‘It’s not every day you meet another Vietnam orphan’

When they met, Andy Yearley and Barton Williams discovered a common history despite growing up in different parts of the world.

After the US withdrew its troops from Vietnam in the early 1970s, both were “rescued” from Saigon homes.

Barton and Andy ended up on the British area of Lewis, despite the fact that thousands of children were rehomed in the US.

The couple met by accident in 2021, while Barton was starring in a riding movie set on the island.

They had both grown up as Asiatic children in a largely white communities, with no storage or knowledge of Vietnam.

” It’s not every day you meet another Vietnam orphan”, Andy says.

” It’s like meeting a twin brother – a blood brother.

” We merely clicked right away.”

Precious Cargo, a theatre performance based on the experiences of the Asian children, brings the bond between the two people to living on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe.

The show looks at both the personal experiences of each individual and their shared sense of displacement.

In his large American accent, Barton says,” Andy has lived about a replicate life to my life, but in Scotland.”

” He has grown up in a very dominant light middle-class setting.

” He looks full Viet, but he does n’t sound like a Viet- just like me”.

After a household friend discovered Andy in the Saigon shelter, Eileen and Iain Yearley adopted him.

The only trip he could take was to Orly airports in France, according to Andy.

According to Andy,” My adopted mother had to go there because it appeared that no one was it with me.”

” I was left only as a child in the aircraft”.

He was brought up in the town of Keose, about 12 miles from Stornoway, the major area on Lewis.

He claims that after Vietnam, his lips were damaged, he wore thicker NHS cups and had long, dark hair.

” I was one of the only Asian individuals in the Western Isles, definitely the single Vietnamese”, he says.

His parents previously mentioned Vietnam, he says.

” They were my kids and I was their child”, Andy says.

By the first 1980s, it was becoming apparent that the war would end as South Vietnam’s fortified cities were under the control of the communists of the Viet Cong.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants emigrated via air and sea, including Asian and Westerners who had backed the Americans.

Two years prior, the US government had left the country, but the people in the west was starting to worry and be alarmed about the orphans who had been forgotten.

President Gerald Ford, who took 2, 000 South Asian children from homes to the United States, heard their shouts.

As weaponry fire barrelled toward the airport, the last flight, which was filled with kids and shelter workers, took to the skies.

Several people, including myself, are not very knowledgeable about the Vietnam War and Operation Babylift, Andy claims.

According to Barton,” a part of bringing the sing to the Fringe is to increase awareness of the traditional occasion.”

People often apologize when they learn you’re adopted, and I’ve always said,” Why? Do n’t be sorry'”.

The original production of the play, which was a full-length play of Barton’s personal knowledge, was performed in London, but the artistic team decided to give it a more British feel by bringing it to the Fringe.

Despite a career working with song, the perform was Andy’s first encounter in the theater industry. Barton serves as the play’s lead and only actor, while he wrote initial music for it.

Andy and Barton were introduced to each other by a colleague who was working on Barton’s search video, Laura Cameron-Lewis, who became the show’s director.

Her father, Andrew Eaton-Lewis, then worked as a producer on the Precious Cargo project to create the script and get another orphans.

” I did n’t want it to be narcissistic”, Barton says.

” Now that it’s moulded with other orphans, it is n’t just my story, it’s more than that”.

Some babies who were taken from Vietnam have unanswered issues.

Andy and Barton traveled back in time at various points in their lives to experience the lifestyle of their home state.

Andy travelled to Ho Chi Minh City, the formal name for Saigon, for a BBC2 film in 2004 to observe Vietnam for the first time.

Andy, who works as a music professor, played piano for children at the shelter where he had been found.

He claims that the only thing that left a trace of his recent was finding the road where he was discovered.

Barton was aware of any living blood friends until he recently discovered a second cousin through an heritage site.

His search was aided by another Viet war orphan, Toni Angelique Harrison, who is still searching for her own mother.

Toni, who was born in Bedfordshire, England, is featured in the present and hopes that the positive press will bring her to terms with her mother.

In 2018, she traveled to the US to satisfy her father, an American man who fell for her Taiwanese mother.

For all the kids of Operation Babylift, day is not on their part, the game’s manufacturer says.

The horrible reality is that their parents might not be around for much longer as the 50th anniversary approaches.

” Operation Babylift was seen as controversial at the time”, Mr Eaton-Lewis says.

Was it the right course of action?

He says:” The Americans exercising their grief over Vietnam, it all seemed quiet colonial – all these bright families, adopting Asian children.

” But talking to the numerous kids, they are all quite positive about their expertise.

They are conscious that growing up in these very pale environments is odd, and some of them did encounter racism and it was very challenging.

” But we really based this present on what these folks told us, and they were very appreciative of it.”

Despite the successful planes, Operation Babylift began in horror as an administrative disappointment caused the first aircraft to fall, killing 138 individuals, including 78 children.

In total, a great humanitarian effort saw 3, 300 Thai children- not all of them orphans- create it carefully to eastern allies such as the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK and West Germany.

Many of the children had lost their parents during the conflict, but some had just been separated from their families.

Both men claim that their individual situation has been brought to mind as a result of their accidental gathering and function on the Fringe show.

About 50 years on, some are still searching for their biological families.

Up until August 26th, Precious Cargo will be available at Summerhall in Edinburgh.

Kudos to Oli Charbonneau, professor of American History, at the University of Glasgow.