“When you leave, the Party calls you a traitor; When you return, the Party calls you an overseas Vietnamese.”

This comment, left under a Facebook post by Luật Khoa Magazine (TVM’s Vietnamese-language sister magazine), reflects a reality that is equal parts tragic and absurd. [1] It highlights the two distinct tones the Vietnamese government has always maintained toward the overseas community. At times, the diaspora is labeled “reactionary exile organizations”; at other moments, it becomes “a thousand-mile stretch of the nation’s flesh and blood,” an inseparable part of the homeland. [2]