The fall of Dien Bien Phu and the Geneva Accords in 1954 signalled the end of a century of France’s presence in Indochina. In the French army, large numbers of soldiers from the colonies, particularly North and Sub-Saharan Africa, were repatriated to their home countries. Among these were many African soldiers from the four communes of Senegal who had full French citizenship and had taken Vietnamese wives. They went home with wife, children, and sometimes mother-in-law. This film is intended as a tribute to the Vietnamese women who left everything behind to start a new life in a country they knew nothing about, very far from their homeland, their way of life and their memories. 

Hosted by Columbia’s Institute of Africana Studies.