A conversation between former presidents of the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Washington
BY MELANIE NGUYEN AND JOANNE KALAS
On April 30, 1975, the Fall of Saigon ended the Vietnam War. United States military troops fighting with the South withdrew from Vietnam two years prior, but it was on this day that the communist North conquered the democratic South in the streets of Saigon. In the aftermath, it is estimated that nearly two million Vietnamese fled Vietnam in waves over the next few decades. First, approximately 130,000 Vietnamese who served in the South Vietnamese government and military, or civilians who worked for the U.S., fled to the United States under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975. Thousands more fled to other countries in Southeast Asia. A second wave of “boat people” fled Vietnam, totaling almost 800,000 people who arrived in other countries between 1975 and 1995. Roughly half of those entered the U.S. The mass exodus from Vietnam caused a humanitarian crisis, with between 200,000 and 400,000 people who traveled by boat dying at sea.11 www.unhcr.org/media/state-worlds-refugees-2000-fifty-years-humanitarian-action-chapter-4-flight-indochina.
The United Nations intervened in 1979 after countries in Southeast Asia began turning away “boat people,” largely contributing to those lost at sea. This influenced the U.S. Refugee Act of 1980, which revised the definition of “refugee” under U.S. immigration law, enabling more Vietnamese people to enter. By the 1990s, over a million Vietnamese people resettled in the U.S. Today, more than 2 million Americans have Vietnamese ancestry, with Washington being home to the third-largest Vietnamese-American population, after California and Texas.22 www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/fact-sheet/asian-americans-vietnamese-in-the-u-s/.
The Vietnamese American Bar Association of Washington (VABAW) is an affinity bar association established in 2005 to provide support to attorneys in the advancement of their legal careers and to act as a resource for law students. Although VABAW membership is open to those of any background, many of VABAW’s members are Vietnamese-American attorneys and law students. Some were children during the Fall of Saigon, and others were born in the U.S. after their parents came here as refugees. After half a century, the Fall of Saigon still impacts the personal and professional journey of Vietnamese Americans that have entered the legal profession and continues to influence the projects VABAW champions in the community.
As two long-time members of VABAW, we sat down to discuss our families, our shared history, and our pathways into the law to mark the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon.
Melanie Nguyen (MN): I joined VABAW as a law student because I did not know any lawyers growing up, much less any Vietnamese lawyers. Very quickly I recognized the importance of connection and wanted to meet lawyers who could share their experiences (hardships and joys) to learn from. Joanne, why did you join VABAW?
Joanne Kalas (JK): When I moved to Seattle from the East Coast about 10 years ago, one of the draws was the large Vietnamese-American population. When I learned there was a group of Vietnamese lawyers, I joined immediately. With VABAW, I had an instant network of lawyers working at firms and companies all across the state who could also tell me where to get the best bowl of pho. And it’s been interesting learning about everyone’s backgrounds—including how we all got here. How did your parents arrive in the U.S. after the war?
MN: My parents didn’t make it to the United States until the early 1980s. My family was originally from the North in Nghê An province. They moved to the South in 1954. After the war, my family lived with the devastation of its impacts. In 1979, at 19, my dad first attempted to escape Vietnam and was caught and jailed. Both of my parents were “boat people” who fled again in 1982. My dad stayed for four months at camps in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and my mom stayed in a camp in Singapore. They made it to the U.S in December 1982. During this time, countries were jockeying to get rid of Vietnamese refugees as fast as they could. I know that your family had a very different experience.
JK: When Saigon fell, I was seven months old living in London, England. My parents met in Vietnam in 1971 while my father, a U.S. Naval Officer, was stationed in Saigon. He met my mother at the base while she was working as an interpreter for the U.S. government. They married and relocated to London for my father’s job. During the Fall of Saigon, my parents helped orchestrate the evacuation of numerous family members. Other relatives fled by boat with the U.S. Consulate General from Can Tho, which was an escape featured in the PBS documentary Last Days in Vietnam. At the time, my aunt was already in the United States as a foreign-exchange student at the University of Texas. After arriving to the U.S., most of our family settled in Texas to be with her, where they remain today. Other family members were not as fortunate, and endured years in communist reeducation camps before they eventually escaped by boat.
MN: Despite how different our family experiences were, we share so many similarities. Both of our families moved South as Catholics when Vietnam was divided into North and South. I feel so strongly that my background led me to wanting to become a lawyer. Do you feel that about your family’s history?
