbied to have a block renamed Saigon Boulevard and persuaded the city to preserve Eden Center.
'It really feels like walking through a Vietnamese neighborhood,' one of the organizers, Jenn Trần, said to The Post in 2023. 'There's people selling fruit and there's yelling and karaoke and so much life that wouldn't exist if it were just a handful of stores.'
She takes her mother to see the clock tower there, modeled after one that stood in Saigon's oldest market, and to see couples drinking coffee with condensed milk and counters selling banh mi.
She says it reminds her of home.
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CNN
28 minutes ago
- CNN
Once home to the CIA, this tiny Southeast Asia runway was considered ‘the most secret place on Earth'
Deep in the sweltering jungles of central Laos, a 4,500-foot stretch of cracked concrete cuts through the trees — an airstrip without an airport, in a village where many have never been on a plane. But behind its crumbling control tower and bomb-cratered runway lies a hidden chapter of America's Cold War history — a site once known as 'the most secret place on Earth.' The village of Long Tieng sits in central Laos, about 80 miles northeast of the capital, Vientiane. Today, it's a sleepy settlement of a few thousand people who mostly rely on the land to carve out a living. There are a couple of restaurants, two guesthouses and a handful of multipurpose shops selling everything from rice to farming tools made from repurposed bombshell metal — a nod to the village's agricultural roots and wartime past. At the village center lies the airstrip. It no longer serves aircraft, instead now functioning as a kind of outdoor community center: children ride scooters, farmers herd cattle and elderly villagers take early morning strolls before the intense heat engulfs the valley. But 50 years ago, the scene was vastly different. From the 1960s to the early 1970s, Laos played a central role in the United States' fight to stop the spread of communism in Southeast Asia. Long Tieng was the secret headquarters of a US-backed Hmong anti-communist army fighting against the communist Pathet Lao forces, which were supported by the North Vietnamese Army. At its height, tens of thousands of inhabitants — Hmong soldiers, their families, refugees from other parts of Laos, Thai soldiers and a small contingent of American CIA operatives and secret US Air Force pilots, dubbed 'Ravens' — called this place home. It was the heart of the largest paramilitary operation ever conducted by the CIA. At one point in time, the tiny airstrip handled 900 daily take-offs and landings, making it one of the busiest airports in the world. Cargo planes would offload crucial supplies including ammunition and food, which would then be loaded onto smaller planes that flew to even smaller airstrips around the country. Despite the scale of the base, it was so secret even some of those participating in the war in other locations did not know of its existence, says Paul Carter, a Laos Secret War specialist who lives in Southeast Asia. 'The war in Laos was so compartmentalized … I knew guys who participated in that war, they did not even know Long Tieng existed until the late 1960s when they started letting the reporters in there,' he tells CNN. From this remote mountain village, the CIA-backed Hmong army, led by the charismatic General Vang Pao, fought not only the communist Pathet Lao forces but also conducted guerrilla operations — destroying North Vietnamese supply depots, blowing up critical supply routes and generally harassing communist forces — all with full support from the US. As part of this secret war, the US launched a brutal bombing campaign that paralleled its broader military operations in Vietnam. And because international agreements barred direct military involvement in Laos, the effort fell almost entirely on the CIA. American pilots flew thousands of missions from Long Tieng's airstrip, which was known by the codenames Lima Site 98 and Lima Site 20A. Fifty years after the fall of Long Tieng in 1975, I set out to explore the remnants of the US presence in the area. I was drawn here after reading the book, 'A Great Place to Have a War' by Joshua Kurlantzick. It pulled me into a world I'd never known — a hidden Cold War battleground on the sidelines of the Vietnam War. Watching old, grainy newsreels of reporters wandering around the base only deepened my fascination. Somewhere along the way, I realized I needed to see Long Tieng with my own eyes. Before long, I find myself in Vientiane with an old college friend who I've convinced to come along for an adventure and Mr. Pao — the only driver I could find with a car suitable for the journey. Pao says he used to work at the mines near Long Tieng and is familiar with the