Category: News

Culture Meets Fashion at 2010 Fashion for a Passion

Fashion designers come together for charity fashion show to benefit international orphanages

Fashion For a Passion LogoDallas-based non-profit organization ATG Against The Grain Productions will host the 2nd Annual 2010 Fashion for a Passion charity event, uniting the diverse talents of designers of different Asian ethnicities to showcase their collections. The event’s mission is to raise funds for international orphanages and ATG’s community outreach programs and scholarship fund.  The 2nd annual event combines fashion, philanthropy, art, music and food and takes place from 7-10 pm on Saturday, September 25th at LandCo/7 Senses located at 1202 N. Riverfront (formerly Industrial) in the Dallas Design District.

ATG is an innovative resource that gives voice to significant, relevant and untold stories in the Asian community and was founded to produce media, events and programs that promote awareness and unity of Asian American culture and identity.  ATG President and Founder Tammy Nguyen Lee said, “We are so proud to host this fun event. It’s amazing to see how one night can bring together people from all walks of life – designers, photographers, stylists, models, artists, musicians, community leaders and philanthropists – who volunteer their abilities and support for a common cause. It’s another way for us to tell our rich story and celebrate.”

Project Runway Season 2 winner Chloe Dao, is a designer of Vietnamese ancestry born in Laos who lives in Houston and founded family business Lot 8 in Houston. “Being Asian American, I know how lucky I am to be here, and most of all, to have my family with me. I was delighted to be invited to be a part of Fashion for a Passion to help raise money for others not as fortunate,” said Dao. “As a designer, I love fashion as much as anyone else or more. The more talented designers and more diverse ethnicities, the better. We all have a different point of view, and I get to enjoy their work and vice versa.”

For Chinese American designer Judy Yang, who also lives in Houston, her goal is not only to raise funds, but also to give and find inspiration. “It means a great deal to me to that I am able to share my love for what I do and help a great cause at the same time.  As an Asian American designer, I hope that my designs will uplift and inspire different people and designers of different backgrounds around the world,” said Yang.

Dallas-based South Asian designer Prashi Shah added, “As a designer, being able to utilize fashion design to bring awareness and raise funds for children internationally is something I strive to do in my own work. Fashion has the ability to translate the different cultures in the world and bring us all closer.”

Fashion for a Passion event tickets range from $45-$50 and can be purchased exclusively online.

ATG Against The Grain Productions, a Dallas-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, promotes Asian American cultural awareness through compelling media projects and raises funds for international orphanages. Their premiere documentary feature, Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam, has received the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film at the Vietnamese International Film Festival and the Documentary Audience Choice Award from the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival. For more information, visit http://mnt.32c.myftpupload.comor www.TheBabylift.com.

PinkMemo: 2010 Fashion for a Passion

2010 FASHION FOR A PASSION

POSTED BY Nadia Dabbakeh | 08.17.2010 | 04:01 PM

Click here for original blog.

The 2nd Annual Fashion for a Passion charity event isn’t till September 25th, but we’re already excited – and the tickets are up for sale now!

Benefitting ATG Against The Grain Productions’ supported orphanages and educational outreach programs, the night will include a fashion show from emerging Asian American designers, who will each auction off a signature look. These will include Season 2 winner of Project Runway Chloe Dao, Khanh Nguyen of Nhã Khanh, Nikki Duong Koenig of Cykochik Custom Handbagsfeaturing Freedom Parc, Prashi Shah of Prashe, Judy Yang, Cac Lam of 2FeMale, and Sumie Tachibana. More live auction pieces will also be provided by Lyly Thanh, CC Couture, Dolly Pearl,Lizzi London and Ann Hoang.

kaitlin copy
The “Kaitlin” one shoulder moire dress with chiffon drape detail by Chloe Dao

Join emcees actress/model and She’s Got The Look Season 2 Finalist LeeAnne Locken andBagsnob.com blogger Tina Craig for the show, as well as musical entertainment, an art exhibition, tunes by DJ Prada G and Lisa Le, signature cocktails, and light bites.

Nha Khanh
The “Milace” dress from Khanh Nguyen of Nhã Khan’s Black Velvet Collection

That’s not all. Guests will be welcome to join the after party, hosted by Lumi Empanada & Dumpling Kitchen at 3407 McKinney Avenue for complimentary cocktails, drink specials and a live DJ – what a night!

