Return to a Foreign Country

Born to a Viet­namese mother and an Amer­i­can ser­vice­man, seven-year-old Hiep was part of “Oper­a­tion Babylift”, a mil­i­tary oper­a­tion to relo­cate Viet­namese chil­dren to the United States for adop­tion. Her mother feared for Hiep’s safety if she were to remain in Viet­nam and agreed to send her to the States. Hiep (renamed Heidi) was adopt­ed by a single mother in the small town of Pulas­ki Ten­nessee, where she worked hard to assim­i­late into Amer­i­can cul­ture. As a young adult, her rela­tion­ship with her adop­tive mother dete­ri­o­rat­ed, and she com­menced a cross-con­ti­nent search for her birth mother. Through a for­tu­nate coin­ci­dence she found a link to her mother and the two began a cor­re­spon­dence. She learned that her mother was still living in Danang with her half-sib­lings and extend­ed family. Heidi decides to make the jour­ney to her native home­land to meet her family and soon real­izes just how deep their cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences run. The tears when they meet signal the first of a mul­ti­tude of emo­tions their long waited reunion will bring. DAUGHTER FROM DANANG is a moving and stark reminder that the casu­al­ties of war reach much fur­ther than we imagine. 

Kader, an immi­grant who has lived in the Paris area since 1957, is an elec­tri­cian. With his family - his wife, and his chil­dren aged around 30 – he decides … read more

After 30 years, I final­ly dis­cov­ered where my bio­log­i­cal mother lives in Lima. This dis­cov­ery marked the end of a long search; a jour­ney which began in Switzer­land and ended … read more