These Southeast Asian Minnesotans fought on the side of the United States in its war against communism that ensnarled the veterans’ homelands, killing millions. (Alex Kormann, The Minnesota Star Tribune)

50 years after the Fall of Saigon, ‘invisible’ Southeast Asian veterans seek deferred honor

Publicly funded legacy projects have focused on Hmong Minnesotans. Other groups say they’ve been excluded from the record.

By Susan Du, photos by Alex Kormann

The Minnesota Star Tribune

April 26, 2025 at 8:30am

When a delegation of aging veterans attended a legislative committee hearing in March, dressed in their military fatigues, they said it could be their final push for recognition from Minnesota after decades of indifference.

The men were Southeast Asian Minnesotans edging into the ninth decade of their lives. They had fought on the side of the United States in its wars against communism that once ensnarled their homelands, killing millions. When Saigon fell, 50 years ago this April 30, it triggered the abrupt abandonment of U.S. allies, their imprisonment in “re-education” camps and their eventual migration to Minnesota as refugees.

The bill the veterans came to support sought $500,000 for the Minnesota Humanities Center to commemorate the Fall of Saigon through programming that had to include the contributions of Minnesotans of Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian origins.

The bipartisan request, sponsored by Rep. Jim Nash, R-Waconia, and Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, wasn’t controversial on its face; it had the support of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, a nonpartisan state agency. Nevertheless, it got an icy welcome from members of the Asian and Pacific Caucus, who alluded to unresolved disagreements from last year’s session.

Sensing that the odds were stacked against them, the veterans left disappointed.

A few weeks later, when the draft bill came out, that language was missing.

“For decades, the press, the American public and especially the state of Minnesota has been led to understand that only the Hmong fought in Laos,” said Khao Insixiengmay, an 81-year-old veteran of Lao descent. “This caused additional immense emotional wounds and trauma as we have already lost our homeland and were separated from families for years. ... It has been unbearable.”

Khao Insixiengmay is a Laotian veteran of the U.S. military who served during the Vietnam War.

Khao Insixiengmay is a Laotian veteran who served in the U.S. Secret War.

As the Vietnam War generation dwindles, efforts to archive their stories have intensified. In Minnesota, publicly funded museum exhibits and documentaries have underscored the CIA’s covert operations in Laos, which ran parallel to the fighting in Vietnam and is called the “Secret War” due to past presidents’ concealment of U.S. involvement from Congress and the public. The sacrifices of the Hmong, who were decimated, have been front and center due to the dogged advocacy of what has become a highly organized, politically successful diaspora.

But many Vietnamese and Cambodian families’ migration stories also sprang out of the era, and multiethnic Laotians also served in the special guerrilla units. They say that in Minnesota, public funding has repeatedly gone to honor its predominant Asian demographic, the Hmong, while other groups have fallen to the margins of history.

As time runs out, younger activists are doing more of what came uneasily to their elders — joining forces and getting loud, willing to weather the criticism that comes with pointing out fault lines in the Asian Pacific community.

“These communities have contributed tremendously to this state, yet we are perplexed as to why their stories remain largely unrecognized and absent from official recognition efforts,” said community organizer Bana Soumetho at a recent news conference. “It has been 50 years, and as sons and daughters of the Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian veterans, we are the last generation with direct ties to these heroes.”

Competing ideas of respect

Minnesota’s Southeast Asians have been anticipating this year’s milestone anniversary. Last session, a series of proposals sought to define the state’s role. Controversy swirled around the details.

Rep. Liz Lee, DFL-St. Paul, and Sen. Susan Pha, DFL-Brooklyn Park, sponsored bills to recognize 50 years of Southeast Asians in Minnesota, earmarking money to celebrate the Hmong people — including the arrival of the first Hmong family in 1975 — and creating competitive grants for which community organizations could vie.

Some in Minnesota’s smaller Southeast Asian communities, including Vietnamese Community of Minnesota and the SEAD (Southeast Asian Diaspora) Project, were wary. They predicted the bills would primarily benefit one ethnic group, because cultural organizations with fewer resources would fail to compete for the money not already reserved for Hmong celebrations.

The Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans added to the chorus of opposition. It advocated for a joint commemoration of Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodian, Hmong and American-born veterans instead.

But that bill died swiftly, and the Legislature ultimately approved $200,000 for Hmong programs and $400,000 for grants.

Due to a last-minute amendment on the Senate floor, $150,000 was also set aside for the Minnesota Humanities Center to plan a joint event this fall. Pha’s was the lone dissenting vote.

Thal Ngin, left, and Hoen Suos are Cambodian veterans of the U.S. military who served during
the Vietnam War

Thal Ngin, left, and Hoen Suos are Cambodian veterans of the Cambodian conflict.

In an interview, Pha said she voted no out of concern that the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans would be involved, when she preferred community groups help plan it instead of the state agency.

She said she carved out money for Hmong activities because Hmong constituents had specifically lobbied for a better-funded 50th anniversary celebration than the 40th “We are Hmong Minnesota” exhibit at the Minnesota History Center.

“It’s not because we advocate more for our Hmong community. I know some people think that, but it isn’t,” said Pha. “I’d be more than happy to write a bill for any community that comes to me and says, ‘I want these dollars for this reason,’ and advocate for it just as hard.”

