Black April or Tháng Tư Đen is a term used by overseas Vietnamese communities to commemorate the Fall of Saigon. The Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, marked the end of the Vietnam War and the South Vietnamese government. Black April is commemorated by overseas Vietnamese communities on April 30 of each year to celebrate life and mourn loss. Black April is a commemorative day for overseas Vietnamese people who were affected and displaced in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.[1]
In Vietnam, April 30 is a public holiday in Vietnam referred to as Reunification Day or Ngày Thống nhất. Reunification Day is also known as Day of the Liberation of the South or Ngày Giải phòng miền Nam. This day commemorates the end of the War Against American Oppression or Chiến tranh chống Mỹ xâm lược, on 30 April 1975, or the beginning of the reunification of South Vietnam and North Vietnam.[2]
Background
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The Vietnam War was an armed conflict (1 November 1955 - 30 April 1975) between North Vietnam, supported by the Soviet Union and China, and South Vietnam, supported by the United States of America. More than 3 million people were killed during the Vietnam War, and over half of the casualties were Vietnamese civilians.[3] The Fall of Saigon marked the end of the Vietnam War when Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, was captured by North Vietnam on 30 April 1975. Saigon was shortly renamed Ho Chi Minh City following the end of the Vietnam War.[4][5]
In the days preceding the Fall of Saigon, the United States evacuated thousands of Americans and South Vietnamese citizens, but many South Vietnamese were left behind. In the years that followed 1975, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese people fled Vietnam on boats and ships.[6] Between 1975 and 1995, around 800,000 Southern Vietnamese refugees left Vietnam and arrived in a different country, but between 200,000 to 400,000 Southern Vietnamese refugees died at sea.[7]
-Vietnamese diaspora/Vietnamese refugees
Commemoration
edit-Little Saigon
-Texas
-Boston
-Virginia
Memorialization
edit-Westminster Vietnam War Memorial
See also
editSignificance
edit-Remember 2 photos
Controversy
edit-Little Saigon push back
-Viet Thanh Nguyễn
-Poltics of teh Flag, Vu article
References
edit- ^ Decibel | Black April. Retrieved 2024-11-28 – via www.pbs.org.
- ^ Rosen, Elisabeth (2015-04-16). "The Other Side of Vietnam: How the Winners Remember the War". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-11-28.
- ^ "Vietnam War | High Point, NC". www.highpointnc.gov. Retrieved 2024-11-28.
- ^ Hopkins, George W. (October 2000). "Historians and the Vietnam War: The Conflict Over Interpretations Continues". Studies in Popular Culture. 23 (2): 99–108 – via JSTOR.
- ^ Espiritu, Yen Le (2006). "The "We-Win-Even-When-We-Lose" Syndrome: U.S. Press Coverage of the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the "Fall of Saigon"". American Quarterly. 58 (2): 329–352. ISSN 1080-6490.
- ^ Decibel | Black April. Retrieved 2024-11-28 – via www.pbs.org.
- ^ Vo, Nghia M. (December 29, 2005). The Vietnamese Boat People, 1954 and 1975-1992. McFarland & Company, Inc.
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