The Fall of Sài Gòn

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The Fall of Sài Gòn

23 Mar 1975, Phu Bon, South Vietnam --- Phu Bon, South Vietnam: Refugees from the Central Highlands run for rescue helicopters to evacuate them to safety. The Communist gunners shot up the convoy of tears heading towards costal havens to the east, splitting it into segments. --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

Authors: Bryan Hoàng, Duyên Tống, Tori Phù, and Jacob Lê
Grades: 11-12

Suggested Amount of Time: 45-60 Minutes
Area of Study: Vietnamese Departures and Transit

Compelling Question

  • How did Vietnamese build communities as they attempted to survive and traverse the hardships of life in transit? 

Lesson Questions
  • How did the fall of Saigon in April of 1975 affect people living in the Republic of Vietnam?  
  • Why were Vietnamese people forced to leave Vietnam? What conditions made people stay?  
  • What policies and changes in society after 1975 under the new communist government impacted the decision to leave by different groups of refugees?
Lesson Objective

Students will identify and describe the varied experiences and memories leading up to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, by analyzing oral history interviews and creating a medium of choice.

Lesson Background

The Paris Peace Accords of 1973 led to the rapid withdrawal of American combat personnel in Vietnam. In the beginning of 1975, the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), colloquially known as the North Vietnamese Army, invaded the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). On April 30, 1975, PAVN forces captured the capital city of Saigon. The weeks that preceded that day saw a flurry of activity as hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese citizens attempted to escape the country by any available means. A few months after the fall of Saigon, the new communist government imprisoned hundreds of thousands of former officials and military officers of the South Vietnamese government. The government ordered the confiscation of millions of copies of books published in South Vietnam, which were deemed to be culturally toxic, and burned them in the streets. A year after the fall of Saigon, the new communist government began to confiscate private property of business owners and forced their families to relocate to mountainous and jungle areas to farm and to clear land mines. These New Economic Zones later received hundreds of thousands of other urban residents, also forced to relocate from the cities. Three years after the fall of Saigon, the government nationalized all land and most productive assets, forcing farmers, fishermen, small traders, and private service providers to join cooperatives, working for meager earnings. Four years after the fall of Saigon, many parts in Vietnam were suffering from famine, and most Vietnamese people lived on very limited rations. Vietnam was also embroiled in war again, this time with its former communist comrades in Cambodia and China. Vietnam invaded Cambodia in late 1978 and was invaded by China in early 1979. The harsh and radical policies of the communist government after 1975 and its wars with Cambodia and China were what drove more than two millions Vietnamese to flee abroad as boat people, risking death in the ocean. 

It would be helpful for students to already have background knowledge of the Vietnam War prior to teaching this lesson.

Image Citation: Manhhai. (n.d.-a). Refugees from the Central Highlands run for rescue helicopters to evacuate them to safety. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/13476480@N07/3803791190

Ethnic Studies Theme

This lesson connects to the ethnic studies theme of power and oppression from the Asian American Studies Curriculum Framework (Asian American Research Initiative, 2022). Students will consider war, migration and imperialism as contexts shaping citizenship and racialization. Students will explore how foreign policies influenced political relationships between Asian countries and induced migration to other parts of Southeast Asia.

For additional guidance around ethnic studies implementation, refer to the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (2021)  https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp.

Historical Thinking Skills

This lesson will facilitate student proficiency in cause and consequence one of Seixas’ historical thinking skills (Seixas & Morton, 2013). To help students to understand that there are short-term and long-term consequences of events. Students consider how change is driven by multiple causes, and results in multiple consequences. These create a complex web of interrelated short-term and long-term causes and consequences.

