Boston, MA 02125
VIETNAMERICA is the feature-length
follow up to the award-winning
short doc, Master Hoa’s Requiem
MASTER NGUYEN TIEN HOA
The film follows Master Hoa back to Southeast
Asia to search for the graves of his wife and two children.
Having escaped escaped Vietnam in 1981 on a boat with his family
friends, Hoa is the only survivor.
MASTER NGUYEN HOA
Master Hoa serves as the principle character in Vietnamerica. He is the highest ranked master of Vietnamese Vovinam in the US. He currently lives outside of Ft. Worth, TX where he teaches martial arts.
During the war, Hoa was an instructor for the South Vietnam Special Forces. After the defeat of the South, he was sent to a communist re-education camp for three years. Once released, Hoa and his family were forced to flee to avoid further persecution.
Lewis Sorley, Ph.D.
Lewis “Bob” Sorley is a Vietnam veteran, graduate of West Point, and holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins. He is a Vietnam War historian and author of, A Better War, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. The book was also on a mandatory reading list at the Pentagon and White House during both the Bush and Obama administrations.
Robert Turner, Ph.D.
Turner is the Associate Director at the Center for National Security Law at University of Virginia. He has also taught at Westpoint and the U.S. Naval War College. He was a national security adviser to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has also worked at the Pentagon and White House and has testified before more than a dozen different congressional committees on issues of international or constitutional law and related topics.
General VIET Luong
General Luong is the first Vietnamese-American general in the US military. As a child, Luong fled Vietnam by helicopter in the last days before Saigon fell. He has served in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Haiti.
Nguyet Anh Duong
Anh is noted as the “scientist who developed the bomb that ended the war with Afghanistan,” earning her the title “Bomb Lady” in the Vietnamese Community. She was awarded the Dr. Arthur E. Bisson Prize for Achievement in Naval Technology and the National Security Medal for significant contribution to the nation in activities related to national security. Since 2009, Anh has been the Director for the Borders and Maritime Security Division within the United States Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate
Thanh Tu Tran
Thanh was a Captain in the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces and the son of Attorney Tran Van Tuyen, former Prime-Minister of South Vietnam. He spent 15 years in communist prison.
Huong Thu Duong
Huong is a Vietnamese author and political dissident. Formerly a member of Vietnam’s Communist party, she was expelled from the party in 1989, and has been denied the right to travel abroad. She was temporarily imprisoned for her writings and outspoken criticism of corruption in the Vietnamese government. Though she is one of Vietnam’s most popular writers, her books are banned in the country by the central communist government.
Khuc Minh Tho
Tho was the president of the Families of Political Prisoners Association and an active member of the Humanitarian Operation (H.O.) Program. She spent her life helping Vietnamese political prisoners qualify for asylum in the US.
Nancy Bui
Executive Producer
Mrs. Bui is the founder and President of the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation (VAHF). The VAHF is a non-profit organization formed in 2004 to record the Vietnamese Americans immigrant experience for educational and public awareness purposes. The VAHF has collected over 200,000 pages of documents, materials, and pictures related to the history of Vietnamese Americans, especially the group of former Political Prisoners. This collection is housed at the Vietnam Center at Texas Tech University.
Mrs. Bui escaped from her homeland by boat with her two young children in 1979. In 1988, she published “Bot Bien,” meaning “Sea Foam”, a novel describing the hardships and drama of Vietnamese boat people who fled Vietnam in search of freedom.
The Fall of Saigon
April 30, 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War, with South Vietnam being defeated by North Vietnam. The surrender ushered in an era of communist control and persecution of anyone associated with the U.S. or former South Vietnamese government.
130,000
The number of Vietnamese closely associated with the US or the South Vietnamese government were evacuated by plane or helicopter in the last days before the Fall of Saigon
Communist Rule
The people of South Vietnam faced execution, imprisonment, property confiscation, and indefinite unemployment by the new regime.
1 million were sent to re-education camps
1 million had their property confiscated
100,000 were executed without trial
The Boat People
Between 1975 and 1995 over 2 million Vietnamese fled the country by any means to escape communist persecution.
1.2 million fled by boat
800,000 arrived safely to another country
200-400,000 died at sea
Vietnamese Americans
The largest political refugee group in the US today.
1.8 million in US
600,000 in Cambodia
300,000 in France
300,000 in Taiwan
200,000 in Australia
160,000 in Cananda
