Group helps adoptees to trace their heritage

Linwood woman is founder of organization that assists fellow Vietnamese adoptees to learn about their past

Trista Goldberg - Operation Reunite Founder

LINWOOD – It took time, but Trista Goldberg’s life would inevitably change after her adoptive mother gave the then 25-year-old Pennsylvania resident her adoption folder.

“I would cry just holding that file. It took me several years to actually open up the file and read what was in it,” Goldberg has written.

Goldberg, who was born Nguyen Thi Thu in 1970 in Vietnam, was an Amerasian child. She was brought to this country at age 4, one year before Operation Baby Lift, a U.S. initiative that airlifted more than 2,000 Vietnamese orphans out of the war-torn country.

After receiving her adoption file, Goldberg, now 39, slowly sought to learn more about her Vietnamese culture and heritage.

Goldberg took a course to learn the Vietnamese language. She searched for and found her birth mother and siblings, her adoptive and foster fathers and numerous other people. She had a 2001 reunion with them in Hawaii.

After her reunion experience, Goldberg founded Operation Reunite in 2003 and has organized a trip to Vietnam with fellow adoptees from that country that’s scheduled for April.

“It is the 35th anniversary of the fall of Saigon,” said Goldberg, who added the stay will include language lessons, a soccer game against Vietnamese students and visits to an orphanage and an airplane crash site. “We want to make everyone (who takes the trip) feel supported and included.”

Operation Reunite is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information and support to Vietnamese adoptees, Goldberg said.

The thousands of people who participate in the group by using its Web site aren’t always adoptees looking for their birth parents. That’s a personal choice an adoptee might never decide to pursue, but the organization provides a way for adoptees to investigate the culture, language, customs and family tradition of their native land among people who can relate to their unique experiences, Goldberg said.

Operation Reunite members use the Internet to interact with fellow adoptees who are scattered worldwide.

The organization is a big help for those who seek a connection with an adoptee community, Goldberg said.

Goldberg said she’s been fortunate. After leaving Pennsylvania, she relocated to California, where she met several other Vietnamese adoptees. She moved to East Patcong Avenue in Linwood three years ago.

Many Vietnamese adoptees who live in this country are about Goldberg’s age. That’s because of a unique program instituted by former U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975 – Operation Baby Lift, which involved military and private planes flying babies and children from Vietnam to adoptive families in the U.S.

More children were adopted in America from Vietnam during the one month of Operation Baby Lift – April 1975 – than in the past 35 years, Goldberg said.

Operation Baby Lift has been called the largest rescue of children in history, according to Allison Martin, who manages the Adopt Vietnam Web site.

Some of the children were fathered by American soldiers, and the children’s mothers feared what would happen to them if the invading Communist North Vietnamese found out. Some orphans lost their parents and families to the war. Other children were abandoned due to disability or poverty, according to Christine Lai, who wrote an article on “The Orphans of Vietnam” for Dartmouth College.

Along with the 2,000 children flown to this country, about 1,300 children were flown to Australia, Canada and Europe, Goldberg said.

Ultimately, Operation Baby Lift saved the lives of children during a war that created conflict both inside and outside this country.

Tricia Houston, now 35, left Vietnam through Operation Baby Lift on a flight that touched down on April 6, 1975 in San Francisco.

Houston said she hadn’t thought much about her cultural heritage when she was growing up. The Orange, Calif, woman just wanted to fit in with her peers, joining the girl scouts and playing soccer.

In college, Houston tried to join the Vietnamese Student Society, but because she was biracial she wasn’t really accepted there, she said.

During the 20th anniversary of Operation Baby Lift in 1995, Houston tried to reach fellow Vietnamese adoptees, but it was harder back then with no organization and less Internet use.

“I didn’t know the personal history of myself,” Houston said.

Houston and Goldberg met while Goldberg lived in California. The Vietnamese Adoptee Network referred Houston to Goldberg at the start of Operation Reunite, but as Houston’s number of years in the organization has increased, it has become a real community that she belongs to.

Houston will travel in April to Vietnam as part of the Operation Reunite Adoptee Tour.

“When I was younger, I knew I was Vietnamese. It was my heritage, but I didn’t know the full extent,” said Houston, who added finding Vietnamese relatives is not a part of her personal curiosity at this time. “I do hope it (the trip) brings what I’m searching for – what being Vietnamese is.”

Besides the adoptee tour in April, Operation Reunite’s other achievements during its seven years in existence include:

n Sponsoring several mini-reunion gatherings that are now hosted in places that include Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego and Atlantic City.

n Launching of a Web site (www.operationreunite.com) and other electronic resources visited by thousands of people in this country and overseas.

n Being one of the only adoptee organizations to conduct “in-country” research in Vietnam. Group members visited Vietnam for this purpose in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007, Goldberg said.

One of the future goals of the organization is to develop a DNA and general information database for Vietnamese adoptees.

“When I started Operation Reunite, there was nothing to deal with the emotions of a search and to provide the support needed,” Goldberg said. “We’re creating a community of trust. It’s about learning your own identity.”

Contact Vincent Jackson:

609-272-7202

VJackson@pressofac.com

Retrieved on Jan. 11th, 2010, from http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/life/article_2a141cf4-fbf2-11de-a4d8-001cc4c03286.html