JK: Absolutely. I wasn’t in Vietnam during the Fall of Saigon, but the events of that day have impacted nearly every aspect of my life. My family history is entwined with fleeing Vietnam and losing all we had to communism. The first time my family escaped communism was fleeing from the North to the South in 1954, when the country was divided into two. The second time was fleeing during the Fall of Saigon. Stories of the horrors of communism from my family drove me to an international relations and political science degree as an undergraduate. Eventually, I was drawn to the law because I wanted to better understand the legal framework that supports and enforces international human rights. While interning at the U.N. Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia as a first-year law student, I saw the connection and interplay between poverty, a struggle to control natural resources, legal rights, and authoritarianism. This eventually led me to a career in international environmental law. Melanie, what about your background made you want to become a lawyer?
MN: I grew up in a poor community in Everett with many refugee families. I read a lot of books because it was my way of escaping. I think children of refugees learn to navigate the world while taking care of their parents who don’t speak English. I saw how poor, non-English-speaking people were treated. And they’re treated very differently. So, I wanted to go into a profession that helped people navigate their rights. Reading crime and legal dramas really inspired me. I wanted to be a public defender and then ultimately practice a mix of personal injury and civil rights litigation, which I do now.
One thing I’ve loved about VABAW is meeting others that want to collaborate on shared passion projects. For example, we represented a Vietnamese man before the Washington State Clemency and Pardons Board. Our client committed a crime as a young man shortly after arriving to the U.S. Decades after serving his sentence, and after reforming his life, getting married, and having two kids, immigration was trying to deport him. It felt really meaningful to help him stay in the U.S. with his family. Having grown up in a poor, immigrant household, I know what it’s like to feel isolated, and I get why some immigrants got involved in gangs in the 80s, for a sense of belonging. These clients, having long since served their sentences, are now productive community members, business owners, homeowners, and parents and spouses to U.S. citizens.
JK: I agree. Working on those cases was really meaningful to me, and I am so glad we got to work together on one. Since it was during COVID-19, we didn’t even get to meet our client in person. It meant so much when we finally met him for lunch last summer with his family, and when he shared that he is now a U.S. citizen. That moment made me so proud to be a lawyer, and to positively impact someone who has our shared history of coming to the U.S. after the Vietnam War. As an environmental lawyer, I don’t often get to represent individuals in this way, but your work allows you to have that kind of personal interaction and impact. How has your own experience influenced your litigation work?
MN: I think many children of refugees experience intergenerational trauma. I think it’s one of the things that connects VABAW members. It helps me understand my clients who go through traumatic events, and it makes me especially sensitive when I feel like someone’s been mistreated. It’s my motivation to advocate hard.
JK: I agree that there is a shared history of trauma stemming from displacement due to war, which has deepened my empathy for other refugee and immigrant communities fleeing conflict. This has certainly motivated me to get involved in related projects. In 2021, after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, VABAW members recognized striking parallels between the Afghan refugee experience and our own history during the Fall of Saigon. Both communities saw many individuals left behind and vulnerable to political persecution after assisting the U.S. VABAW partnered with local non-profits to co-sponsor an “Afghan Crisis” pro bono CLE program, which helped Afghan refugees complete asylum applications. While each VABAW member’s connection to the Fall of Saigon is unique, I find solidarity in our shared history of displacement, resilience, and community. These experiences fuel our collective commitment to assist others facing similar challenges.
MN: Solidarity has never been more urgent. In a time when people are being detained without due process and our democratic institutions are under attack, silence is complicity. We forget who we are when we look away. Our country was built by immigrants, and continues to be powered by their diversity, resilience, and talent.
JK: Afghan refugees who legally entered the U.S. are now losing their protected status, placing many in limbo as they navigate the U.S. immigration process.33 https://abc7news.com/post/ice-deportations-thousands-bay-area-afghans-get-letter-leave-us-department-homeland-security/16441867/. Members of the Vietnamese community are outraged, particularly as to those who aided the U.S. during the war in Afghanistan, where we see parallels in our own community. The recent erosion of due process and legal norms is concerning and reminiscent of the communist threat our families fled. As Vietnamese-American lawyers, we have unique perspectives on democracy’s fundamental importance and fragility, and the need to protect our democratic institutions and principles. In addition to the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, this year marks VABAW’s 20th anniversary, which is another opportunity to reflect. I value the network we have built, and I invite others to join or collaborate with VABAW on impactful projects in the legal community.
MORE ONLINE > To learn more about the Vietnamese American Bar Association of Washington (VABAW), visit www.vabaw.com.
About the authorS
Melanie Nguyen is a VABAW past president and remains an active board member. She is a partner at Stritmatter Kessler Koehler Moore, where she represents plaintiffs in personal injury and civil rights litigation.
Joanne Kalas is a VABAW past president and remains an active board member. Kalas currently practices environmental law as in-house corporate counsel for Amazon Web Services in Seattle. Prior to joining AWS, she was a partner at Foster Garvey PC advising on environmental matters and previously practiced environmental law in New Jersey.
NOTES
2. www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/fact-sheet/asian-americans-vietnamese-in-the-u-s/.