Self-interpreted narrative capture: A research project to examine life courses of Amerasians in Vietnam and the United States

When American troops withdrew from Vietnam in April 1975, they left behind a large number of children fathered by American GIs and born to local Vietnamese women. Although there is some documentation of experiences of GI children who immigrated to the United States, little is known about the life courses of Amerasian children who remained in Vietnam, and no comparative data has been collected. To address this knowledge gap, we used an innovative mixed qualitative – quantitative data collection tool, Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker(®), to investigate the life experiences of three specific cohorts of GI-fathered children from the Vietnam War: (1) those who remained in Vietnam, (2) those who immigrated to the United States as babies or very young children and (3) those who immigrated to the United States as adolescents or adults. The current analysis reflects on the implementation of this mixed-methods narrative data collection and self-interpretation tool as a research methodology in Vietnam and the United States and outlines some of the challenges and lessons learned including recruitment of a hard to reach population, low response rates in the United States and feasibility of using such narrative capture to conduct such research in the United States and in Vietnam.