When: Saturday, September 25th, 7 to 10 pm

Where: LandCo/7 Senses, 1202 N. Riverside (formerly Industrial) at Howell Street, Dallas Design District

Tickets: $40 – $50

Purchase: www.againstthegrainproductions.com

Booklist Reviews OPERATION BABYLIFT

Thank you to Booklist for the wonderful review on our award-winning documentary Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam. The review will be sent out nationally in their online  September 2010 e-newsletter.  

Commemorating Operation Babylift, a U.S. relief effort that rescued more than 2,500 orphans out of Vietnam in 1975, this update is an informative and passionate look at the aftermath of war and the innocent children lostin the chaos of battle. Filmmaker Tammy Nguyen Lee combines archival black-and white film footage of bombings, evacuations, orphaned babies, and more with interviews with parents, volunteers, and rescued Vietnamese adoptees (now adults) who tell their stories with honesty and poignancy. Camera close-ups help intensify adoptees’ recollections of growing up in the U.S., where antiwar sentiments precipitated some racist behaviors. Efforts to discover their own identities vary from attending adoptees reunions (first organized in 2000) and visiting Vietnam to attempting to adopt a Vietnamese orphan (one of the most emotional stories). One interviewee shares that only when his child was born did he experience the feeling of his own flesh and blood. Extras include further discussions with adoptees and additional footage.  — Edie Ching

Newsday: Nassau Woman Keeps Memory of "Operation Babylift" Alive

Updated: Jul 17, 2010 05:38 PM
By BART JONES
It was the final days of the Vietnam War in April 1975 as Saigon was falling, and the United States launched one last massive effort: To airlift as many orphans as possible out of the country.
In the three weeks before the last helicopter lifted off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy, some 2,548 babies and children were flown out. Most ended up in the United States, including about 100 on Long Island.
Now, at the 35th anniversary of the end of the war, “Operation Babylift” is gaining renewed attention, partially because of a Nassau County woman who led the humanitarian effort and adoption campaign on Long Island.
Lana Noone, of Franklin Square , adopted two of the infants and was a main organizer of local families who took in children from Babylift. She helped send supplies, such as baby formula, to Vietnam before the children’s arrival to the United States and then organized outings, cross-cultural events and parties as they grew up.
Next week Noone will speak about Operation Babylift as part of a retrospective program on the Vietnam War hosted by the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts museum. The event will be held at the site of the 1969 Woodstock concert.
Her appearance follows the release of a documentary that opened nationwide this year.
Last year, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., hosted, for the first time, an event to mark Operation Babylift. “Finally, after the 35th anniversary, we’ve gotten this recognition,” said Noone, 63, who appeared at the Smithsonian.
The first sickly infant she adopted, Heather, died a month after arriving on Long Island , and Noone says she vowed to dedicate the rest of her life “to make sure no one would forget there was a Vietnam babylift and her short life would not be in vain.”
Noone’s other adopted daughter, Jennifer, was found wrapped in a blanket in a garbage can in a Saigon market, a common practice by Vietnamese mothers who hoped their babies would be found and placed in a good orphanage. Jennifer Noone, now 35, is a social worker in Manhattan.
Lana Noone says her daughter Jennifer became a cheerleader at H. Frank Carey High School in Franklin Square , a class vice president and a member of the National Honor Society. She went on to graduate with honors from Drew University before attending Columbia University , where she earned her master’s degree.
“I don’t have a day where I don’t think of these birth parents,” Noone said. “My life is full. But it is over their tragedy.”
Jared Rehberg, one of the adoptees who now lives in Queens , helped produce the documentary “Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam ,” and says Babylift lasted just a few weeks “but it changed a lot of lives.”
He still does not know what day he was born, or how he ended up at an orphanage in Vietnam. “It’s kind of a mystery,” he said, adding that he returned to Vietnam in 2005 as part of a group of 21 adoptees who visited for several days.
“It was a little closure for me,” he said.
Today, Lana Noone runs a group and website, vietnambabylift.org, that tries to keep alive the memory of what some call one of the largest humanitarian missions in history. She often receives e-mails from Babylift adoptees trying to track down their birth parents, or from birth parents – including U.S. veterans – trying to track down their children born in Vietnam.
Operation Babylift was criticized by some as a cynical attempt by the United States to generate good public relations amid the debacle of the end of the war. But Noone says she thinks there was little choice.
“I sincerely feel it was the only thing that could have been done,” she said. “They were in harm’s way. There was a war. With all the chaos that was going on, they weren’t on the top of anyone’s list.”

diaCRITIC: Interview with Tammy Nguyen Lee, director of Operation Babylift

Posted on July 5, 2010 by diaCRITIC

Among the many controversial legacies of the Vietnam War, Operation Babylift dramatically brought the results of U.S. Cold War policy to the front doorsteps of U.S. domestic race politics. Critics have argued that childcare workers and government staff deceptively persuaded Vietnamese parents into allowing their children to go, parents who were desperate to find a safe way out for their children and who believed that they would be reunited eventually.