area, though he admits he's only visited the village once before. Several tour companies organize trips, but the number of tourists that visit Long Tieng still pales in comparison to Laos' major tourist destinations like Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. Chris Corbett, owner of Laos Adv Tours and Rentals, tells CNN that his company operates around 10 motorbike tours a year to the site, taking a total of around 40 people to the village. He said his guests mainly come from the United States, Australia and Europe. Today, the village remains largely cut off from the rest of the country. Though just 80 miles from Vientiane, the drive takes over eight hours. Beyond the capital's outskirts, roads quickly degrade — first into unsealed dirt tracks, then into rugged mining roads scarred by landslides and potholes. Visibility is often poor — dust kicked up by mining trucks combines with smoke from slash-and-burn agriculture. At times, we crawl forward, barely reaching 5 mph. Part of the road winds over a rugged mountain pass with no guardrails, just a sheer drop into the valley below. Sitting in the back of the car, I grip the seat in front of me as our driver edges closer to the cliffside, the tires skimming loose gravel. At one point, our driver glances back and warns us that if we get a flat tire out here, we'll likely be stuck for a long time — maybe hours. There's no phone signal. We nod silently and keep going. As we approach Long Tieng, the rough dirt road suddenly gives way to smooth pavement. Cresting the final mountain pass, we expect to glimpse the airstrip — but thick smoke shrouds the valley, limiting visibility to a few hundred meters. Descending into the village as the sun sets, there's little sign that 30,000 people once lived here. Family farms now occupy land once filled with barracks and command centers. Military convoys have long been replaced by scooters and cattle. We stay in a guesthouse next to the airstrip. It's barebones — a wooden bed and a single creaky fan that spins with little effect. There's no air conditioning, and the humid air hangs heavy and unmoving. It's hard to sleep — not just because of the heat, but because I can't stop thinking about what this place had once been. The next morning, we walk down the center of the airstrip as the sun rises over the valley. Once one of the busiest runways in the world, it now lies silent. Tall grass sprouts from potholes left by artillery strikes. The crumbling control tower is only half its original height, and the hangars at the far end sit abandoned — rusting reminders of a war long past. As I walk along its length, I notice the absence of signposts, statues or any form of commemoration. Despite the airstrip's historical importance, there's nothing to mark it. Among those who operated out of Long Tieng during the war were the Ravens, a secret group of active-duty Air Force pilots who volunteered to serve in Laos. Their primary role was to act as forward air controllers (FACs), flying low behind enemy lines to identify and mark targets for US Air Force bombers. 'They were just kind of taken off the books,' Carter says. 'They operated under a different cover.' The Ravens wore civilian clothing and were issued US Embassy ID cards. In some cases, Carter notes, pilots were also issued US Agency for International Development (USAID) identity cards. The Ravens often flew in pairs — an American pilot in front and a local Hmong 'backseater' who communicated with ground forces. But they weren't alone over the skies of Laos. Pilots from Air America, a secret CIA-owned airline, also operated in Long Tieng; they flew in crucial supplies to the base and conducted daring search and rescue missions to recover downed pilots deep behind enemy lines. 'I landed there pretty much every other day,' Neil Hansen, a pilot stationed in Laos during part of the war, tells CNN. Hansen worked for Air America between 1964 and 1973 and detailed his experience in the book, 'FLIGHT: An Air America Pilot's Story of Adventure, Descent and Redemption.' 'I was flying a C-123, bringing in munitions, supplies and fuel for 'the little birds,' which would then distribute it to other sites,' Hansen recalls. As part of his mission, he also transported 'CIA customers.' During one flight in 1972, Hansen was shot down over the Plateau de Bolevan in southern Laos. 