Sia Her, executive director of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans, acknowledged tension between the Asian and Pacific Caucus — of which nine out of 10 legislators have Hmong ancestry — and the council — which is required to advocate in a nonpartisan manner for disparate communities.

“As the council, we believe that we have a responsibility to lift up invisible communities,” said Her, who is also of Hmong descent. “We have a shared political identity, and so the more that we can see why we have to remain united ... we believe the community as a whole will be better off.”

Months ago when the Minnesota Historical Society announced the recipients of the competitive grants, it went as many had foreseen: Nearly half went to organizations proposing Hmong-specific projects; one Lao group got $24,500; Vietnamese and Cambodian applicants got nothing.

A number of Asian community leaders, including representatives of the Hmong American Partnership and the Hmong Chamber of Commerce, criticized the oversight in a December letter to the Historical Society’s governing board. Earlier this month, the Historical Society announced it had tapped a separate funding source to offer some money to the excluded groups. Vietnamese Community of Minnesota declined, calling it a “token” afterthought.

Nash said he carried this year’s bill, specifically naming Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian veterans, because they weren’t properly included in the past.

“There’s a very strong level of disagreement or unfriendliness between different groups that are both veterans of that conflict,” said Nash. “I don’t understand how a group of legislators would not want to help the other groups that clearly were directly involved.”

Rep. Samantha Vang, DFL-Brooklyn Center, Legacy Finance Committee co-chair, said in an email to the Minnesota Star Tribune that she was glad to see more motivation from the other Southeast Asian ethnic groups.

“Hmong legislators with refugees as our background have been doing the hard work to advocate for all of us,” she wrote. “Our shared backgrounds are our assets and frankly makes us fight harder than any other legislators with no shared background and wants to win brownie points with our communities. We can do better than point fingers at each other.”

Wang Tru Hang, a Hmong veteran of the U.S. Secret War, holds a photo of himself taken at the time of his service.

A place in the record

Nguyen Hoc, president of the Minnesota Association of Veterans of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces, returned to the Capitol this spring to ask again for recognition as an allied veteran.

Trained as a fighter pilot in Texas, he was imprisoned after the Vietnam War, starved and subjected to “re-education” for having been, in the rhetoric of his captors, a puppet soldier of the murderous Americans.

“I just say no, they come here to protect freedom for Vietnam,” recalled Nguyen.

In 2003, Vietnamese veterans watched the Legislature approve a Hmong memorial at the Capitol. (It was later expanded to Lao veterans after that community, including Insixiengmay, complained.) Then Twin Cities PBS made the publicly funded “Minnesota Remembers Vietnam” documentary featuring Hmong witnesses of the Secret War.

Ha Tuong, a former combat infantry platoon leader and retired Minneapolis Public Schools principal, sat for interviews that never aired, he said. Bills to create another documentary about other Asian Minnesotans’ experiences were voted down.

At times, Vietnamese elders have been reluctant to beg for money, Tuong acknowledged. Blame it on a long history of colonization, post-traumatic stress from combat and “fear of requesting a favor from somebody that we think that’s superior.”

“All we ask is for something, when we commemorate the Fall of Saigon, we can gather around and think of the comrades that we fought side by side and died for,” said Martino Nguyen of Vietnamese Community of Minnesota.

Hoc Nguyen, left, and Ha Tuong are Vietnamese veterans of the U.S. military who served in the Vietnam War.

Hoc Nguyen, left, and Ha Tuong are South Vietnamese veterans, allied with the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.

A dream of unity

Southeast Asian communities’ memories of war and migration form a densely irregular saga, packed with family lore, complicated by long-classified or lost military records and embellished by successive generations who weren’t there. The stories aren’t always corroborative.

Yang Chee, founder of the Lao-Hmong American Coalition, had been a CIA intelligence worker in Vientiane. He is a scholar of the special guerrilla units in Laos’ Military Region 2 (out of five), where Gen. Vang Pao and his Hmong army served. He won’t speak for the other forces in the other regions.

But in 1995, when Yang helped organize the United States’ first official recognition of the Secret War in Golden, Colo., it deliberately credited the Lao, Hmong, Mien, Khmu, Lue and Thaidum people, who all fought as American allies.

During an interview at his house, Yang played a recording of the event. It showed multi-ethnic men marching together, led by their daughters wearing the traditional dresses of different cultures, into the ceremony grounds to receive the personal apology of retired Brig. Gen. Harry Aderholt for the sacrifice of their people, lands and freedom.

The Hmong swallowed much pride their first 20 years in America, enduring everyday racism from those who didn’t know their history, said Yang. Upon the 50th anniversary of the war’s end, he has asked legislators not to exclude Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodian allies. At the same time, he has cautioned his friends from those communities not to alienate the Hmong in their own quest for respect.

“I run into those who say that if we didn’t say things before, we don’t get to say them now, and I really don’t think that’s how it works in America,” said Bryan Thao Worra, board chair of the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans. “Sometimes there’s a lot of fear, grief, loss and heartache that kept them from stepping forward or asking for a spotlight with the community. Minnesotans have said time and time again we can expand the table, we can make room for one another when we’re ready.”

about the writer

Susan Du