Shortly before the fall of Saigon in 1975, roughly 3,000 children were flown out of Vietnam in an effort known as Operation Babylift. The children went on to be adopted by families in the U.S., Australia and other countries. An initiative of the Ford administration, the operation was billed as a humanitarian effort to rescue Vietnamese orphans – many of them fathered by American servicemen – from advancing communist forces. However, the program has also faced criticism for removing children from their homeland and potentially separating them from living relatives.
Thuy Williams and Jodi Willis were both airlifted out of Vietnam as children and adopted by families in Oregon. They join us to talk about the legacy of Operation Babylift 50 years later.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Shortly before the fall of Saigon, 50 years ago this month, roughly 3,000 children were flown out of Vietnam. The effort was called Operation Babylift. It was billed as a humanitarian effort to rescue Vietnamese orphans, many of them fathered by American servicemen, from advancing communist forces. These children went on to be adopted by families in the U.S., Australia and other countries.
Thuy Williams and Jodi Willis were among them. They were both brought to Oregon, where they were adopted by families here. They join us now to talk about the legacy of Operation Babylift five decades later. Thuy Williams and Jody Willis, welcome to the show.
Thuy Williams: Thank you.
Jodi Willis: Thank you.
Miller: Thuy, first – I mentioned that Operation Babylift has been described as an effort to fly Vietnamese American orphans to the U.S. before the fall of Saigon. But as I understand it, you weren’t an orphan. How did you end up on a flight at the age of 5?
Williams: Actually, my mom’s brother was a general in Ho Chi Minh’s army. He found out that Ho Chi Minh was planning to kill Amerasian children at the fall of Saigon. So she got her other brother, who worked for the U.S. Embassy, to forge my paperwork.
Miller: That’s a very divided family.
Williams: Yes!
Miller: To forge your paperwork, enabling you to be flown out, and to give you up.
Williams: Yes. I was actually on the plane on April 4 that crashed. My mom actually walked me up the stairs of that plane and left the airport. And then it was full, so they took me off, but didn’t tell her. So she was told I died on that plane. But then I left on April 5.
Miller: The next day, but she thought you had been killed.
Williams: Yes.
Miller: So you were 5 years old, at an age where sometimes we have memories from that age, sometimes they sort of melt away, sometimes stories we’ve heard make it seem like we have memories. How much do you remember from your life in Vietnam before you came to the U.S.?
Williams: I actually remember a lot. I remember bombs going off, people getting killed, shot to death. The poverty, not eating. It was a rough beginning.
Miller: How much did you know about what was happening to you when your mom put you on that first plane, or the day after when you were on the plane that actually did make it to the U.S.?
Williams: I don’t think I really understood what was happening at the time. I just knew my mom put me on there and that I was going somewhere better, and that was about it.
Miller: But you didn’t know that you would likely never see her again, you didn’t know that your life was about to change in an unfathomable way?
Williams: No. I think when you grow up in a war area and that’s what you see, you don’t comprehend anything else. So it was a while after I moved, I got here and was with my family, before I really was able to comprehend all of that.
Miller: I want to hear more about that transition in just a second.
But Jodi, what about you? What have you come to learn about the circumstances of your life in Vietnam and your family’s lives before you were flown to the U.S.?
Willis: I was actually born in a maternity hospital in Mỹ Tho. My records state that my mother abandoned me shortly after my birth, and the hospital kept me there for three weeks because they had her name, and they were searching for her. But when it failed, they surrendered me to the Saigon orphanage at 3 weeks old. So that is the only information I have.
Miller: How old were you when you were put on a plane?
Willis: 5 weeks.
Miller: Wow. So you were born not that long before Thuy was put on the plane. Because Thuy’s plane was at the beginning of April, and if I understand correctly, you were flown out near the end of Operation Babylift, near the end of April 1975?
Willis: Yes, I believe I’ve been told I was on the last flight that had any babies flying out of Vietnam, which was April 27. I didn’t get surrendered to the Saigon orphanage until April 12.
Miller: Thuy, what do you remember about your arrival in the U.S.?
Williams: I actually have a picture of my mom picking me up from the airport, that’s the first picture from here in the U.S. My parents were supposed to be foster parents of a 6-month-old, and they ended up with a 5-year-old.
Miller: You mean, they had been told that a 6-month-old was flying to them, and they were going to have a 6-month-old in their family?
Williams: Yeah, everybody donated diapers, a crib, clothes and stuff. And I walked off as a 5-year-old.
Miller: So they rolled with it?