'After getting my crew out and bailing out, I watched the C-123 fall out of the sky and explode,' he says, noting he was rescued by Air America helicopters shortly after. About 100 meters west of the airstrip stands a two-story house that once served as the headquarters of General Vang Pao, the leader of the CIA-backed Hmong army. From this remote compound, Pao worked closely with American operatives to coordinate a covert war, marshaling thousands of Hmong fighters while receiving US air support, weapons and humanitarian aid in return. Set behind a tall fence and overgrown garden, the house still feels separated from the rest of the village — distant, guarded. A sign on the front door, written in English, reads: 'No entry without permission.' It's the only English sign we've seen in the entire village, and it stops us in our tracks. With no one around, we circle the property, peering through dusty windows, unsure whether we can get inside. An older man in weathered military fatigues appears nearby. Without saying a word, he approaches, slowly dangling a key in front of our faces. He doesn't speak English, but types out a number on his phone. We nod and hand over the cash. A moment later, we're inside. The house is not what I expected. I'd imagined a preserved time capsule, cluttered with mementos or forgotten artifacts — but the rooms are eerily empty. No furniture, no decorations, no posters or portraits of the general. In the foyer, dozens of artillery shells are stacked neatly in one corner, with several mortar rounds resting nearby. It's surreal to see these instruments of war arranged with such quiet precision. Through a translation app, the man warns us not to touch anything — some might still be live. Upstairs, a single wooden desk and chair have been placed near a panoramic window facing the airstrip. I sit down, imagining General Vang Pao and CIA officers in this very spot, directing B-52 bombing runs on communist strongholds. The war — so vast, so devastating — had largely been coordinated from this small, simple room. It was almost impossible to reconcile the scale of the conflict with the modesty of this setting. We climb up to the roof. From there, the view stretches across the old airstrip and into the mountains that once shielded Long Tieng from attack. Today, the village is quiet. A few people walk slowly down the main road. Stray dogs nap in the sun. It's hard to believe that tens of thousands of people once lived here. Today, the impacts of the intense US bombing campaign on Laos are still being felt. Of the 270 million sub-munitions dropped on the country, an estimated 30% did not detonate, according to the Mines Advisory Group (MAG). These unexploded ordnances continue to kill, injure and hinder development across the country, according to MAG. Around the hills of Long Tieng, villagers still rarely venture off established roads and trails to avoid unexploded munitions. Full US-Laos relations were restored in 1992 and since 1995, the US has invested more than $390 million in a Conventional Weapons Destruction program aimed at addressing the legacy of the war. However, questions remain about future US funding of explosive ordinance clearance in Southeast Asia following the Trump administration's widespread suspension of foreign aid. 'I fell in love with Laos,' says Hansen. 'I look back on my time as exciting and a place where I could immerse myself in the culture. I was fulfilling a purpose where I knew I was accomplishing something that was needed.' Back in Long Tieng, children riding scooters zoom past my friend and me, their tires bumping over the broken concrete that once launched warplanes into the sky. I now understand why the community gravitates toward the airstrip whenever they can: it's one of the few open spaces cleared of unexploded ordnance. A rare place where children can play without fear of becoming another casualty of a war that ended 50 years ago. The legacy of a secret conflict — barely remembered back in the United States.
New York Post
42 minutes ago
- New York Post
You're saying these Long Island towns wrong — even the ones you think you know: ‘Butchered'
This will have you spit out your 'cawffee.' It's a dead giveaway that someone isn't from Long Island if they bungle how to pronounce local communities – but it turns out even 516 and 631 lifers are doing it wrong. Teams like the New York Islanders and Long Island Ducks even post videos of out-of-town players brutally mincing Wantagh, Patchogue and other Native-American names. Advertisement 6 The New York Islanders and Long Island Ducks post videos of out-of-town players brutally mincing Wantagh, Patchogue and other Native-American names. Heather Khalifa for the NY Post But you may not have to venture far to find folks messing up Massapequa and Ronkonkoma, which have been anglicized over the past few centuries. Their real pronunciations sound unrecognizable to the modern ear, according to former longtime Unkechaug Nation Chief Harry Wallace, an expert in Algonquian. 