The fall of Saigon and the fall of D.C.

Victorious Communist forces outside Independence Palace in Saigon on April 30, 1975, the day the South Vietnamese government surrendered, ending the Vietnam War. Photo by Yves Billy/AP.

Andrew Lam is a Vietnamese-American journalist and author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections On The Vietnamese Diaspora which won the PEN American Beyond Margins award in 2006. He has also reported as a journalist from around the U.S. and Asia, and written many essays, and a number of other books, including a wonderful collection of short fiction, Stories from the Edge of the Sea, published in March this year.

Andrew spent his early childhood in Vietnam, but fled with his family to the United States when Saigon fell to the Communist North Vietnamese forces on April 30, 1975.

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