Alarms sounding, women weeping, advocates shouting. These sounds emanated throughout the
buildings of Cannon, Russell, and Longworth on June 18, 2015. A peculiar day in history for all and an
important day for many Vietnamese-Americans.
This was the day that the Trade Promotion Authority “TPA” came up for an
unexpected vote in the House of Representatives.
I sat in the office of Congressman
John Lewis, alongside passionate Vietnamese-Americans as we awaited his
arrival. The Congressman’s staff played a
short film to entertain us as we waited for our meeting to start. The film showed Congressman Lewis’s story and
his success in the fight for civil rights.
In that moment, I realized that the reason that we were sitting in his
office was not far from the reason that he had to fight. We were both fighting against injustice and
to achieve basic rights in society.
However, instead of racial injustices, we were dealing with injustices
regarding labor and religion.
Congressman Lewis entered the room
as his staffer briefed the small group advocates that lie in wait before
him. All attention immediately shifted
to him. The Georgia delegation
maintained a high level of respect for him because at the inception of their
efforts to advocate for Human Rights in Vietnam, he listened and has fought for
the cause on multiple occasions. One of
the videos showed him voicing his opinion about the injustice with the tenacity
of a bull pit. It was clear that he was
already well aware of the issues and intolerant of inequality. We used the meeting as an opportunity to
thank him for his support and inform him of some of the personal stories that
members of our delegation or their family members have encountered in recent
years.
The clock on the wall of
Congressman Lewis’s office sounded three times, paused then repeated. Regrettably, the Congressman declared that
our meeting with him would be cut short.
I looked around the room at the stunned faces of several
Vietnamese-Americans as they scrambled to get a few more words out to tell
their story or their family’s story.
Despite the few Hail Mary attempts, the Congressman arose, graciously
took a picture with our small group, and left in a hurry. Congressman Lewis took kindly to the
Vietnamese-American delegations and empathized gravely with our cause. Therefore, we knew that the urgent matter for
which he was leaving for was important.
As the Congressman hurried out the
door, he mentioned that he had to leave to make a vote and at that moment I
realized what was going on. The multiple
alarms coming from the clock signified that the House was called to make a vote
on a bill. Coincidentally, the bill that
was up for a vote was the very one that we had travelled hundreds of miles to
ensure its denial unless specific human rights issues were added. The very bill that required Congressman Lewis
to rush out of the office during out meeting on human rights was the TPA, a
monumental piece of legislation affecting our cause.
Although we garnered Congressman
Lewis’s support for our cause, we still had to meet with several other
Congressman, all the while the TPA was already being voted on. I sat in the Cannon building and stared at
the television that indicate the number of votes on the bill. As the number of YES votes rose, we had to
act fast to try and finish the scheduled meetings before all of the
representatives had their opportunity to vote.
The Georgia and Texas Vietnamese-American delegations fought
relentlessly to secure as many representatives as possible for our cause but no
matter how fast we reached our meetings that day, we could not control Congress.
Ultimately, the House voted in
favor of the TPA, allowing the president an increased power to negotiate trade
agreements. Despite our efforts to amend
the bill as it was or shut it down completely until a different version was
submitted, it still passed. Since the
bill passed the Senate already there was nothing else left to stop it but the
President’s veto which was not going to happen in this situation. This left us with mere hopes that the
language presented in the bill would be sufficient to ensure human rights were
mentioned when the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is negotiated. After the vote came down, several Congressmen
assured us that this was the case and that the TPA was a good thing. We shifted our strategy after learning that
TPA would not be stopped and started garnering support of the remaining
Congressman to support our cause and to influence the TPP when it comes up for
a vote.
Overall, we cared not for the
passing of TPA but for the freedom of men and women in Vietnam. Freedoms such as the freedom of religion,
speech, assembly, and better labor conditions.
Freedoms that we as Americans have taken for granted. The United States of America is highly
influential around the globe and has an effect on Human Rights in many
countries other than our own. Our trade
effects labor worldwide and our political power can affect the freedom of men
and women in many countries. We need to
use the upcoming trade negotiations to ensure that all men and women in Vietnam
have the basic human rights that we have helped them fight for since the
Vietnam War. Forty years ago the Vietnam
War ended and Vietnam restructured as a socialist republic. However, the republic is still governed by
the Communist Party of Vietnam which still continues to limit the freedoms of
Vietnamese citizens.
As Americans, we should not forget that our
efforts in Vietnam were far from victorious and that we left a job undone. We should see it as our civil duty to
continue to fight for true freedom in Vietnam.
However, we must shift to a new battlefront. The war is no longer an invasive uprising
within the country of Vietnam. The
injustice within the country has spread throughout the Pacific region and
beyond. Laborers are sent to other countries
from Vietnam to work in slave like conditions and refugees have spread
throughout the countries of the world to avoid religious persecution in
Vietnam. The new battlefront is global
and we must fight with tactics de novo, new
strategies including political negotiations, free trade, and agreements among
nations to ensure human rights are achieved.
We can all do our part by raising awareness, contacting our
representatives, or volunteering with an organization that supports
refugees.
What will you do with your freedom
today? Argue about a rebel flag, a symbol that represented a time when our
country had to fight internally for freedoms? Or go and make a difference, on
an issue that really matters, for people who are alive today, fighting for
freedoms that we have enjoyed for hundreds of years?
Stay tuned for more,
Nick Nesmith
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