Shortly before the end of the Vietnam War, hundreds of Vietnamese children were brought to the US to be adopted. Over 400 children, most under the age of two, were met at Sea-Tac airport by a crowd of adoptive parents. About half of the children were adopted by parents who lived in or traveled to Seattle to meet them, while the other half boarded another plane to meet their adoptive families elsewhere.
The adoption program was controversial, however. Antiwar protesters demonstrated against the program at the airport, a group of Seattle leaders described it as reminiscent of removing Indigenous children from their parents, Catholic relief agencies described the program as "mass expatriation" and a "deplorable and unjustified mistake," and a spokesman for the North Vietnamese condemned the adoptions were part of a "forced evacuation." In addition, some of the children were not orphans at all but had been placed temporarily in orphanages by their parents, some of whom had planned to come back for them.
The plane with the children landed at 12:37 AM and it took several hours for all the children to be released to their new families. Local resident Loan Young, a Vietnamese American, was a great help as she comforted children in their own language. Here she talks with a child wearing a leg brace.
Caption information source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 6, 1975, pp. A1, A3. Caption information source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 7, 1975, Special Report, pp. A1-A3, A16. Caption information source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, April 12, 1975, p. A4.
