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It’s 1 AM. You can’t sleep at night because your dad is with ten other friends, drinking và singing with no regard for you or your neighbors! Vietnamese music again!? Like, seriously! How many times can repeat “Sài Gòn rất đẹp lắm! thành phố sài gòn ơi! sài thành ơiiiii!”??
You come trang chủ from college, wafting through the pungent smell of nước mắm as your mom is cooking phở, the sweet odor of anise seeds filling the air. In the background are two familiar faces: a short, old man with rounded glasses speaking in a gentle, refined Northern accent. Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn, the grandpa you probably see more than your own ông nội. A tall, slender woman, with the look và dignified air of a diva. Nguyễn Cao Kỳ Duyên. Paris by Night music floods the house, and you complain yet again khổng lồ your mom, “Má, why vì chưng you always listen khổng lồ this sad, slow music? Can’t you listen to lớn something fun?”
Your mom looks a bit affronted, saying, “Con, if only you understood the meaning of the songs that we listen to! Not songs about sex & partying like you kids listen to lớn nowadays. These are the songs that have meaning!”
And you roll your eyes, kiss your mom goodbye, và drive back to lớn college.
***
Since the Fall of Saigon, music has expressed our parents’ experiences và struggles. This music, often reflected through genres such as “trữ tình (bolero)” & “vọng cổ (literally “longing for the past”),” developed in South Vietnam, preserved for decades by the overseas community and eventually became re-popularized in Vietnam & around the world. This is not just “Vietnamese” music, this is the music of Vietnamese refugees, of exiles expressing their innermost feelings through music.
In South Vietnam, the first roots of modern music were produced by the likes of Trịnh Công Sơn, Văn Cao, và Phạm Duy. These often reflected on love and separation, as many Vietnamese saw their loved ones separated from them due khổng lồ war & were forced to part from their families due lớn violence. Lam Phương’s “Thành Phố Buồn” (City of Sadness) highlights the pain experienced by Vietnamese people:
“Rồi từ kia vì biện pháp xa duyên tình thêm nhạt nhòa. Rồi từ kia trốn phong cha em làm dâu bên người. Âm thầm anh nhớ tiếc thương đời. Đau bi đát em khóc phân chia phôi. Anh về góp nhóp kỷ niệm tra cứu vui!”
“Our long-distance love faded since we parted. The ups và downs of life made you become another man’s wife. In silence, I mourned our lives. In sorrow, your tears filled the separation. I returned only to find solace in the fragmented memories.”
For the Vietnamese people, the impending loss of their country is not just the loss of a nation, but the loss of love, the loss of relationships, and the loss of humanity. “Đại bác Ru Đêm,” (Cannons Echo at Night) sung by South Vietnamese singer Khánh Ly illustrates the experience of being a Vietnamese in a battlefield of war:
“Hàng vạn tấn bom buông bỏ xuống đầu làng hàng ngàn tấn bom buông bỏ xuống ruộng đồng cửa nhà vn cháy đỏ cuối thôn. Hàng ngàn chuyến xe, claymore lựu đạn hàng vạn chuyến xe có vô thị thành từng vùng làm thịt xương có bà bầu có em.”
“Thousands of bombs rained down on the villages Thousands of bombs poured down on the fields Vietnam’s houses blazed through the hamlets Thousands of vehicles carrying claymore grenades Thousands of vehicles carrying into the thành phố the corpses and bones of our mothers & sisters.”
Over the decades after the Fall of Saigon, millions of Vietnamese refugees escaped by boat to lớn build new Vietnamese communities in Australia, the U.S., France, Canada, and many other countries. Và with them, they brought the pain of the war & turned it into a new genre: music reflecting the pain of the loss of their homeland, the pain of fleeing from the country in which they were born, & the pain of assimilating into a new culture.
