This discursive memoir sheds light on the human dimensions of many of significant events in post-1946 Vietnam history. The author was born in 1951 in a village and grew up in one of the poorest districts of Saigon. She tells of bitter family upheavals, her efforts to get an education and then employment, negative and positive involvements with members of the occupying US forces, and then her evacuation and eventual 1991 marriage to an American. She reflects on her frequent return visits to Vietnam and her plans to promote in the US and elsewhere real understanding of the country and in particular the roles played by women in the liberation and development of the country.