Tammy Nguyen Lee’s film Operation Babylift revisits the controversial, $2 million mission that airlifted more than 2,500 Vietnamese children out of Saigon during the last days of the war. The first 20 minutes of the film comprise interviews with non-governmental staff who accompanied the children on cargo planes, the first official flight of which blew up in the air due to mechanical failure. The rest of the film presents a series of interviews with 20 of the adoptees, who talk about growing up in the U.S. and realizing they didn’t look like their parents (most of whom were white); their soul-searching for their biological parents (especially their mothers); and their joy in meeting other adoptees who understood their ambivalent feelings about their loss and the privilege of having been separated from war. Their stories remind me of scholar Jodi Kim’s argument about how adoptees experience a “social death” in being cut off from affiliations that provide us with a sense of history, family lineage, and community.

Nguyen Lee was born in Saigon, and fled the country as a boat person when she was three months old. After a year and a half in a refugee camp in Hong Kong, she and her mother were sponsored to the U.S. by a church in Silver Spring, Maryland. Nguyen Lee has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cinema from Southern Methodist University, and a Master of Fine Arts from the Producers Program at UCLA. In addition to her work as a filmmaker, she is the founder of ATG (Against The Grain Productions), a non profit company that creates social issue based media and raises funds for international orphanages.
We sat down for an interview in Los Angeles when she was in Southern California for a screening of her film at UC Irvine. The interview is in two short parts (8:34 min and 1:57 min) because we were cut off momentarily and, this being on the low-tech side, I haven’t been able to paste the two parts together.

Here is the interview:

–Chuong-Dai Vo

OPERATION BABYLIFT in Bayshore Courier News

Our upcoming community screening in New Jersey of Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam is in the Bayshore Courier News. To see the original article, please visit their website.

Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam
Bayshore Courier News
Posted:04/19/10

Click on picture to Zoom
Operation_babylift_small

Holmdel – On April 3, 1975, United States President Gerald R. Ford announced that “Operation Babylift” would fly some of the estimated 70,000 Vietnamese babies and children who were left orphaned by the Vietnam War to safety in America. Thirty flights, combining private and military planes, transported at least 2,000 children to the United States and another 1,300 children to Canada, Europe and Australia. These children, born in a war-torn land, grew up as members of international, adoptive families.

On Saturday, April 24, 2010 from 11:00 am until 4:00 pm, the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Foundation will host a screening, followed by a group discussion, of the 2009 Award-Winning Film, Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam in celebration of the 35th anniversary of Operation Babylift. Many of the adoptees, organizers, family and friends involved in Operation Babylift will be in attendance to celebrate the 35th anniversary.

There will also be an honor guard procession recognizing those who did not survive the humanitarian mission known as Operation Babylift. This program will be held at the Vietnam Era Educational Center in Holmdel, NJ.

Guest speakers will include event organizer and author Lana Mae Noone and her daughter Jennifer Nguyen Noone, MSW, who she adopted through Babylift. Dr. Robert Ballard, a professor at Waterloo University (Ontario, Canada) and a Babylift Adoptee, and his wife Sarah who specializes in international adoption will also speak. The director of Project Reunite Trista Goldberg, also a Babylift Adoptee, will discuss her Babylift story. The nationally acclaimed author of The Life We Were Given, Dana Sachs will be present to address the audience. Retired U.S. Army Medic Ron Speight, a Vietnam Era veteran, will provide a dialogue about Operation New Life, a humanitarian program for Vietnam adults. There will be a Vietnamese and American musical performance by Lana Mae Noone prior to the film screening. The cast and crew of Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam including Producer/Director Tammy Nguyen Lee and Associate Producer Jared Rehberg will be present for a question and answer period. The documentary, which was partly filmed in New Jersey, tells the contemporary story of the adoptees as adults. Several of the day’s speakers are featured in the film. Book signings and a reception with the opportunity to view Operation Babylift artifacts will follow the film screening. The event schedule is available for view on njvvmf.org. The program is dedicated to all those who did not survive Operation Babylift.

