During the 1950s, just a few thousand Americans identified themselves as Vietnamese.  Since the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the number of Americans identifying as Vietnamese alone or in combination with one or more other detailed Asian groups or races has grown to nearly 2.3 million.

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Following World War II, fear that communism would spread throughout Southeast Asia led President Harry S. Truman to provide military assistance to French forces fighting in Indochina in 1950. When Vietnamese forces defeated the French at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, ending French colonial rule, the Geneva Accords established a temporary military demarcation at the 17th parallel between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam).

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy increased the number of U.S. military advisers in South Vietnam. Advisors trained the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) to defend against North Vietnam's efforts to unify Vietnam as a single, communist nation. Four years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent the first U.S. combat troops to South Vietnam, initially to protect U.S. military installations at Da Nang. At the end of 1965, 184,300 American military personnel were in Vietnam. By 1973, approximately 2.7 million Americans had served in Vietnam.

The war grew increasingly unpopular as the number of casualties grew and Americans watched daily televised reports about the conflict. In 1969, the United States began transferring responsibility for combat operations to the ARVN. After representatives of the United States, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government signed the Paris Peace Accords on January 27, 1973, a tenuous ceasefire began. The United States agreed to withdraw its troops from Vietnam within 60 days, leaving behind only a small contingent of U.S. Marines to guard Tan Son Nhut air base and the U.S. embassy in Saigon.

South Vietnam’s President Nguyen Van Thieu reluctantly accepted the Paris Peace Accords after receiving assurances from U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger that the United States would continue providing economic and military assistance to South Vietnam. However, after U.S. combat forces withdrew, Congress and the Ford administration faced growing opposition to renewed American military involvement. When North Vietnam resumed major military operations in 1975, the United States did not intervene militarily.

Bolstered by its unexpected success on the battlefield and the lack of a U.S. military response in 1973 and 1974, North Vietnam launched what it initially planned as a limited offensive into Vietnam's Central Highlands in March 1975. Its progress exceeded expectations. South Vietnamese forces abandoned Pleiku and Kon Tum as North Vietnamese forces advanced, while Hue and Da Nang fell later that month. The efforts of ARVN troops to halt the North Vietnamese Army's advance were hampered by shortages of ammunition, gasoline, and spare parts. In the meantime, military and political leaders in both North and South Vietnam waited anxiously for an American military response that never materialized.

On April 21, 1975, South Vietnam's President Thieu resigned. The next day, the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee rejected President Gerald Ford's request for more than $700 million of emergency aid for South Vietnam. A day later, during a speech at Tulane University in New Orleans, Ford announced that as far as the United States was concerned, the Vietnam War was over.

By April 27, 100,000 North Vietnamese troops had surrounded Saigon. Artillery and rockets targeted sites throughout the city. On April 28, President Tran Van Huong resigned and was succeeded by General Duong Van Minh. As President Minh read his acceptance speech, the North Vietnamese Air Force bombed and strafed Saigon's Tan Son Nhut air base using captured South Vietnamese aircraft. Evacuation of American government employees, contractors, and their dependents from Tan Son Nhut ended as repeated attacks made it too dangerous for fixed-wing aircraft to use the air base.

On April 29, U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam Graham Martin requested that the United States initiate "Operation Frequent Wind"—the evacuation by helicopter of Americans and at-risk Vietnamese in Saigon. As the temperature in Saigon soared past 100°F, the U.S. Armed Forces radio station played the song "White Christmas," signaling evacuees to proceed to designated emergency assembly sites. From April 29 to April 30, helicopters evacuated thousands of people from the U.S. embassy, Saigon rooftops, and landing sites located throughout the city. At 4:58 am on April 30, a U.S. Marine Corps CH-46E Sea Knight helicopter evacuated Ambassador Martin away from the U.S. embassy to the USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19) stationed off the coast of Vietnam. The last of the embassy's Marine Corps security detail left from the building's rooftop helipad at 7:58 a.m.

When Operation Frequent Wind concluded, thousands of Americans and Vietnamese had been evacuated from Saigon. At 10:24 a.m., President Minh ordered all ARVN troops to stop fighting. Shortly before noon, North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of Saigon's presidential palace where President Minh and his cabinet waited to surrender. Minh announced South Vietnam's official surrender over Radio Saigon at 2:30 p.m. The Vietnam War was over.