Williams: They rolled with it.
Miller: A 5-year-old who was pretty traumatized, had seen, as you say, people being killed, bombs going off, who spoke I’m assuming zero English?
Williams: Zero English. Yep. They kept me.
Miller: And they kept and loved you. What were those early weeks and months in the U.S. like? And where were you?
Williams: I was here in Portland. I grew up in Southwest Portland, went to Wilson High School.
Miller: Right up the hill here.
Williams: Yup. I did. My mom tells stories about how I would flood the bathroom because it was the first time seeing running water, plug up the toilet, all those kinds of things. I wouldn’t eat anything except rice to begin with. And then when I started eating things like pizza and stuff, I wouldn’t eat rice. She said that they tried to get Vietnamese translators to come and talk to me. I wouldn’t speak to them anymore because I was learning English, and I didn’t want to speak Vietnamese. I pretty abruptly stopped wanting to be Vietnamese.
Miller: It seems like a lot of those are memories or stories you’ve heard from your mom about those early years. Do you have some of your own? Do you remember what it felt like in those early days to be here?
Williams: Yeah, I was in church like the first week I was here. I remember growing up, the same people that were constants in my life. And then the kids in school were the same kids that I had all through, they’re still my friends. So I think the biggest thing that I remember is the consistency of the people around me that just accepted me. The kids at school taught me how to speak English. There wasn’t really a time I didn’t feel welcome and a part of that community, and that’s the biggest thing I remember.
Miller: And not everybody who’s biracial at that time, raised by a white family in a very white state, can say that.
Williams: Right. I was really blessed. I still have the same group of friends and they’re amazing.
Miller: So Jodi, what about you? Obviously, your story is very different largely because of the age, just a month old or so when you arrived here. What have you learned about your early years in Eugene?
Willis: My dad is half Hispanic, my mom is blonde and blue eyes – they had already adopted a little girl from Korea, two years prior for me, which is why they got the phone call because they’re already in the system. And then my parents have a biological kid of their own who’s a year younger than me. As an adult, I realized she had a newborn and a 1-year-old, which isn’t normal. She got pregnant only months after the night that I came. And then I have a younger brother from South Korea.
So I grew up Eugene-Springfield areas, very white community. I think because I had siblings, even though we’re not the same – we’re Korean/Vietnamese – I felt loved. I didn’t really feel any racial issues until I got older. You have the kids who made fun of you, whatever, but everybody got made fun of when they were little. So I grew up very much in the church as well, and still friends with a lot of the young people and old people who are my parents’ age. They always were very kind and loving to us.
Miller: Jodi, did you have any sense of a connection to a Vietnamese American community growing up?
Willis: We didn’t have one here. I know there’s one in Portland, I’ve heard. The first Vietnamese people I probably really met were the ones at the nail salons. And I’ve never seen anyone who looked like me. It was hard, I think, because the Vietnam War was different than the Korean War. Here in Creswell or in Eugene, so many events they have are very Korean themed, and I was like, “I’m not Korean, why should I care about this stuff?”
So there isn’t one here. I’ve met some people now as an adult, but still, it’s not that strong of a community for Vietnamese.
Miller: Thuy, what about you? To what extent did your Vietnamese identity loom large in your life when you were growing up?
Williams: It actually didn’t. I pretty much assimilated to being an American. Didn’t really care. I didn’t actually really care about it until I was older. I didn’t really have racism, like Jodi, until I was older when I left Portland. I did eight years in the army and that’s where I actually started feeling racism. Because I wasn’t Black, I wasn’t Vietnamese, and I wasn’t white. So that was when I really started having to figure out my own identity.
Miller: What about now? My understanding is that you have gone back to Vietnam now, starting in the early 2000s. What prompted that trip?
Williams: I met a lady who did some work in Vietnam and did some work here in the U.S., and she got interested in my story, went through all my INS paperwork and told me that the Vietnamese side, it doesn’t say that my family is dead. She found an address, so the next time she went back, she went to that address and found my family.
Miller: And up to that point, you were 25 or so, maybe a little bit older than that, your understanding had been that your biological family in Vietnam, none of them were alive. That’s half your life at that point, and then you got very different news.
Williams: Right. And I wasn’t too happy about it, honestly. I never wanted to go back. I have no real good memories. I have a few good memories of my grandparents, but other than that, I just have bad memories. So I never wanted to go back, but I felt like I should, to meet the family.
And it was actually a very traumatic trip. I think if you’re ever going to go back to meet family, get some counseling first.
