Accompanying slides for this lesson may be found here:  https://ucdavis.box.com/s/tg2kagcd4g52r2jop2btk2m84wi57e40 

1. Energizer Question (10 minutes)
   1. Before discussing, inform students that these questions may ask for vulnerability, respect, and an open mind. It may be beneficial to set in place community norms. 
      1. The goal of this warm up is to get students to think about their own personal values and things, or people they hold close to them.
   2. Present the list of questions to students and have them choose one or two they feel comfortable responding to with a peer.
      1. List of questions:
         1. How do you show love? (How do you think love is typically expressed in Vietnamese culture?)
         2. Who is someone that means a lot to you? Why are they so important to you?
         3. What things are you willing to give up or do for someone who means a lot to you? Is there anything you would not do?
         4. What sacrifices do you think others have made for you to influence you to be who you are? How does that make you feel?
         5. What is one thing you want to do for your loved ones when you show your appreciation and love?
   3. The teacher will lead a class discussion about the importance of separation and sacrifice in relation to the boat people, and facilitate a conversation on how students can connect their own family (or non-family) experiences with the Vietnamese American experiences.
2. Teacher Input (15–25 minutes)
   1. Teacher will provide a presentation to the class. Encourage students to follow along with a note taker; teachers can decide what note format to utilize. Information presented to students to include, but are not limited to, the following:
      1. New Economic Zones
      2. “Re-education” Camps
      3. Discrimination against certain members of society
      4. Freedom of Religion
   2. Recommended for teachers to share the presentation with discussion. Teachers can screencast the presentation so students can pre-watch and re-watch or interact with them independently. Ask students to explain what the content means after each slide. https://ucdavis.box.com/s/tg2kagcd4g52r2jop2btk2m84wi57e40  
      1. As students interact with the presentation, have them connect the content to the lesson question: What policies and historical events influenced the decisions for Vietnamese Americans to leave behind their homeland?
   3. Suggested Text for Slides:
      1. Slide 1: TITLE: Separation: Vietnamese Boat People
         1. Vietnam Post-War Conditions that Led to the Refugee Crisis
      2. Slide 2: Women Refugees
         1. Many women whose fathers, brothers, and sons served in the ARVN military and sent to re-education camps were forced to be the sole providers for the family.
         2. Discrimination in schooling and employment occurred frequently to families that worked with the puppet government and American imperialists.
         3. Many women and children fled without their families in reeducation camps.
         4. Slide 3: Journey From the Fall
            1. Story of a grandmother, mother, and child who flee by boat to America while their father, Long, is imprisoned in a reeducation camp.
         5. Slide 4: Women Refugees
            1. Over 6,000 women imprisoned in re-education camps
            2. Often lacked basic sanitary care and forced to raise their children in camps
         6. Slide 5: Women Refugees
            1. Nhã Ca -Author of Republic of Vietnam Presidential Writer’s Award Book: Mourning Headband for Hue Imprisoned for two years and husband imprisoned for 12 years
            2. Currently lives in Fountain Valley, CA
         7. Slide 6: Re-education Camps
            1. Former members of RVN government and military promised to be reeducated for only a week - one month to assimilate into the new communist society
            2. Average sentence for prisoners between 3–10 years
            3. Over 1 million people reeducated after 1975
            4. Prisoners often forced to clear landmines and would get blown up in the process
            5. Prisoners also have to write self-confessions of crimes and take classes on socialism and communism
         8. Slide 7: New Economic Zones
            1. Those considered reactionary to the new regime (mostly in Saigon) forced to cultivate barren lands away from the city
            2. Targeted groups:
               1. Ethnic Chinese
               2. Bắc 54 Northern Vietnamese who fled the North to the South in 1954
               3. Religious groups including Catholics, Cao Đài, Hòa Hảo, etc.
               4. Ethnic minorities
               5. Conditions often so harsh that families returned to the city or fled by boat
               6. Some families had never cultivated a day in their life because they lived in Saigon
            3. Slide 8: New Economic Zones
               1. Most New Economic Zones in deserted areas in central highlands, river delta, or mountainous areas
               2. Many people forced to work in central highlands, river delta, or mountainous areas
            4. Slide 9: Ethnic Chinese Racism
               1. 1979: Sino-Vietnamese War
               2. China invades Vietnam to punish Vietnam for invading Cambodia
               3. Cambodia aligned with China, Vietnam aligned with Soviet Union
               4. Nạn Kiều policy: Policy of heavy discrimination against Chinese businesses and forcing ethnic Chinese to new economic zones
               5. Ethnic Chinese afraid of racism fled by boat (many from Chợ Lớn Chinatown area in Saigon and in North Vietnam)
               6. Most fled to Hong Kong refugee camps for safe passage to the US and U.K.
            5. Slide 10: Ethnic Chinese Boat People
            6. Slide 11: Freedom of Religion
               1. Religious organizations, churches, and temples were closed down and/or restricted after 1975
               2. Gia Đình Phật Tử (The Buddhist Family) banned in Vietnam until 1996
               3. Buddhist sects were restricted and only allowed to operate under the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam (created in 1981 that worked with the communist government)
               4. Priests and bishops who spoke out against the regime would be jailed or reeducated
            7. Slide 12: Freedom of Religion
               1. Cardinal Nguyễn Văn Thuận: Archbishop of Saigon and imprisoned for 13 years in prison
               2. Befriended prison guards and smuggled out encouraging messages to Catholic believers
               3. Messages over 13 years would become a book “Road of Hope” which were smuggled out by Vietnamese boat people and popularized around the world
               4. Thích Trí Quang, leader of the Buddhist Uprising movement in South Vietnam and critic of RVN government, imprisoned by communist government until 1981