'Our language wasn't written in the sense of being translated into English or French — the sound is what they're trying to copy,' Wallace, based on on the island, told The Post. Advertisement He compared how Algonquian is the root base of many different Native American languages, some of which were spoken on Long Island, much like the Romance languages, such as French, Spanish, and Italian, all of which stem from Latin. However, during colonial times, much was lost in translation because the European settlers 'didn't know how to spell,' especially with hard consonants like the letter 'H,' which are vital to the Algonquian language, he added. From there, readers would only see, but not hear, the real pronunciation. Ultimately, it turned into a telephone game that has been ongoing for a few hundred years. Advertisement Wallace recognizes that there's no one official way to sound out some towns, such as Wantagh, which islanders say as 'wan-tah.' And the local way of saying Patchogue as 'patch-hog' is pretty close to its origin, he said. These, however, are some Native American-named local towns that even the most bona fide residents are getting wrong, according to Wallace. Copiague 6 Algonquian is the root base of many different Native American languages, some of which were spoken on Long Island. Copiague Chamber of Commerce / Facebook Advertisement Townsfolk and the recorded voice on the Long Island Railroad alike sound out this Suffolk community as 'co-peg,' but really it should be pronounced closer to 'co-pi-ah-e' with a short 'I' and long 'E,' he explained. '[Europeans] would elongate the A when they read it…and that's all they would hear after,' Wallace added of what translates loosely to grove or forest. Massapequa 6 As with other Algonquin hard consonants, the real sound is 'Mass-a-peek' without the open vowels at the end. Massapequa Park / Facebook The town that has caught the eye of President Trump over as it fights to keep its Chiefs team logo in the face of a state ban on Native American mascots isn't straightforwardly pronounced 'Mass-a-pequa,' said Wallace, who opposes the school using the name. As with other Algonquin hard consonants, the real sound is 'Mass-a-peek' without the open vowels at the end, he added, explaining that it means place of great water. Cutchogue 6 While it's spoken today as 'cutch-hog,' Wallace said the real way is 'cutch-e-hoki,' spelled as 'kecheahki.' Alamy Stock Photo Unlike Patchogue, residents aren't remotely close to getting the pronunciation of the quiet North Fork escape spot on. While it's spoken today as 'cutch-hog,' Wallace said the real way is 'cutch-e-hoki,' spelled as 'kecheahki.' Advertisement In the same vein as Massapequa, it translates to mean great place. Setauket 6 Wallace says it as 'Se-tau-ah-ki' and added its definition is place of streams, something the north shore enclave by the Long Island Sound is known for. Alamy Stock Photo Similar to Cutchogue, Setauket, spoken like Secaucus in New Jersey, is a world apart from its perceived pronunciation. Wallace says it as 'Se-tau-ah-ki' and added its definition is place of streams, something the north shore enclave by the Long Island Sound is known for. Ronkonkoma Advertisement 6 Its prototypical 'Ron-cahnk-ama' pronunciation — which Neil Patrick Harris projected on the LIRR 2 a.m. drunk train in a sitcom — should be 'Ronkon-koman.' James Messerschmidt That's right, Long Island's showstopper that's been a punchline on 'How I Met Your Mother' and an Artie Lange monologue on an insufferable Yankees fan 'has been butchered,' Wallace said. Its prototypical 'Ron-cahnk-ama' pronunciation — which Neil Patrick Harris projected on the LIRR 2 a.m. drunk train in the sitcom — should be 'Ronkon-koman,' he explained. Advertisement The town name derives from its kettle lake, formed by the glacier that carved North America, which was sacred to its native population. One translation for Ronkonkoma is 'deep cavern place' in reference to the lake, which is tied to urban legends of hauntings and drownings attributed to a Native American-related curse — a story Wallace has explicitly called bunk on.
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
USPS Launches New US Flag Stamp
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The United States Postal Service (USPS) has issued a new American flag stamp. The stamp features the Star Spangled Banner, with its 13 stripes and 50 stars, fluttering in a breeze against a white background. It was designed by Antonio Alcalá, an art director for USPS, featuring photography by Doug Haight. A US flag. A US flag. Scott Boehm/Associated Press Donald Dombrow Jr., the Postal Service's Michigan 2 District manager, who spoke at an unveiling ceremony at Vickers Theater in Three Oaks, Michigan, said: "An enduring emblem of freedom, national unity and patriotic spirit, the flag of the United States has flown proudly stateside, abroad and even on the surface of the moon." This story will be updated.
