An intimate portrait of Vietnam half a century after the war

Returning to the country that her family had fled, photographer Tracy Dong charts her journey self-discovery, community, and connection in the new book, Tell Me About Saigon.

After the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, North Viet­nam emerged vic­to­ri­ous in a bru­tal war that dec­i­mat­ed the coun­try. After Amer­i­can armed forces fled in dis­grace, mem­bers of the Army of the Repub­lic of Viet­nam (ARVN) in the South were incar­cer­at­ed in deten­tion camps for years on end, forced to per­form heavy labor to help rebuild the shat­tered nation.

Among them was pho­tog­ra­ph­er Tra­cy Dongs father, a for­mer sec­ond lieu­tenant in the ARVN. After his release in 1978, he lived under heavy restric­tions until he was able to escape Viet­nam by boat in 1989 with his wife, Dong’s old­er sis­ter, and 135 oth­er refugees.

The fam­i­ly set­tled in Sur­rey, British Colum­bia, where Dong was born in 1995. Grow­ing up, she heard lit­tle of their lives in Viet­nam. The gaps in her fam­i­ly his­to­ry cre­at­ed a sense of dis­con­nec­tion for she as she came of age.

It was very dif­fi­cult for my par­ents to talk about that with me as a young child. I knew my father was a sol­dier but he nev­er real­ly gave me the full sto­ry until I came back home in 2021,” Dong says. I sat him down and said, Dad, I want to hear the whole sto­ry in depth.’”

"Feeding Grandma", Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, September 2022;
"Dad is a War Veteran", Surrey, Canada, December 2021

As her father coura­geous­ly recount­ed the family’s har­row­ing escape from their home­land, Dong began to piece togeth­er a deep­er under­stand­ing of the ways in which inter­gen­er­a­tional trau­ma requires a col­lec­tive approach to heal­ing. Seek­ing kin­ship with her extend­ed fam­i­ly, home­land, and ances­tral roots, she returned to Viet­nam in 2022 for the first time since she was 9 years old — this time with cam­era in hand, using it as a tool of con­nec­tion to tran­scend the lan­guage barrier.

Pho­tog­ra­phy was a way for me to show my fam­i­ly mem­bers that I’m com­mit­ted to get to know them on a deep­er lev­el. It was also a way to move for­ward from pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences and notions that I had of Viet­nam,” she says.

Top to bottom: "Ngũ Hành Sơn" (Marble Mountains)", Da Nang, Vietnam, September 2022; "First Encounter with a Nephew" Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, September 2022.

With cam­era as her com­pass, Dong charts her jour­ney in the new book, Tell Me About Saigon (Kris Graves Projects), a poignant sto­ry of self-dis­cov­ery, com­mu­ni­ty, and con­nec­tion. Weav­ing togeth­er pho­tographs of her fam­i­ly with land­scapes, street scenes, beach trips, and work on the farm with hand­writ­ten jour­nal entries made dur­ing her sojourn, Dong explores the exis­ten­tial nature of our deep­est needs: iden­ti­ty, com­mu­ni­ty, and belonging.

The trip was the start of a rekin­dling, redemp­tion, and recon­nec­tion. I met my cousin and to my sur­prise, they expressed love to me uncon­di­tion­al love to me, because they knew that we were from the same blood­line. That was an over­whelm­ing feel­ing,” says Dong.

It was always just the four of us, in Cana­da; to be sur­round­ed by like 20, 30 peo­ple – I have nev­er been around that much fam­i­ly in which we all express love to each oth­er. It was a real­i­sa­tion that this is home and they’re accept­ing of me. This is a place that I can con­tin­ue com­ing back to.”

"Vietnamese Women in Red, White and Blue," Da Nang, Vietnam, September 2022
"Văn in Thảo Điền (District 2)". Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam September 2022
"Minh in District 8," Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, September 2022
"My Khe Beach," Da Nang, Vietnam, September 2022

Inter­view with pho­tog­ra­ph­er Tra­cy Dong in con­junc­tion with the April 25th pub­li­ca­tion of Tell Me About Saigon” (Kris Graves Projects).

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