Miller: And what do you wish gotten in advance? What kind of support do you think would have helped you?
Williams: Well, nobody explains to you the emotions of going back to a place like that, or the feelings of “what if I had grown up here,” or your mom telling you if you had stayed, you’d be dead, or not even remembering your mom. I have zero memories of my mom. I remember my grandparents, I remember aunts and uncles, but I don’t remember my mom. And that was very traumatizing.
Miller: To see somebody who is your biological mother, but to see her, it seems like what you’re saying is, as a stranger, and then to reckon with what does it mean to see this person as a stranger?
Williams: Yeah. And I still don’t know the full story of why I have no memories of her. Some of my aunts say I was raised by my grandparents. I know I was in an orphanage at one point. The stories don’t match, but I have zero memories of her even today.
Miller: Jodi, have you been interested over the years in going back to Vietnam to visit?
Willis: I have. Definitely in the last five years. I think it was about five years ago I got my DNA. I have been exposed to a lot of Vietnamese people, but still haven’t seen anyone who looked like me at all and thought for sure there was some white girl in me. But I am pretty much full Vietnamese, which I was quite surprised. So that prompted it. And then when I received my adoption records from Holt three years ago, and I actually have a birth certificate and I have my birth mother’s name, was pretty like, “oh, wow.” I was always led to believe that there was nothing available for me, so I never really pursued it. But definitely finding this information, having a relationship with John Williams, who worked for Holt for 28 years, has really prompted this in me, to get to know my culture. I have children and so I’d like them to see where their mother came from.
Miller: I’m curious what goes through your mind when you hear stories like Thuy’s. I think the word you just used was trauma, the pain that also is a part of going back?
Willis: I find it amazing. It’s a miracle that any of us made it, in her circumstance, my circumstance, so many other people’s situation. They just didn’t know what was going on. And for us to have this history, to be able to be in America … the past, it was ablaze, literally, but yet we still found a life outside of that because of people who took time to take care of us.
Miller: Thuy, your story and Jodi’s are ones of, if I’m hearing this correctly, gratitude for being here, and in your case, a real belief grounded in the stories that had passed down from your uncle, that if you had stayed, there was a good chance you might have been killed.
As you know, there is also criticism about Operation Babylift from some people saying that in some cases kids were sent to the U.S. under different circumstances. Their families had the impression that orphanages were maybe a temporary wartime solution, a stopgap for poverty or hunger, and then they’d be reunited with their kids. Obviously, that’s not your story, that’s not Jodi’s story. I’m just wondering how you think about those stories that you’ve heard or maybe people you’ve talked to for whom that’s their reality?
Williams: I will say this, war is insane. At the fall of Saigon, we’ve seen the stories of how crazy it was. I’ve met both kids that have come here that weren’t necessarily supposed to, but I’ve also met some that were left there. And those stories are horrendous. Those kids’ lives were bad, beyond belief.
Miller: Kids who, like you, had American GI dads, Vietnamese mothers.
Williams: Yes. They got left … because all of us didn’t come out. And they were ostracized, and they were abused because of being half American. Others were killed outright. I know some that were hidden deep in the forest and had to grow up there because of the shame to their family.
So, yes, I think, some of the babies weren’t supposed to come out. But I truly believe that they had better lives here. There’s always mistakes made, it’s going to happen, especially in the situation of war and trying to get everybody out, from Americans to these kids to the GIs, and everybody trying to evacuate. There’s always going to be mistakes made. But ultimately, the sentiment behind Operation Babylift was to protect and save.
Miller: Jodi, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek recently proclaimed April 30, 2025, the end of this month, to be the 50th Vietnamese American Remembrance Day. I’m curious what that day means to you?
Willis: It’s a beginning for me. I feel like it was only by the grace of God that I’m here, because my biological mom had syphilis, I had congenital syphilis. And I believe that I was born prematurely. If she hadn’t had that illness, I probably would have been at term. At 3 weeks old I only weighed less than 5 pounds. If you look at the paperwork that I received, the date stamps of approval were approaching the last plane leaving, and then the fall on the 30th. I think that’s a great thing. For me, very much a beginning of my life here with my family. I am blessed.
Miller: Jodi Willis and Thuy Williams, thanks very much.
Williams: Thank you.
Willis: Thank you.
Miller: Jodi Willis and Thuy Williams were both born in Vietnam. They were among the 3,000 or so babies and young kids who were flown out of Vietnam before the fall of Saigon. This was Operation Babylift. It happened this month, 50 years ago.
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