Operation Babylift & Diaspora

This past Saturday I saw an inspirational film created in part by, and featuring the story of, my former professor and mentor, Dr. Robert Ballad (University of Waterloo). Although this screening had been on my agenda for weeks, I happened to read the diaspora collection of readings just the day before, without any idea how much the two would intersect. Bert’s film, Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam, is an award-winning documentary released in 2009 about the adoptees and volunteers as they examine their lives and the effects of this historic mission on their lives nearly 35 years later.

For those unfamiliar with the event, it was the mass evacuation of orphaned children from South Vietnam at the end of the Vietnam War. The operation took place from April 3 – 26 1975; during those few weeks, over 3300 children were airlifted from Vietnam and adopted by families primarily in the United States. Although clichéd, words cannot describe the emotions felt by watching the film. The children (now adults) who were interviewed described their experiences growing up in America. Most explained feeling loved and growing up fairly happily in their adoptive families; however, they also documented feeling “displaced” during their childhood. After all, these children had no voice as to whether or not they should be evacuated to a different country; instead, those decisions were made for them.

I have noticed throughout our readings there is no simple definition of the term “diaspora”. Some theorists argue the homeland must be central in the model (Safran) whereas others use a variety of discourses to describe the term. Nonetheless, there exist overarching themes among the language and overlapping definitions of “diaspora”. I view the adoptees of Operation Babylift as a diaspora for a variety of reasons. Following Safran’s model (Clifford, p.304), this group would be considered a diaspora because it meets many of his criteria: this was a group of expatriate children, dispersed from an original centre, that maintained a memory/visions about their original homeland, and believe they are not fully accepted by their host country. The interviewees described growing up in racialized America where they looked different and felt different from the other kids around them.

Many of the interviewers described feeling comforted when a convention/reunion was held for the children who were part of Operation Babylift; there was a bond between them even though they had never met. Although there are varying definitions for the term diaspora, I believe the children of this mission can be considered a diaspora. For the reasons outlined above, as well as the shared connection to their prior “home” being strong enough to “resist erasure through the normalizing processes of forgetting, assimilating, and distancing” (Clifford, p.310).