Banyan Moon

The American War, known as the Vietnam War in America, was a violent conflict lasting from 1955 until 1975. The conflict was primarily between two political factions within Vietnam. North Vietnam’s forces were made of two factions: the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), a conventional army, and the Việt Cộng (VC), an armed organization that engaged in guerilla warfare against South Vietnam’s military, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). The political conflicts between the north and south were rooted in the fraught geopolitical landscape following the Geneva Conference in 1954, which formally recognized Vietnam’s independence from France. North Vietnam remained communist with the Soviet Union and China as allies. South Vietnam, who received financial support, military weapons, equipment, and training from the United States government and their allies, established a democratic republic, and the conflict was soon viewed as a kind of proxy for the Cold War. Ultimately, North Vietnam’s forces invaded and defeated South Vietnam and reunited the country as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, formalizing their first constitution in 1980 and institutionalizing the Vietnamese Communist Party, which remains in power at the time of this printing.

In Banyan Moon, Minh recalls growing up in a rural part of the southern region of Vietnam during the war. She watched many American soldiers arrive and many young men from her village go to war. As the war progressed and the violence drew closer, Minh decided to leave Vietnam. Once South Vietnam was officially defeated in 1975, an exodus of Vietnamese citizens like Minh fled the country and emigrated to the United States. The total death toll for the war varies considerably depending on the source, but the United States government estimates that more than 3,000,000 people died, including both military and civilian deaths (“How Many People Died in the Vietnam War?” Britannica). Today, America is home to over 1.3 million Vietnamese immigrants (though not all came to America during the war), with the largest number settling in California; very few moved to Florida, a trend that holds true today (“U.S. Immigrant Population by State and County.” Migration Policy Institute).