Word: babylift
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...When am I going home?" asked twelve-year-old Ya Hinh, just eight weeks after arriving in the suburban New York home of Janet and Louis Marchese. Hinh, called Keith by the Marcheses, was one of some 2,000 Vietnamese children airlifted to the U.S. in Operation Babylift as Saigon fell to the Communists in the spring of 1975. He had learned to say "mother," "father" and a few other English words quite quickly. But Mrs. Marchese, wife of a New York City policeman, was torn between her desire to adopt the boy officially and her awareness that his real...
...Viet Nam lingers-for the American families seeking to adopt the children they have come to love, and for an unknown number of Vietnamese parents now seeking to regain custody of children they sent to the U.S. as "orphans" to spare them from a possible bloodbath or starvation. Operation Babylift was created out of humanitarian motives on all sides. Yet it has left a legacy of uncertainty, considerable bitterness-and a legal situation as tangled as the emotions that swirled around the war itself...
Very Bad. Ha Thi Vo, a Vietnamese mother who gave up three sons during the babylift, is now living in California, where she is fighting to regain them. She found her youngest child, Tung, 3, at an adoption agency. But since he did not immediately recognize her, agency officials said she could not take him. "They call me a liar," she says. "They make me feel very...
...couple of years ago, we were saints--now we are evil. Americans have been adopting Vietnamese children quietly for years. It is a lifetime commitment for all of us. But the "babylift" had to happen fast--it couldn't be done quietly--and things never work right when they're done fast. The reaction to it was that it was bad. But lots of these kids were almost dead. Even if the communists do have fantastic day care centers, the children would have died before they could be set up. We were talking about kids who right then needed help...
...continuing stain of the Viet Nam tragedy left its mark. Inevitably, the issue became politicized. To some, the phrase "Operation Babylift" became associated with a government policy less noble than the words implied. Cynical suspicion mounted that the Administration was seeking to build political capital, a view bolstered by the sight of the President cradling a newly arrived orphan. "Seeing Jerry Ford walking down the runway with that baby in his arms, I wanted to throw a shoe at the TV," said Mrs. Blair Cooter, the mother of a nine-month-old Vietnamese boy adopted last year...
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