These days, however, Vietnam is but an 18-hour flight from California, and Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans chat online, text one another, talk on skype. Many Viet Kieus have returned to work, live, invest, and retire in Vietnam while many Vietnamese nationals are coming to the United States as brides, tourists, foreign students, and, in smaller numbers, businessmen. Hanoi is even considering granting dual citizenship to Viet Kieus to spur further repatriation. Yet while the Tet holidays are a time to forget old troubles and celebrate newness, deep fault lines remain for many of those who live abroad. Economies and culture may be fluid, and bridges are being built, but long-held political tensions remain unchanged on both sides of the Pacific. The Vietnamese Diaspora, even as it is falling steadily into Vietnam's orbit, publicly denounces the regime. Through routine rallies and protests against human right abuses, the Diaspora hopes to bring democracy and freedom to the country. Yelling in Vietnamese and waving banners and flags on America's streets for three decades, however, has failed to translate into political action – or a coherent foreign policy. Little Saigon's political concerns and extraterritorial passion rarely reach the prominent ears of Washington, D.C., not to mention those of the general public. Moreover, it increasingly fails to reach members of its own community, especially its disenfranchised and disengaged younger generation.

Lan Nguyen, writing for Nguoi Viet, the largest Vietnamese paper in Orange County, noted that, “While the younger generation of Vietnamese Americans shares with elders a general concern regarding human rights, democracy, and freedom in Vietnam, they are not as invested in the cause.'' Nguyen, who lives in San Jose, cites language barriers and lack of experience under communism as the factors that help widen the generational gap. "The Vietnamese American youth… often are disillusioned as it seems their every effort to help Vietnam is met with criticism by those older than them. The elders in turn are horrified to see young people organize philanthropic missions to Vietnam.'' There is also a sad practice within the community called chup mu, or "putting the communist hat on someone.” Those who have any dealings with Vietnam are automatically suspect; those who show any political disagreement with the unconditional anti-communist stance become pro-communist – a reverse of the political paranoia of the cultural revolution.

But those who seek to isolate Vietnam have become isolated themselves. Over time, the business of regime change has turned into the business of keeping Little Saigon from changing, and the bulk of these efforts are in the realm of the symbolic: flying the flags of South Vietnam in shopping malls, erecting war memorials for fallen soldiers, organizing anti-communist protests and, lately, renaming business districts – actions that have no apparent effect on Vietnam itself. Vietnam, meanwhile, which has joined the World Trade Organization and been elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is rapidly integrating into the world economy and can no longer be isolated. Nor can regime change occur from the outside. Vietnam's population is young and optimistic, and with an average of 8 percent Gross National Product since 2003, an entire urban population has fallen under the spell of materialism. Vietnam may wear the hammer and sickle on her sleeve, but her heart throbs with commerce and capitalism. To be sure, Vietnam is a regime that is seriously in need of change. While it makes economic reforms, it continues to crack down on political dissidents, monitors its clergymen and intellectuals, and controls political thought by controlling the press. Most worrisome, it continues to give away land to China – recently ceding the Spratly and Paracel islands, and thereby a large bulk of the South China Sea – in exchange for political support, which has spurred mass protest overseas and spontaneous protests in Vietnam.

Vietnam has reached an ideological dead end – but in the private sphere, new political thoughts are being formed. There is, along with a fledgling civil society, a growing middle class, and a slow erosion of the political barricade as the pressure rises for political reform, transparency and pluralism. The return of the Diaspora to the homeland is a double-edged sword: Many bring back financial investment and technological know-how. Yet with the presence of so many vocal Viet Kieus in Vietnam, a complex narrative is being formed, one in which knowledge and ideas of the outside world permeate the local culture and society. In this private sphere, and on the Internet, the din of political debate and exchange can loudly be heard. The question is whether the Vietnamese Diaspora, 3 million strong, can be an effective agent of change and find new ways to influence the future of the country. To do so, it needs to ask tough questions regarding freedom and democracy. Is there real freedom for those who give into their hatred and are ruled by it? Is democracy for Vietnam possible when those who live in America often fail to understand and practice it? And what does it take to move beyond anger and lust for revenge, and create space for constructive discussion and dialogue and spur new political thoughts? The Vietnamese living abroad is no longer exiled from his homeland, but he risks being sidelined if he doesn’t adapt to the new realities of 21st-century Vietnam.