By Nathan Metcalf, Special to the Reporter
Below a glowing canopy of lights and traditional nón lá hats, each affixed with a slip of paper bearing a Vietnamese family’s immigration date, nearly 100 people gathered Sunday night for a temporary art installation marking a milestone in the campaign to establish a permanent Vietnamese diaspora memorial in Boston.
Artist Ngọc-Trân Vũ organized “Journey of Light: A 1975 Memorial Field,” a multisensory installation of illuminated conical hats, projected visuals, music, and intergenerational storytelling in Town Field Park, at the heart of Dorchester’s Little Saigon cultural district.
For Vũ, the nón lá were not just cultural emblems but “vessels of stories,” a way to honor lives uprooted by war and displacement, and to expand remembrance beyond traditional war memorials that center narratives of American soldiers to include the families and communities who endured the Vietnam War’s aftermath.
Among those gathered in Town Field for the installation were (left to right) Linh-Phương Vũ, Kathy Lê, Ngọc-Trân Vũ, and Theresa Trần. Archer Liang photos
Growing up in Dorchester, home to New England’s largest Vietnamese-American community, Vũ often visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on Morrissey Boulevard with her father, a South Vietnamese veteran, and his friends.
“That memorial only has American names,” she said. “There’s no Vietnamese name represented here. What would it mean for our community to have a space where our stories are recognized?”
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, remembered by many in the Vietnamese diaspora as Black April, when communist North Vietnamese forces captured the capital on April 30, 1975, sealing the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. In the months that followed, hundreds of thousands fled the country by land, sea or air. Many who remained were sent to so-called “re-education” camps, where they endured forced labor and political indoctrination.
Though the nation it once represented collapsed half a century ago, the yellow flag of South Vietnam, streaked with three red stripes, billowed over Town Field Park on Sunday night. As the programming began with a flag-raising ceremony, elderly veterans in faded uniforms stood at attention and saluted.
“Journey of Light” is part of a broader, years-long effort known as the 1975: A Vietnamese Diaspora Commemoration Initiative. The community-led campaign has hosted dialogue nights, design showcases, and archived dozens of oral histories, all efforts to build momentum for a permanent memorial in Boston’s Little Saigon so Vietnamese Americans can see their history honored alongside the city’s other monuments.
Khang Nguyễn, vice president of the Vietnamese-American Community of Massachusetts, emphasized the project’s wide support during the event.
“This is not one organization – it has support from more than 25 groups,” he said, before adding with a smile: “In November, please vote for the candidate that’s going to help us get this memorial.”
The installation sparked a range of memories and reflections, from elders who lived through the war and its aftermath to younger Vietnamese Americans seeking to understand their inheritance.
For some, the canopy of hats called back painful memories of displacement. Trần Trung Đạo, a 70-year-old poet from Braintree, recalled fleeing by boat after the fall of Saigon, before ending up in a refugee camp in the Philippines, where he met a young girl whose story has lingered with him for decades.
“She was six years old,” he said. “She lost her father, she lost her mother, she lost her sister in the ocean. She came to the camp with her two-year-old brother, and other people took care of them. When I wrote a poem about her, I cried.”
Artist Ngọc-Trân Vũ spoke at the “Journey of Light: A 1975 Memorial Field” event on Sunday. Archer Liang photo
Nia Dương, 37, who grew up in Dorchester and now coordinates UMass Boston’s Asian American Studies program, said the installation reflected the diversity of the Vietnamese diaspora, which came to the United States in four major waves, from the first evacuees of 1975, to the “boat people” of the late 1970s and ’80s, to Amerasians and former soldiers who arrived through government programs in the 1980s and ’90s, to more recent family reunifications.
“People left for many reasons, not just politics,” she said. “A lot of us came for opportunity, because of poverty.”
For younger Vietnamese Americans, the installation offered space to connect with histories they did not live through and reflect on the larger meaning of the war.
“Every Vietnamese family was affected by the war,” said Aaron Nguyễn, 24, of Little Saigon. “The US should not have been in the war, but it both harmed and helped the Vietnamese people. Most people didn’t want the country divided in the first place, they just wanted peace.”
As night fell, organizers handed out small blue and white tea lights and asked attendees to close their eyes in remembrance. People were invited to think of someone they had lost, then exchange their light with a neighbor, a symbolic gesture of carrying one another’s stories forward.
“White is about memory, mourning, and honoring our ancestors,” Vũ said. “Blue is about water and sky, migration, the journey, and hope.”
This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