Supplies
  • Access to laptop device
  • “Fall of Saigon during the Vietnam War” photo
Readings
  • Ocean Vương “Aubade with Burning City”
  • Alex Lưu Calisphere Oral History
  • Cường Nguyễn Calisphere Oral History
  • Bùi Cảnh Ứng Calisphere Oral History
  1. Warm-Up (five minutes)
    1. Have students think about a historical event that had a major impact on their lives and ask them to share with their partner (examples: COVID-19 Pandemic, rise of social media and technology, 9/11 Attacks). Ask them to elaborate on the impacts.
  2. Lesson Introduction (10 minutes) 
    1. Display the iconic “Fall of Saigon” photo to the class. https://ucdavis.box.com/s/m6ye4nae2yisszp0c8ugrudgg248rseg 
      1. Sourced from: https://www.britannica.com/event/Fall-of-Saigon
      2. Have students engage in a See-Think-Wonder thinking activity. Students can engage in the See-Think-Wonder orally, or as a written reflection. 
      3. Then introduce the lesson background, objectives, and lesson question to transition to the next part of the lesson.
  3. Shared Learning (20–25 minutes)
    1. Put students in groups of three.
      1. Each student in the group will be responsible for listening to an oral history from the “Viet Stories Oral History Project”. 
      2. The exact pages for each transcript are listed below following each link. Optionally, teachers can print out transcriptions ahead of time for students to read and annotate.
      3. Alex Lưu (8 years old on fall of Saigon)
        1. PDF of transcript available here https://ucdavis.box.com/s/33p8uhldwyzdat2cc1amrhyh7r9422mx
        2. CaliSphere page for oral history https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d89p0m/?order=1 
        3. Audio Transcript: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d89p0m/?order=0 
      4. Cường Nguyễn (19 years old on fall of Saigon)
        1. PDF of transcript available here https://ucdavis.box.com/s/7gch0dr15091kfjvwt5hcqe85fvonxzl 
        2. CaliSphere page for oral history https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d8vn9n/ 
        3. Audio Transcript: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d8vn9n/?order=0 
          1. Nguyen's reflection on the fall of Saigon begins in the 23rd minute of the audio.
      5. Bùi Cảnh Ứng (25 years old on fall of Saigon)
        1. PDF of transcript available here https://ucdavis.box.com/s/4ui7o2kl2nq8cqgxf0idxrfdheb7dsgg 
        2. CaliSphere page for oral history, https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d8r85d/ 
        3. Audio Transcript: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d8r85d/?order=0 
        4. Bui's reflection on the fall of Saigon begins in Part II at 19:30.
    2. The following prompts should be answered as students listen to their assigned oral history. Teachers can assign three to four specific questions from the list below, or allow for student choice regarding which prompts to focus on.
      1. What is one thing that stood out to you or made an impression on you from these oral histories?
      2. Cause and Effect: How did the fall of Saigon in April of 1975 affect South Vietnamese people?
      3. How do these stories add onto or change your understanding of the military and political situation in the Republic of Vietnam in April 1975?
      4. What is one question you would like to ask these three men about their experiences in April 1975?
      5. How do the memories shared in these oral histories help you to better understand or make sense of the fall of Saigon in April 1975?
      6. How did the policies of the new communist government affect South Vietnamese people? 
      7. What were the strategies of South Vietnamese people to survive the hardship due to the implementation of socialist policy in South Vietnam?
      8. How did the new communist government treat individuals affiliated with the fallen South Vietnamese government?
      9. How did the Vietnamese government react to the boat people exodus? 
      10. What did people who tried to escape Vietnam face? If they were not affiliated with the US or the South Vietnamese government (most of them were not), why did they want to leave Vietnam? Why did they risk everything to flee Vietnam?
    3. Once each student has completed the questions for their assigned oral history, have each student take turns sharing about their person. 
      1. Have students refer to the guiding prompts above to help facilitate their discussion.
  4. Cultural Production (15–20 minutes)
    1. Following the sharing of each oral history, have students consider one individual that they learned about to focus on.
    2. Task: Students will write an explanation or create a visual, taking on the perspective of their oral history subject, while addressing the lesson questions. The final product can be open to a written, visual, or audio narrative.
      1. How did the fall of Saigon in April of 1975 affect people living in the Republic of Vietnam?  
      2. Why were Vietnamese people forced to leave Vietnam? What conditions made people stay?
      3. Teacher Notes: It's important for students to understand that most of the millions of people who desperately tried to escape Vietnam during 1977-1989 had nothing to do with the US or the South Vietnamese government (compared with 130,000 who fled in 1975). They were mostly from rural communities, less educated, and groups fleeing persecution like the ethnic Chinese.
    3. Optional: Students can choose three images to symbolize particular themes and ideas to be placed near their poem.
    4. Once products are complete, allow time for students to share their poems with class 
    5. Alternatively, this lesson could be assessed with a written traditional paragraph that asks students to summarize the experience of the first wave of Vietnamese refugees during the fall of Saigon and their attempts to leave the country.  