Attendees are asked to RSVP to (732) 335-0033. Regular admission applies. Regular admission is free for veterans and active-duty military personnel. Regular adult admission is $4.00; student and senior citizen admission is $2.00; and children under 10 are admitted free. The Vietnam Era Educational Center is located adjacent to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial off the Garden State Parkway at exit 116. The Educational Center is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am – 4 pm.

OPERATION BABYLIFT: THE LOST CHILDREN OF VIETNAM to Screen at 35th Anniversary Celebration of Operation Babylift

DALLAS, TX –The 35th anniversary celebration of Operation Babylift will be held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 24 at the New Jersey Vietnam Era Educational Center in Holmdel, New Jersey. Dallas-based nonprofit organization ATG Against the Grain Productions will provide a community screening of its award-winning documentary Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam at 1 p.m. in the Testimony Theater. Filmmaker Tammy Nguyen Lee will join adoptee and associate producer Jared Rehberg in a Q&A following.

Operation Babylift is Tammy Nguyen Lee’s feature directorial debut and tells the story of how more than 2,500 orphans were airlifted out of Vietnam during the last days of the Vietnam War and their tumultuous journey growing up in America.  The documentary incorporates a historical and contemporary view of this little known and controversial part of American history in 1975, featuring compelling interviews from a cross-section of adoptees, their parents and volunteers, as well as archival and rare home video footage.

“This is a very special celebration that brings together so many who were affected by Operation Babylift,” said Tammy Nguyen Lee. “We are grateful to be a part of this event that remembers such an important part of our history.”

“The 35th anniversary of Operation Babylift is a special time for adoptees to reflect on their past and think about their unique journey from Vietnam to America,” said Jared Rehberg.

“I believe the April 24th program is a culmination of the Operation Babylift Diaspora, 35 years later. This is a program that will be informative, insightful, enjoyable and a once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of Vietnamese adoptees (VADs), OB participants, and Vietnam Veterans,” said Lana Noone, adoptee mother and moderator of the event. “I’m delighted we’ll screen Tammy’s film, and the speakers we’ve assembled will give voice to several perspectives on OB. It’s truly a “not-to-be-missed” event for all!” For more details about the event, visit www.njvvmf.org/35thanniversaryofbabylift.

ATG Against The Grain Productions, a Dallas-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, promotes Asian-American cultural awareness through compelling media projects and raises funds for international orphanages. Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam has received the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film at the Vietnamese International Film Festival and the Documentary Audience Choice Award from the Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival. For more information, visit www.AgainstTheGrainProductions.com or www.TheBabylift.com

OPERATION BABYLIFT Screens Twice in the Windy City

Non-profit ATG Against the Grain Productions proudly presents Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam twice in Chicago this April.

The film makes its city premiere at the 15th Annual FAAIM Chicago Asian American Showcase, screening at 3:15 pm on Sunday, April 11th at the Gene Siskel Film Center, located at 164 N. State Street in Downtown.

“Operation Babylift” was a $2 million U.S. initiative that airlifted over 2,500 Vietnamese orphans out of a war-torn country to protect them from the impending threat of the Communist Regime.  Even with the best intentions, these adoptees grew up facing a unique set of challenges in America, including prejudice overshadowed by a controversial war and cultural identity crisis. Nearly thirty five years later, this documentary takes a candid look at a significant, yet untold event as seen through the eyes of the volunteers, parents, and organizations directly involved, and features compelling and insightful interviews from a cross-section of adoptees and Babylift volunteers.

Film festival director, Tim Hugh, notes how this year’s festival features three films on adoption told from unique and different perspectives. Operation Babylift is a contemporary look at Babylift and its relevance to international adoption today through the eyes of the adoptees themselves.  “We’re pleased to be able to present Operation Babylift to the Chicagoland area, not just for the Vietnamese community, but also to help educate our other communities and people to the struggles, and the rich, complex stories the Vietnamese in America have,” said Hugh.

Ticket and screening information is available at http://www.faaim.org.

Operation Babylift has an encore showing the following weekend at 5:30 pm on Saturday,  April 17th, sponsored by the Loyola VASA and API Committees and co-sponsored by FCVN Chicago.  The free admission community screening takes place at Loyola’s Lake Shore campus in the Simpson Living-Learning Center , located at 6333 N. Winthrop Avenue.  Filmmaker Tammy Nguyen Lee and cast member/adoptee Jared Rehberg will be in attendance for the Q&A following the screening.

For more information on how to attend the Loyola University community screening, visit http://luc.edu/diversity/api_heritage_month.shtml