Why Hasn’t Boston Built a Vietnamese Memorial Yet?

A rendering of “1975: A Vietnamese Diaspora Memorial” | Ngoc-Tran Vu and Raber Umphenour

In an opinion article for The Boston Globe, Ngọc-Trân Vũi asserts the importance of building a memorial honoring the Vietnamese refugee community and diaspora in Boston for the sake of public memory.

I came to Boston as the daughter of a Vietnamese refugee family, including a South Vietnamese veteran, who arrived in 1992 through the US Humanitarian Operation Program. My family first resettled in Dorchester’s Neponset-Port Norfolk neighborhood with support from the International Rescue Committee. Over time, the seven of us also lived in Columbia Point and South Boston’s Old Colony Housing Project before eventually finding our way to Fields Corner, the heart of the Vietnamese community in Boston and New England. 

Like many in our community, I grew up in the aftermath of war. I inherited stories of rupture, migration, survival, grief, and rebuilding that were not always spoken but were transmitted through gesture, silence, sacrifice, ritual, and love. Those histories shaped how I understand family, community, and what it means to build a life after displacement. They also shape how I understand public memory. 

Boston often speaks of being a “city of belonging.” I believe that aspiration matters. But belonging must be felt in the places we shape, the histories we honor, and the stories we choose to make visible on public land. 

For all that Vietnamese families have contributed to the city, there is still no permanent public marker in the heart of Boston’s Little Saigon Cultural District that honors the Vietnamese diaspora and the refugee journeys that brought so many families here.

That is why the proposed “1975: A Vietnamese Diaspora Memorial” at Town Field Park in Dorchester matters so deeply right now.