Easily the most famous tuy vậy about the Fall of Saigon in the diaspora community (re-sung continuously by Vietnamese-American entertainment companies such as Asia Entertainment & Thúy Nga) is “Sài Gòn Vĩnh Biệt” (Goodbye Saigon)). In it, the Vietnamese community reflects on their abrupt goodbye from their old city, no longer called sử dụng Gòn, và the promise of coming trang chủ one day, as one comes trang chủ to a lover:
“Sài gòn ơi, tôi xin hẹn rằng tôi trở về tín đồ tình ơi, tôi xin giữ lại trọn mãi lời thề dù thời gian, có là một thoáng đê mê Phố phường vạn ánh sao đêm nhưng lại tôi vẫn không bao giờ quên.”
“O Saigon, I promise that I will return My lover, I will keep the vow forever Time might be but a flash of passion The street has a myriad of stars But I shall never forget.”
As Vietnamese slowly trickled into other countries và reflected on the sufferings và pain they went through in order lớn escape Vietnam, the pain of the war & loss of homeland became a new genre mixed in with songs lamenting the loss of life & tribulations as boat people & having to lớn assimilate into a new and foreign culture. Như Quỳnh, a Vietnamese singer for Paris by Night, sings “Đêm Chôn Dầu thừa Biển” (The Night I Bury Oil as I Cross the Sea), reflecting on the experiences of the boat people:
“Đêm nay ban đêm trời anh bỏ quê nhà Ra đi trên chiếc thuyền hy vọng vượt trùng dương Em đâu đâu bao gồm ngờ đêm bi đát Bỏ lại em trăm nhớ ngàn thương Hò ơi! Hò ới! giã biệt nước non”
“Tonight in the darkness You (my lover) left home by boat Hoping to lớn cross the ocean I did not expect sadness khổng lồ creep into the night Leaving me with pain & longing Oh! Oh! Goodbye my homeland.”
The New Generation
These feelings of pain were not limited to the older generation. New Vietnamese Americans who came khổng lồ the U.S. As children were forced to confront their new realities of bullying at schools, inner-city poverty, and discrimination, using rap & hip hop as new forms of expression. Khanh Nhỏ, known as one of the first lớn ever rap in Vietnamese, raps in “Đời Anh Thanh Niên” (The Life of a Young Boy) about his journey of coming to & growing up in America:
“Có anh bạn trẻ khôn to lên từ tây nguyên mái ấm gia đình anh ko chiụ cãnh khỗ nên cha và anh mới vượt biên giới đi vượt biên giới bằng mẫu thuyền chỉ có phụ thân và anh bình thường quanh đìu hiu chỉ gồm anh và phụ thân người ở bên nhau.”
“There was once a young boy growing up in the Central Highlands His family was suffering So he và his father decided to cross the sea By boat Only him and his father Around them just emptiness Only him & his father Two people together.”
Khanh nhỏ would eventually become one of the most popular Vietnamese American rappers whose musical style inspired many up-and-coming rappers in Vietnam.
Easily the most well-known tuy nhiên among Vietnamese American youth growing up in the 1990s was “Vietnamese Gang,” by ThaiVietG và Khanh Nhỏ:
“We be the realest gooks that you ever know, we be the thuggish ass Vietnamese fools up in p. O bro, so slow your roll, don’t wanna step, cause if you try to, I’m a have khổng lồ ride through, and put your ass in check foo, it’s lượt thích that my crew, we be the real cats, come khổng lồ bomb on Vietnam tatted on my back, family love got my mind giving a fuck, shedding blood for the homies on the block bumpin’ slugs, cause it’s the gang that I bang with, rollin’ with five real motherfucking g’s & ya’ll still can’t hang bitch, showin’ no love in enemies gettin’ served, when we walk up out the room all you heard, what bitch?”
