Recounting 30 years of adaptation to American culture by the Vietnamese following the Fall of Saigon in 1975, the traveling Smithsonian exhibit, “Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon,” is due to arrive at Falls Church’s Eden Center while on its national tour starting this Saturday, June 20 and remaining until Aug. 31. An opening reception will he held Saturday at 11 a.m.
Recounting 30 years of adaptation to American culture by the Vietnamese following the Fall of Saigon in 1975, the traveling Smithsonian exhibit, “Exit Saigon, Enter Little Saigon,” is due to arrive at Falls Church’s Eden Center while on its national tour starting this Saturday, June 20 and remaining until Aug. 31. An opening reception will he held Saturday at 11 a.m.
The local Vietnamese-American cultural and retail center boasts 120 Vietnamese-centric businesses and has quickly become the Northern Virginia hub for Southeast Asian culture and residents. It is a living example of the same transitional journey depicted in the exhibition’s heart wrenchingly-candid photographs of the mass exodus from Vietnam in the early 1970s.
Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) Project Director Jeff Thompson said the exhibit is not meant to sadden, but to inspire visitors to look to a promising future, which, he said, is already unfolding.
Thompson called the exhibit’s life-size cutouts of notable Vietnamese Americans — ranging from “Project Runway”-winning fashion designer Chloe Dao to CNN News Anchor Betty Nguyen — “wonderfully indicative” of how refugees, and subsequent generations, have made their mark in the United States.
“[The exhibit is] there to spur people into recollection, to bring out their own stories and photographs and look towards the future,” said Thompson.
The showcase’s appearance in Falls Church is credited to Minhthu Lynagh, a Falls Church realtor for Long & Foster, who volunteers much of her free time to the D.C. Vietnamese American Working Group. Working in tandem with the Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific American Program (APAP), the Group was able to raise enough money with national donor assistance for APAP to assemble the 93-panel exhibition, which debuted in Washington, D.C. at the S. Dillion Ripley Center in 2007.
Just a month ago, Lynagh and company began the effort to bring “Exit Saigon” to the Eden Center after plans fell through for the exhibit to travel to Portland, Ore. It was a window of poetic opportunity, according to Lynagh, who called the Eden Center a “second home” for many area Vietnamese residents, much like the Little Saigon located in Westminster, Calif.
Erected as a reminder of a “home away from home,” the Eden Center Clock Tower is an exact replica of the one in downtown Saigon, and property plays host to various significant Vietnamese events throughout the year, including the annual Tet and Moon festivals.
However, the “Exit Saigon” exhibit typically calls home many official courthouses, public libraries or academic institutions in highly-populated Vietnamese areas across the U.S. By contrast, Eden Center’s large empty retail space — previously occupied by the National Wholesale Liquidators chain Ames Department Store before both went bankrupt — is an unlikely candidate despite its cultural relevance.
Alan Frank, general counsel and senior vice-president for the Eden Center’s owner, Capital Commercial Properties, funded an interior makeover out of his own pocket for a portion of the 77,120-square-feet space, to be painting and rebuffing it following an original rejection by Smithsonian for not being up to par.
“In times like these, it’s especially important to do things to help the shopping center,” said Frank, when asked why he’d fund an un-promised project by vamping up an abandoned warehouse.
He went on to express hope that the influx of visitors to the exhibit will not only educate those who view it, but in turn stimulate business for the Eden Center, which, like many local businesses, hasn’t been immune to the economic toll.
APAP Director Franklin Odo agreed it took a bit of doing on Frank’s part to make the deserted space exhibit-ready, but said placing “Exit Saigon” in the Eden Center will make it available to those who may not be familiar enough with D.C. to travel to the National Mall to visit something similar.
“The Smithsonian wants [the Vietnamese] to know they’re respected and that their experience is worth documenting,” said Odo. “They’re part of the American experience. And for non-Vietnamese [visitors], it’s a chance to see who these [Vietnamese] people are, what they’ve gone through and how they fit into the American fabric.”
Californian curator, Vu Pham, is responsible for accumulating the exhibit’s material, which includes, among other things, rare photographs of refugees escaping by boat, an extremely dangerous travail to capture on film at that time. Odo, a curator himself for the National Museum of American History, met Pham when they were colleagues working as college professors years ago. The two later teamed up with the Smithsonian’s Office of Exhibits Central to make the exhibit a reality.
Divided into six sections, “Exit Saigon” tracks the epic transition of thousands of Vietnamese refugees, from the Vietnam War’s end to present-day America. Vietnamese-Americans account for 1.5 million of U.S. population.
An opening reception will be held at the Eden Center, located at 6751 Wilson Boulevard in Falls Church, at 11 a.m. this Saturday. Viewing hours for the exhibit are 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. – 7 p.m. Fridays, 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. Saturdays and 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. Sundays. The Eden Center will host the exhibit through Aug. 31.