You can learn more about the Vietnam War, veterans, and our nation's Vietnamese population using U.S. Census Bureau data and records. For example:

• First President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1945-1969), Ho Chi Minh was born in Vietnam in 1890 when it was called French Indochina. Before returning to Vietnam in 1941 to lead the country's independence movement, he worked overseas in France, China, London, Moscow, and the United States. Following a brief stay in New York City, he worked as a baker at the famed Parker House Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts in 1912. The 1910 Census, conducted shortly before Ho Chi Minh's arrival in the United States, counted 13,394,213 foreign-born residents. The 1910 Census did not separately identify Vietnamese people. People from French Indochina were classified under the broader "Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and all other" classification. That year, New York's "Indian, Chinese, Japanese, and all other" population was 12,578, while Massachusetts was home to 3,435 people identified as "Indian, Chinese, and all other." In 2023, the Census Bureau estimated that New York City was home to more than 1.2 million people identifying as Asian alone, while 66,500 people identifying as Asian alone called Boston home. 
• Nguyen Van Thieu was president of South Vietnam from 1967 until his resignation shortly before the Fall of Saigon. Following his resignation, he and his wife lived in exile in Taiwan and England before settling in the Norfolk County, Massachusetts, town of Foxborough in the 1990s. At the time of the 1990 Census, 15,449 Vietnamese called Massachusetts home, including 1,140 in Norfolk County. Prior to Thieu's death in 2001, the 2000 Census counted 33,962 identifying as Vietnamese alone in Massachusetts and 32,274 in Norfolk County. In 2021, 52,841 people in Massachusetts identified themselves as Vietnamese alone, including 10,943 people in Norfolk County.
• According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, more than 8.7 million Americans served in the U.S. Armed Forces during the Vietnam era from 1964 to 1973, about 2.7 million in Vietnam. In 2023, the Census Bureau estimated that 15,813,955 Americans identified as veterans. Among them: 5,220,018 Vietnam War veterans; 4,429,658 Gulf War (September 2001 or later) veterans; 3,925,943 Gulf War (August 1990-August 2001); and 547,743 Korean War veterans. Only 91,008 World War II veterans were still alive in 2023. The last American veteran of World War I died in 2001.
• The census did not separately identify Vietnamese people in the United States until 1980. As a result, there is very little population data available for Vietnamese Americans before that time. However, the Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS) does maintain records of the number of people granted lawful permanent residence status dating as far back as 1820. According to OHSS data, the United States granted lawful permanent resident status to just 290 Vietnamese immigrants between 1950 and 1959. Between 1960 and 1969, 2,949 Vietnamese received lawful permanent resident status, and the number jumped to 121,716 between 1970 and 1979. With the arrival of thousands of Vietnamese refugees following the end of the Vietnam War, the 1980 Census was the first census to include "Vietnamese" as a response to the ancestry question. In 1980, 215,184 people reported being of Vietnamese ancestry. By 1990, 614,547 people reported Vietnamese ancestry in the United States.
• The Hmong—an ethnic group native to China and Southeast Asia—were allies of the United States during the Vietnam War.  They fought alongside American troops, rescued downed American pilots in Laos, and provided valuable intelligence about North Vietnamese operations.  After the war, thousands of Hmong immigrated to the United States.  In 2023, there were 337,925 people identifying as Hmong alone in the United States.  In 2021, cities with the nation's largest Hmong populations included St. Paul, Minnesota (34,706), which had the largest Hmong population of any city in the nation, followed by Sacramento, California (29,798), and Fresno, California (26,250).
• The population of Vietnam has more than doubled since the end of the Vietnam War. According to the United Nations, the population of Vietnam was an estimated 46.5 million in April 1975.  According to Census Bureau estimates, Vietnam's population was 105.8 million in July 2024, making it the world's 16th largest nation between Egypt (population 111.2 million) and Iran (population 88.4 million).
• Like the United States, Vietnam conducts a population census every 10 years. Since 1979, Vietnam has conducted five population censuses, each in a year ending in “9.” In 1979, Vietnam’s population was approximately 52.7 million. It grew to 64.4 million in 1989, 76.3 million in 1999, and 85.8 million in 2009. During the most recent census, conducted in 2019, Vietnam’s population exceeded 96.2 million.