At face value, this is simply a tuy vậy about pride in Vietnamese gang life, but at the chip core of the lyrics is a remarkable interweaving of both American & Vietnamese culture integrated into a new kind of Vietnamese family, the most important unit in Vietnamese culture & society. In a new country where Vietnamese Americans faced constant discrimination, being called “gooks” và having to confront the existing gangs in their area, Vietnamese American gangs, as expressed here, were a way to lớn find Vietnamese pride & reinvent Vietnamese family values into their new identity as an American gang. The điện thoại tư vấn to “shed blood for the homies,” “preserve fraternity,” và be proud to lớn be “a strong and numerous Vietnamese people,” are all re-imaginings of cultural pride và family values inserted into a Vietnamese American identity.
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Vietnamese people in the diaspora number around 4.5 million today, many of whom are second và third generation—born và raised outside of Vietnam & making a name for themselves in their own chất lượng fashion. Và for many of them, their refugee past is simply a memory—fragmented from the stories their parents have told them, entrusted to lớn them to preserve và reshape in their own lives.
Thao Nguyen, who formed the indie band Thao và the Get Down Stay Down, performs the song “Temple” as a tribute to her parents’ past as Vietnamese refugees:
“I lost my đô thị in the light of day Thick smoke Helicopter blades Heaven on earth I’ve never moved so fast You’ll never know the fear your mama has I know your father can’t call anymore He never meant lớn be a man of war But we found freedom what will you vì now Bury the burden baby make us proud.”
Thao Nguyen, a second-generation Vietnamese American woman, narrates the story of her parents’ escape lớn America và acknowledges the responsibility she has as a child living in the freedom that her parents did not have. She attempts khổng lồ make the most of it as she “buries the burden” lớn make her parents proud of the life she created in America.
And while many Vietnamese Americans have used their artistic ability to reflect on their parents’ past, many others have made their Vietnamese identity central to lớn the new social & political events raging in a racially diverse và globalized America. Mixed Miyagi, who is half-Black and half-Vietnamese & raised in Miami, raps in the song “Ngày nào thì cũng Vậy” (Every Day is like This) about the racism that đen people face in America, especially in the wake of the killing of George Floyd in 2020:
“Mình là con lai gốc việt, thì nhằm ta đề cập một câu chuyện Đời bản thân khổ không bằng ai, hy vọng bạn gọi được nỗi buồn Giờ bản thân trôi như cái thuyền, không chỉ có thế mình không biết tinh chỉnh Mơ là sẽ sở hữu được một ngày cụ giới này có sự cẩn trọng Tìm nơi đâu vì hi vọng cho hạnh phúc cũng như không Thấy tín đồ da black tàn sát, thiệt là bi thương hơn mùa đông”
“I’m a Vietnamese hapa so let me tell a story My life is miserable lượt thích anyone, hope you understand my troubles Now I’m drifting like a boat Moreover I don’t know how to control it Dreaming that one day the world will have peace Where vị I look? Because hoping for happiness is pointless Seeing black people slaughtered, truly sadder than winter.”
Starting out the music with the South Vietnamese flag in the backdrop, Mixed Miyagi uses his biracial identity to bring the issue of racism & violence against đen people lớn a community that would normally not have access khổng lồ the personal experiences of being đen in America. For someone who is “not truly Vietnamese yet neither truly black,” he embraces his unique identity and mixes his rap in both English & Vietnamese khổng lồ express it.
Forty-seven years after the first Vietnamese-American communities settled into America as refugees, there has been an explosive boom of different art, literature, and music that capture pain, that capture sadness, that capture a hope for a new world & a new identity. In a community with diverse singers from multiple generations that include former South Vietnamese singers like Khánh Ly, Vietnamese who came as youth lượt thích Như Quỳnh và Khanh Nhỏ, và second-generation Vietnamese born & raised in the country their parents fled to, such as keshi, Mixed Miyagi, thuy, Thao Nguyen, & many more, we can truly see và appreciate how much our community has evolved & grown in so many different ways. This is the music of the diaspora—a genre built and developed independent of the culture it came from that continues to lớn reverberate in the societies they originated from as well in the culture và homeland of their ancestors.
(Special thanks lớn Than Nguyen for translation help for this essay).