Students will write an explanation or create a visual, taking on the perspective of their oral history subject, while addressing the lesson questions. Alternatively, students can write a journal entry in the perspective of their oral history subject. 

  • Representation: Consider the following method to support with multiple means of representation:
    • Present key concepts in one form of symbolic representation (e.g., an expository text or a math equation) with an alternative form (e.g., an illustration, dance/movement, diagram, table, model, video, comic strip, storyboard, photograph, animation, physical or virtual manipulative)
      • Use visual aids such as the Vietnam War Timeline, along with clips of the documentary, to help students with multiple ways of processing the information. 
  • Action and Expression: Consider the following method to support in presenting their learning in multiple ways:
    • Provide models or examples of the process and product of goal-setting 
  • Engagement: Consider the following method to support with lesson engagement:
    • Display the goal in multiple ways 

 

For additional ideas to support your students, check out the UDL Guidelines at CAST, 2018 http://udlguidelines.cast.org.

  • Emerging: Consider the following method to support with emerging students:
    • Listening: Restate/Rephrase and use oral language routines
      • The teacher paraphrases student responses as they explain their thinking in effort to validate content learning and encourage the use of precise language.
    • Reading: Preview the text content with pictures, videos, demos, charts, or experiences
  • Expanding: Consider the following method to support with expanding students:
    • Listening: Check comprehension of all students frequently
    • Reading: Use note-taking guides
      • In a shared or interactive writing format, chart out characters, setting, problem, and events (including orientation, complication, and resolution). Add theme, as appropriate.
  • Bridging: Consider the following method to support with bridging students:
    • Listening: Confirm students’ prior knowledge of content topics
      • With a focus on meaning­-making, students are prompted to think about what they already know in effort to help them learn something new.
    • Reading: Use focused questions to guide reading
      • Students use inquiry posing their own questions and wonderings to guide shared research experiences. 

 

For additional guidance around scaffolding for multilingual learners, please consult the following resources:

  1. Have students read Ocean Vương “Aubade with Burning City” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56769/aubade-with-burning-city. Have students consider the following questions: What feelings or emotions do the figurative language evoke? How can this poem give us insight into the lesson questions?
  2. Another assessment could be a Multimedia Presentation where students create a presentation that incorporates the different sources and mediums they have studied. They could include excerpts from the oral histories, images of the art, lyrics or audio clips from the songs, and lines from the poem. In the presentation, students should choose one or two sources, either provided, or done with their own research, and explain how each source contributes to their understanding of the Vietnamese refugee experience and the fall of Saigon. They should also discuss the different perspectives presented in the sources and how these perspectives complement or contrast with each other.
  3. Students who are interested might be encouraged to explore the oral histories at Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History, https://calisphere.org/collections/36/ project if they are interested in learning more about the experiences of the Vietnamese American refugees.
  4. Last Days in Vietnam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRyiVgHw3fE&t=4985s (PBS Documentary) (10-15 minute video clip, play 12:52–24:55) This entire documentary is emotionally moving, albeit from an American perspective. It does a good job of conveying the chaos and fear of those final weeks. 
    • Discussion Questions
      • What was the military and political situation in the Republic of Vietnam in April 1975?
      • Why were many South Vietnamese attempting to leave the country in April 1975?
      • What options for escape were available to the South Vietnamese? Who was able to leave and who was not? 
      • Explain the varied American responses in regards to helping the South Vietnamese leave Vietnam.
      • How does the documentary tell the story of the fall of Saigon? In other words, how does it portray different experiences and sides during this time and in what light? Whose perspective does the documentary take?
      • What additional context (information) would help you better understand the situation in Saigon and other areas of Vietnam during wartime, refugee displacement, and exodus in the spring of 1975?

