War-era Marriages
From: Ann Marie Leshkowich
Date: Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 9:20 AM
Dear VSGers,
Jerry Lembcke, a colleague who specializes on representations of the Vietnam war in American culture, has asked me to help him locate data on the number of marriages between American soldiers and Vietnamese women, during and after the war. Although I've been able to find estimates of the number of children born to American fathers and Vietnamese mothers, I haven't turned up figures for marriages. Any suggestions? Please reply off-list directly to Jerry, jlembcke@holycross.edu, and feel free to cc me as well (aleshkow@holycross.edu).
Thanks for your help.
Best wishes for the New Year,
Ann Marie Leshkowich
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From: David Del Testa
Date: Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 9:48 AM
Dear Ann Marie,
Hello, it's David Del Testa.... I would be interested in learning from you the sources of estimates of children born to American soldiers and Vietnamese women. I would assume that serving military personnel would have had to have asked for permission to marry, so that the US military may maintain status-change lists. But where? A mystery...
Best wishes, David Del Testa
David Del Testa, Ph.D.
Department of History
Bucknell University
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From: Dieu-Hien t. Hoang
Date: Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 3:47 PM
Dear Ann Marie and David,
May I offer some anecdotal observations?
I would suspect that the number of children born to American soldiers and Vietnamese women would be vastly different from the number of marriages between American soldiers and Vietnamese women.
After the end of the war in 1975, I have heard the Vietnamese government mentioning the number of children born to American soldiers and Vietnamese women -- con lai -- although I do not know how the government came up with the number and whether that number took into account the Eurasians from the previous war. However, I would venture that the majority of those "con lai My~" counted by the Vietnamese government were born of unions without marriages and, in many cases, without the knowledge of the American soldiers.
Of marriages between American soldiers and Vietnamese women, I wonder what percentage of the children born of these unions were 1) born in Viet Nam; 2) born in Viet Nam and remained in Viet Nam, and, therefore, were counted among the number cited by the Vietnamese government after the war; 3) born outside of Viet Nam?
I assume that marriages between American civilians and Vietnamese women during and after the war are not part of this question?
Regards,
Hien
----
Hoang t. Dieu-Hien
University of Washington Tacoma
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From: ryan nelson
Date: 2008/12/31
Jamieson’s Understanding Vietnam, p. 339.
“In Saigon the number of registered marriages between Vietnamese and Westerners climbed steadily: 126 in 1965, 402 in 1968, 557 in 1971. This seems like a fairly small number of intermarriages in a metropolis like Saigon, but its perceived significance was related to the fact that registered marriages between Vietnamese fell 3,889 in 1965 to 2,871 in 1967, rose somewhat to 3,325 in 1968, and then fell back to 2,868 in 1969, 2,838 in 1970, and 2,851 in 1971. As a percentage of total registered marriages in Saigon, those taking place between two Vietnamese plunged from 96 percent in 1965 to only 81 percent in 1970. . . .
*Google Books does not allow access to the paragraph's footnote. I have Jamieson’s book but I’m not at home. I’ll look it up for you tomorrow and forward the citation off-list.
Jamieson’s Understanding Vietnam is fantastic resource for learning about Vietnamese history and culture. Tell your colleague he or she should purchase copy.
For more data on the issue of marriages between U.S. soldiers and Vietnamese women, peruse
Feel free to change up the words in the search engine (e.g. “soldiers” “marriage” “Vietnam War” -- etc.). Be sure to put quotations around a word or phrase.
Peace
Ryan Nelson
B.A. Washburn University