• According to the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, Vietnamese alone was one of the largest detailed groups within the Asian population in the United States in 2023: 4.7 million identified as Asian Indian alone; 4.5 million as Chinese alone; 3.6 million as Other Asian alone; 3.1 million as Filipino alone; 1.9 million as Vietnamese alone; 1.5 million as Korean alone; and 725,773 as Japanese alone.
• In Vietnam, nearly 40 percent of the population has the surname Nguyen. As a result, the growth of Vietnamese surnames in the United States provides an indirect illustration of the growth of the Vietnamese American population. A study of 2000 Census data found that Smith, Johnson, Williams, and Brown were the most common surnames in the United States. In 2000, more than 1.1 million people identified as Vietnamese alone, and Nguyen ranked as the nation's 59th most common surname. Ten years later, Smith, Johnson, Williams, and Brown remained the most common surnames. In 2010, the population identifying as Vietnamese alone rose to 1.5 million, while Nguyen became the nation's 38th most common surname. Other Vietnamese surnames among the most identified by the 2010 Census included Tran (ranked 132), Le (277), Pham (370), Huynh (620), Phan (918), Vo (960), and Vu (962).
• The Selective Service Act of 1948 required most men between the ages of 18 and 25 to register with the Selective Service. During the Vietnam War era (1964–1973), 1,857,304 men were drafted into military service. The draft drew from the large number of young men reaching military age during this period. The 1960 Census counted 1,261,572 18-year-old males and 1,114,545 19-year-old males, while the 1970 Census counted 3,656,469 18- and 19-year-old males. Although men are still required to register with the Selective Service at age 18, the U.S. Army inducted the last draftee on June 30, 1973. In 2023, the Census Bureau estimated that nearly 4.5 million 18- and 19-year-old males lived in the United States.
• The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, lists the names of U.S. service members who died as a result of their service during the Vietnam War. Yale undergraduate student Maya Lin designed the memorial, which was dedicated on November 13, 1982. The more than 58,000 names on the memorial were etched in Memphis, Tennessee, onto black granite panels that masons cut and fabricated in Barre, Vermont. Nicknamed the "Granite Center of the World," Barre is home to many establishments supporting its granite industry including quarries, masons, cemetery memorial manufacturers, etc. In 2022, the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns series found that the United States was home to 395 establishments in the Dimension Stone Mining and Quarrying sector (NAICS code 212311); 2,134 establishments in the Cut Stone and Stone Product Manufacturing sector (NAICS 327991); and 18,481 establishments in the Masonry Contractors sector (NAICS 238140).
• Twenty years after the Fall of Saigon and closure of the U.S. embassy in Saigon, President William J. Clinton announced the restoration of diplomatic relations with Vietnam on July 11, 1995. Trade between the two countries increased rapidly. In 1992, the United States exported just $7 million in goods to Vietnam and imported $0. In 1995, exports to Vietnam rose to $252.3 million and imports grew to $199 million. Within 10 years of normalizing relations, U.S. imports from Vietnam exceeded $6.6 billion, while U.S. exports to Vietnam approached $1.2 billion. In 2024, the United States exported nearly $13.1 billion of goods to Vietnam. Imported goods like electronics; furniture; tires; medical equipment; seafood; coffee, tea, and spices; candles; carpet and textiles; and thousands of other items totaled more than $136.3 billion.

Joseph C. G. Kennedy, superintendent of the census from 1850 to 1853 and 1860 to 1865, was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania, on April 1, 1813.

Kennedy was an attorney and journalist in Pennsylvania when President Zachary Taylor appointed him secretary of the newly created Census Board—precursor to the U.S. Census Bureau—in May 1849. He oversaw the 1850 Census that collected, tabulated, and published data from 23,191,876 Americans.

Kennedy returned to supervise the 1860 Census, but plans to publish detailed data tables were curtailed after the American Civil War began in 1861. During his wartime tenure as superintendent of the census, he frequently traveled and corresponded with President Abraham Lincoln. As a trusted advisor to the president, Kennedy used the recently collected 1860 Census data to create tables and maps that proved invaluable to Lincoln and Union Army planners.

Later, Kennedy worked as a real estate agent and bank attorney in Washington, DC. On July 13, 1887, a disgruntled former client murdered Kennedy as he left his office.