South Vietnamese

The entire American ground war in the 1960s was fought in “South Vietnam,” and, in the early years, nearly all of those whom the Americans fought against were “South Vietnamese.”

Instead, the “South Vietnamese” who fought against the Americans were those who joined the NLF.

As historians, we often use convenient descriptors such as South Vietnam/South Vietnamese and North Vietnam/North Vietnamese as shorthand.

We hear from South Vietnamese people who left the country and learn about the experiences lived by those who chose to stay after the People’s Army of Vietnam took Saigon.

Pham Phu Quy, a driver and deliveryman, was a teenager in Saigon in 1975, with a father who worked for the South Vietnamese government, and a mother who worked for the northern army.