Week 4 Viet D. Dinh Viet Dinh was just 10 years old in 1978 when he climbed into a rickety 15-foot long boat with his mother, six of his siblings and 75 other people, and left Vietnam. After 12 days, the boat reached Malaysia, where patrol boats greeted it with gunfire. The refugees disembarked after dark and Dinh's mother was the last person off the boat. The boy watched his mother chop holes in the boat with an axe almost as tall as she was so the authorities couldn't force them back out to sea. "My first question was, 'Is she crazy?'" Dinh recalled later. "We could be imprisoned or forced back to sea in an even less seaworthy vessel. But it was recognition that nothing could be as bad as going back to Vietnam. It was a leap of faith into our freedom."1 The family eventually reached the United States. Dinh learned English by reading Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. After school, he flipped burgers, served pizzas, picked strawberries and swept floors so that the family could send money to his father and sister, who were still hiding in Vietnam. After 25 unsuccessful attempts to leave Vietnam, Dinh's father finally escaped. He arrived in America in 1983, five years after being separated from his family. After his father's arrival, Dinh was able to quit his part-time jobs and join the high school debating team. He applied to Harvard College at the suggestion of his debating teacher and was accepted. Aided by student loans and a scholarship package, Dinh earned a degree in political science from Harvard and, then, a J.D. from Harvard Law School. While still in law school, he put his legal skills to the test by working to get his sister to the Unites States from a refugee camp in Hong Kong. Finally, in 1992, 15 years after Dinh left Vietnam, the whole family was reunited. After finishing law school, Dinh was a law clerk to Judge Laurence H. Silberman on the U.S. Court of Appeals and to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He served as associate special counsel to the U.S. Senate committee for the Whitewater investigation and as special counsel to Senator Pete Domenici for the impeachment trial of President Clinton. In 1996 Dinh moved back to the classroom, joining the faculty at Georgetown University Law Center to specialize in constitutional law, corporations law, and the law and economics of development. He was the first and only Vietnamese-American law professor at Georgetown. At the age of 33, Dinh was nominated Assistant Attorney General of the United States. His primary responsibility was to oversee judicial nominations and screen proposed regulations. After September 11, however, the focus shifted squarely to combating terrorism. Dinh was one of the architects of the USA Patriot Act. He sees security as a means to an end—liberty—and attributes his political philosophy in part to his experiences in Vietnam: I knew and experienced how government does not work. Coming to America and seeing how the system works gives me great faith in government institutions and the power of law.2 Dinh has traveled a long way to become the highest-ranking Vietnamese American in the Bush administration. His is "a spectacular American story," Sen. Pete V. Domenici said in introducing Dinh to the Senate during his confirmation hearing in May 2001. Dinh's ties to his family and his memories of leaving Vietnam are still strong. At his Senate confirmation, his eyes filled with tears when he recalled that fateful day in 1978 when he arrived on a boat in Malaysia, severing the ties with his old life in order to embark on new one: That image of my mother destroying our last link to Vietnam really stands in my mind to this day as to the courage she possesses, but also the incredible lengths to which my parents, like so many other people, have gone to in order to find that promise of freedom and opportunity.3 Sources and Resources 1 Sandip Roy, "Balancing Liberty and Security," Pacific News Service, 27 January 2003. 2 Seth Stern, "At Home in Justice," Harvard Law Bulletin, Fall 2002. 3 Eric Lichtblau, "At Home in War on Terror: Viet Dinh has gone from academe to a key behind-the-scenes role," Los Angeles Times, 18 September 2002. Photo courtesy of the US Department of Justice, Office of Legal Policy. Asian Pacifican American Heritage Month 2003 | Links