In the 1990s, Vietnamese American leaders began lobbying local elected officials to recognize the defunct banner as the 'Heritage and Freedom Flag' to represent the displaced overseas community. In Vietnam, the North's red flag replaced their yellow one. 'On the one hand, it's a political symbol,' she said, noting that the banner's meaning has shifted over the years depending on 'whose voice is loudest.' 'But on the other, there is this very affective and sentimental personal attachment that many in the refugee community have toward it.'Īfter communist North Vietnam defeated the U.S.-backed South in 1975, scores of South Vietnamese refugees resettled in America. (The emblem has even been spotted in Australia at a 'Stop the Steal' rally, a far-right campaign that falsely alleges widespread voter fraud against Trump.) But the flag's growing visibility on the far right 'opens up a bigger can of worms' for the diaspora, said Thuy Vo Dang, an ethnic studies professor and curator for the Southeast Asian Archive at the University of California, Irvine.
