This French-installed regime favored Catholics and discriminated against Buddhists, which sparked student protests in which Tran participated. But he never crossed the line of disobedience, he writes, and remained diligent in his studies. Even as the Vietnamese economy collapsed and ordinary citizens turned to the black market for a living, Tran excelled at a high school in Saigon and won a scholarship to attend the University of the Pacific in Forest Grove, Ore. .
Tran flourished in Pacific and then at the University of California at Berkeley. He experienced the virtues and pleasures of American life, he writes in “American Dreamer,†from friendly informality to a live concert of The Who at their peak.
He also learned the harsh realities and imperfections of America.
“The United States had two different school systems: black schools were poor, lacked facilities, and had poor teachers; white schools had big libraries, nice football fields and new equipment, â€he writes.
Nine lives
In 1974, as graduation approached, Tran had a heartbreaking decision to make: return to his family in what was now South Vietnam, as planned; remain unauthorized in the United States; or flee to Canada. Although the Vietnam War is in its final stages and the country is in tatters, Tran has decided he must return home.
What he found was a crumbling country, giving rise to a police state poised to repeat the practices of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by persecuting and even eliminating anyone with an American education or ties to it. the West. People who just looked intellectual because they wore glasses could be sent to forced labor – or worse.
