Organizers who are planning an ambitious new memorial to honor the Vietnamese diaspora living in Dorchester unveiled a preliminary design during a Saturday event that drew about 150 people to the Vietnamese American Community Center on Charles Street. Led by artist and community organizer Ngoc-Tran Vu, the 1975 ac initiative hopes to create a permanent installation in Town Field Park that could cost as much as $1 million, according to Vu’s latest estimate.

The conceptual design unveiled on Saturday centers around a 15-20-foot-tall bronze banyan tree sculpture topped with traditional Vietnamese conical hats. The current iteration of the memorial would also include four pillars that would feature images and text, with each one representative of a distinct wave of migration to the US from Vietnam, starting with the initial resettlement of refugees displaced after the fall of Saigon in April 1975.

The project has not yet secured the land needed for the installation, but Vu said this week that her team wants to work with city leaders and other partners to identify space inside Town Field, the large city-owned park that includes sports courts and ballfields along Dorchester Avenue, and Park and Bourneside streets. Ideally, Vu said, the memorial site would be located in a prominent corner of the park close to the avenue.

The silhouettes of attendees are seen on a projected slide inside the Viet-AID Community Center on Sat., Sept. 14. Bill Forry photo

The concept shown on Saturday is “preliminary,” she stressed. “I truly welcome your thoughts and feedback about this process, because it’s about creating something together that we can all be proud of,” Vu said in remarks as she revealed a model of the latest design. “Please keep in mind that this is an early design and your feedback is vital to the final outcome.”

Vu would like to install a temporary artwork in Town Field before April 2025, when the 50th anniversary of the end of the American involvement in the war will be observed.

The 1975 Project, launched in December 2023, has convened two community meetings and several smaller workshops and walking tours over the last nine months to solicit input from the community with a specific emphasis on Vietnamese elders, many of whom came to Dorchester as refugees in the days, weeks, and months after the US withdrawal. But, as organizers point out, there have also been subsequent waves of migration, including newer Vietnamese arrivals who have sought US citizenship or residency to reunify with family or to seek economic opportunity.

Vu has described the proposed memorial siting as a “sanctuary space,” where Vietnamese people and their neighbors can reflect on the resilience of their immigrant journey. She noted that while there are Vietnam War memorials in select US cities, including the national memorial in Washington, D.C. and Dorchester’s own dedicated space on Morrissey Boulevard, “these memorials, largely focused on honoring military men with an emphasis on American soldiers, leave out a lot, especially Vietnamese lives.”

At Saturday’s reveal, she said: “From the Vietnamese perspective, it is rarely even acknowledged that approximately 2 million Vietnamese lives were lost during the war.  This 1975 memorial seek to shift this very narrative to paying homage to the Vietnamese people who lost their lives and those still impacted by the war’s legacy while engaging with healing.”

A rendering shows a memorial sculpture planned by the 1975: A Vietnamese Diaspora Commemoration Initiative, led by Dorchester artist Ngoc-Tran Vu. Photos courtesy 1975 Initiative

Regarding the banyan tree concept that is the central component of the current design, Vu said the idea is to “honor the roots of our ancestors, the core of our struggle and the branches representing future generations.”

She added: “The material that I’m envisioning and continuing to explore is bronze, not only for his durability in Boston and New England weather, but also for its deep significant in Vietnam, where it has been intertwined with the country’s cultural heritage.
 
The gold lines that are seen woven through the tree, she said, are inspired by a Japanese artform to repair broken ceramics.

A youngster got a closer look at a scaled model of the memorial sculpture during last Saturday’s 1975 initiative event at the Viet-AID Community Center on Charles Street in Fields Corner. Photo courtesy 1975 Initiative

“But here it is flowing through the banyan tree, symbolizing the beauty and healing and rebuilding after the hardship,” said Vu. It “reflects the refugee experience of lost grief, recovery and the Vietnamese community opportunity to create common thread narrative in our community of overcoming resilience and hardship.”

She said this week that project organizers will continue to meet with city and neighborhood partners in the coming weeks to discuss a viable site, launch an aggressive fundraising effort, and continue building consensus around a final design.

For more information about this project, visit the 1975 Project page.