            8. Slide 13: Title: “A cry for help on the voyage to freedom”
               1. Creator: Nguyễn Đại Giang
               2. Year: 1990
            9. Slide 14: Title: “Children in Despair”
               1. This painting was drawn by an unknown boat person residing in the refugee camps in Hong Kong in the 1980s.
            10. Slide 15: Journey From the Fall
                1. "The Americans have broken their promise. They have left us." (Long Nguyễn, South Vietnamese resistance fighter)
                2. Inspired by the true stories of Vietnamese refugees who fled their land after the fall of Saigon—and those who were forced to stay behind, Journey From The Fall follows one family’s struggle for freedom.
                3. April 30, 1975 marked the end of Vietnam's two-decade-old civil war and the start of the exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Despite his allegiance to the toppled South Vietnamese government, Long Nguyễn (as Long Nguyễn) decides to remain in Vietnam. Imprisoned in a Communist re-education camp, he urges his family to make the escape by boat without him. His wife Mai (Diễm Liêm), son Lai (Nguyên Thái Nguyễn) and mother Bà Nội (Kiều Chinh) then embark on the arduous ocean voyage in the hope of reaching the US and freedom.
                4. Back in Vietnam, Long suffers years of solitary confinement and hard labor, and finally despairs that his family has perished. But news of their successful resettlement in America inspires him to make one last attempt to join them.
3. Shared Learning - Jigsaw Activity (30–40 minutes)
   1. Students will be divided into six groups and will read the primary source documents below. 
      1. All groups will attempt to answer the central historical questions (CHQ) using evidence from their source. 
         1. CHQ: What policies and historical events influenced the decisions for Vietnamese Americans to leave behind their homeland? How do we understand the pain of separation and loss experienced by Vietnamese Americans who fled their homeland by boat? What would motivate someone to give up everything—property, family, homeland, etc.—to flee to an unfamiliar place? What would motivate someone to stay?
         2. Student notes surrounding CHQ can be done on paper, graphic organizer, or digitally.
      2. Students should conduct extra research on the historical background that may have affected these personal testimonies (topics of research are indicated in each source). Although each group is only answering one question, this time should be used to read the entire source document (25 minutes)
   2. List of sources consist of the following:
      1. “Đêm Chôn Dầu Vượt Biển” (“Tonight You Bury Oil and Cross the Sea”) (topic: women refugees) (see handouts for translated text and lyrics) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g8csJl5U9E 
         1. Vietnamese Lyrics: https://genius.com/Nhu-quynh-em-chon-dau-vuot-bien-lyrics 
      2. Oral History of Đan Nguyễn (topic: reeducation camps and escaping by boat) https://ucdavis.box.com/s/0lfa4i9ulro9yqx49ia7h0sy8zjfew9t  
         1. Sourced from https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d8q17f/ 
         2. The following is an oral history interview with Đan Nguyễn, born in 1948 in Hà Nội. At the end of the Vietnam War, he was a soldier for the Republic of Vietnam. He was arrested and taken to a communist reeducation camp, where an estimated 500,000 to 1 million people deemed to be a threat to the communist regime were imprisoned on average between 3-10 years. During his imprisonment, he escaped, took on a fake identity, and later fled Vietnam by boat. Đan made the trip to America with his pregnant wife and only child, leaving behind the rest of his family. During the journey, his four-year old daughter drowned at sea. 
      3. Nguyễn Thị Hạnh Nhơn Interview (topic: women soldiers in “re-education”) https://ucdavis.box.com/s/ph9hubz8i7z30ltit47e49nih7kf24gc 
         1. Original source http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/ucldc-nuxeo-ref-media/83f2d204-08e9-470b-98b7-6e1d851e42a0   
         2. Nguyễn Thị Hạnh Nhơn was born in 1927 in Huế. She served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and was later imprisoned in a communist reeducation camp for five years. In this excerpt, Hạnh Nhơn talks about her life in the prison camps as a woman. 
   3. After each group has answered their question, the groups will rotate five times. 
      1. A representative from each group will briefly reintroduce their source, and go over their answers in a way that is presentable to the other members. Group members will take notes, attempting to answer the remaining questions in the worksheet. Each rotation should be about two minutes. (10 minutes)
   4. Once students have completed each rotation, allow time for students to compare responses and ensure each student has jotted down the main points.
4. Lesson Assessment (10 minutes)
   1. Allow students to write a reflection on the activity, make a drawing, or record a video of free-thoughts, focusing specifically on the emotions of separation faced by the Vietnamese boat people. The final product can be open to a written, visual, or audio narrative. 
   2. Questions to help inspire students to produce their lesson reflection:
      1. How does the experience make you feel? What anxieties and fears would you have prior to leaving? What motivations would have made you risk your life to leave? What must the journey have been like? How might the pain of losing or being separated from loved ones feel? After arriving in America, how would you feel about that traumatic past? How would that shape how you treat those around you in your present and future?
   3. A good reflection should focus on both: (1) extrapolating the post-1975 policies that forced Vietnamese refugees to flee their country to similar policies that would force you, the student, to flee your country, and (2) describing, in detail, the feelings, anxieties, and necessities of Vietnamese refugees that accurate depicts how they must have felt fleeing their homeland. 
   4. Provide opportunities for students to share their products.