American Initiative. 2022. Asian American Studies K-12 Framework.  https://asianamericanresearchinitiative.org/asian-american-studies-curriculum-framework/ 

Britt, K. 2020, May 11. English learner toolkit of strategies. California County Superintendents. https://cacountysupts.org/english-learner-toolkit-of-strategies/

California Department of Education. 2021. Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/esmc.asp 

California Department of Education & English Learner Support Division. 2012. California English Language Development standards (Electronic Edition) kindergarten through grade 12 (F. Ong & J. McLean, Eds.). California Department of Education. https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/el/er/documents/eldstndspublication14.pdf

California Educators Together. (n.d.). ELA / ELD Framework. https://www.caeducatorstogether.org/resources/6537/ela-eld-framework

CAST. 2018. The UDL guidelines. http://udlguidelines.cast.org

Fellows, L. 1975, May 5. Refugees Settle in Connecticut. The New York Times.

Harding, L. & Doherty, B. 2021, August 16. Kabul airport: Footage appears to show Afghans falling from plane after takeoff. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/16/kabul-airport-chaos-and-panic-as-afghans-and-foreigners-attempt-to-flee-the-capital 

Harvey, P. 1979. Boat People can mean problems. Los Angeles Times Syndicate. 

Hoafng, T. 2016, January 24. Song of refugees #10 – Sài Gòn Vĩnh Biệt Tình Ta (Saigon, Farewell Forever My Love) [Blog post]. tuannyriver.  https://tuannyriver.com/2016/01/24/song-of-refugees-10-sai-gon-vinh-biet-tinh-ta-saigon-farewell-forever-my-love/ 

Kennedy, R. 2015. Last Days in Vietnam [Documentary Film]. Moxie Firecracker Films. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRyiVgHw3fE&t=4985s 

Lan, N. 1991. “Sài Gòn Vĩnh Biệt” [Song translated by Huỳnh Phước Tiến]. Mưa Sài Gòn, Nắng Cali.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbdGbelEBjY 

Meyer, L. 1975, April 22. US Faces Viet Refugee Problem. Washington Post. 

Presutti, C. 2022, May 24. As Afghans Try to Resettle in America, A Vietnamese Refugee Sees Parallels with Her Traumatic Past. VOA News. https://www.voanews.com/a/as-afghans-try-to-resettle-in-america-a-vietnamese-refugee-sees-parallels-with-her-traumatic-past-/6586651.html 

San Diego County Office of Education. (n.d.). Providing appropriate scaffolding. https://www.sdcoe.net/educators/multilingual-education-and-global-achievement/oracy-toolkit/providing-appropriate-scaffolding#scaffolding

Sexias, P. & Morton, T. 2013. The big six: Historical thinking concepts. Nelson Education.

Swift, J. 2024, February 27. Fall of Saigon (1975) | Description, the Vietnam War, & Facts. Encyclopedia Britannica.  https://www.britannica.com/event/Fall-of-Saigon 

The Washington Post. 1975, May 23. Undesirable Refugees’ Fate Unknown: Judge Orders Study on Status Of…The Washington Post. 

Toàn, H. 1975. Welcome the Liberation Army of Ho Chi Minh City [Painting]. Ambassador Dato’ N Parameswaran Collection. National University of Singapore Museum. 

Tulare County Office of Education. (n.d.). Strategies for ELD. https://commoncore.tcoe.org/Content/Public/doc/Alpha-CollectionofELDStrategies.pdf 

Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project (VAOHP). 2014, May 25. Oral history of Alex Lưu. UCI Southeast Asian Archive. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d89p0m/?order=1 

Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project (VAOHP). 2012, November 27. Oral History of Cường Nguyễn. UCI Southeast Asian Archive. Available at: https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d8vn9n/ 

Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History Project (VAOHP). 2012, February 23. Oral history of Ứng Cảnh Bùi. UCI Southeast Asian Archive. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81235/d8r85d/ 

Vương, O. 2014. “Aubade with Burning City” [poem]. In Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/56769/aubade-with-burning-city 

Wilkinson, T. 2022, September 5. News Analysis: Vietnam and Afghanistan: America’s two longest wars, with very different lasting impacts. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2022-09-05/vietnam-afghanistan-americas-two-longest-wars-with-very-different-lasting-impact 

 

Supplementary Resources

Calisphere. (n.d.). Viet Stories: Vietnamese American Oral History project. Calisphere, University of California. https://calisphere.org/collections/36/ 

 

Model Curriculum

Vietnamese American Experiences

Standard(s)

HSS 11.9 RI.11-12.7 W.11-12.4

Grade(s)

Grade 11 Grade 12