Emmy Award-winning director responds

I heard about this project about a year ago when a friend told me that she was approached to assist with this project by AC Thompson. And I have seen Tony Nguyen’s documentary Enforcing the Silence a few years back. But after watching last night’s broadcast of Frontline’s Terror in Little Saigon, I came away with a myriad of thoughts. And with them not so many good feelings. After all, the protagonist AC Thompson went on a search for the truth about the murders of several Vietnamese American journalists whose cases went cold for several decades. He had lots of questions and a plethora of assumptions. But no clear resolution. So to make sense of this documentary I have several questions myself. Terror? Where? Little Saigon? Yikes! Just by its name Terror in Little Saigon the documentary already established an antagonist as a monster like character who instills fear into its victims. Early in the doc, AC Thompson claimed the monster is the Front, a group of organized militia men whose objective was to start a guerilla war in Vietnam. And anyone who stood in their way would be killed. AC Thompson went round and round seeking someone from the Front to tell him something he would like to hear. He could never pin down who are people behind the Front and left us wondering who the hell is the Front? Meanwhile, the juxtaposition of elderly men marching in military garbs carrying sub-machine guns coupled with dramatic Philip Glass-esque background music certainly intended to make an association. I can see it, the next time a parade in Little Saigon with men in military uniforms marching will be murmured with whispers of “daaa froont...” Hmmm, I was wondering what would happen if AC Thompson stands in the middle of a plane and yells: “Terror.” Someone would say: “Where?” He answers: “in the cockpit.” Well you can guess what’s next? U.S. government conspiracy theory? Really? Not again. It seemed like every time someone couldn’t prove a theory then the finger would point to the government. This time it’s the CIA and the FBI. So AC Thompson drew up a theory that it was a government cover up in regards to the murders as well as the illegal activities by the Front. I just happen to know that there was a similar case against the Hmong community’s leaders in a plot to overthrow the Laos government. In 2007, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested former Hmong general Vang Pao in connection to an alleged plot to overthrow the Pathet Lao communist government of Laos, in violation of the federal Neutrality Acts. Now, why didn’t the U.S. government cover up this case? My colleague David Grabias who made a documentary called Operation Popcorn, which covered the trial of general Vang Pao and his crew’s arrest and subsequent trial, also was partly funded by the Corporate for Public Broadcasting to be broadcasted on PBS. His film didn’t get a whole lot of attention. Meanwhile, Terror in Little Saigon received over the top billing from Public Media. Now, that is a conspiracy. Did I see this narrative somewhere else? WGBH produced two documentaries about Vietnam this year; Last Days in Vietnam and Terror in Little Saigon. Both have caucasian protagonists trying to help helpless Vietnamese. Both framed dead guys as the culprits; Former Vietnam Ambassador Martin in Last Days and Hoang Co Minh in Terror. In the end an apologetic tone filled the air as the protagonists felt bad for what happened. Is this the age of white guilt? Like how Germans felt about the Holocaust, Americans are beginning to deal with the Vietnam guilt. Well, it’s a bit late and it does nothing for me.Are we the victims or perpetrators? Silence seems to be a revolving theme within this documentary. Journalists being silenced, witnesses remained silent, nobody talked. So AC did all the talking. He talked via voice over. He talked to a recording machine without anyone on the other end. He talked into a cell phone. He talked to faceless people. I started to think that it was a one man show after a while. But after further consideration, I concluded that the only crime here is silence. By staying silent, the victims allowed the murderers to get away. When the Vietnamese press stayed silent, the intimidation tactics thrived. And as our community keep dormant with our voices, the dominant cultures will continue to portray us in negative light. If we continue to ignore the importance of creating our own representation through media, storytelling, art and music, we cannot fully shape our own identity in this country.

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Originally posted on Facebook.

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