This question is for Vietnamese citizens but I see a lot of non-Vietnamese citizen ideas. And lot of controversy. This proves how they are divided.
I would like to give my 2c view here. It’s different than the other ones. You cannot see a communist reference or conspiracy theory in my post. All the texts I write next are verifiable. Then if you see that my post is not what you know before, please do not blame me. Blame life.
I will write 2 parts. One to reply to the question. And the second is for some points in other answers that I think we need to discuss:
My answer to the question
There are about 2.2m Vietnamese American ( Vietnamese Americans - Wikipedia ). It is like any other society, with many success and failures. In this domain, there’s nothing special to talk about.
Special things are:
1.a. A big silent mass
VA do not participate a lot in the US main political stream. There were only 3 state senators.
But some of the thousands of people created VA private political environments. Almost of them were ex-RVN staff or soldiers and their descendants. Sometimes I saw some clips of VA protest against Vietnamese gov. or some figure(s) that “make benefits for the communist”, I could count from dozens to hundreds of people. In the whole US, we can count then a few thousands.
And the rest, the absolute majority simply seems do not care about the VA political environment.
1.b . the active minority is extremely divided
This political environment attracts me a lot. It is extremely divided, not like in a democracy life but rather in a war time. The divided parts, even they are all in communist exile, accuse each other the hand of communist??? Some local communities have 2 or 3 “representative councils”. I know they have actually 3 “governments” with PR, PM, Ministers… without any other staff in VA community.
And they all shout out that they’ll regroup to fight for freedom for VN. I am really afraid when I imagine my VN had such a number of governments.
1.c. The active minority has a bad notion of democracy and history
Like I already wrote in 1.b, they attack each other and insult each other in extreme. I saw many political debates in the US but I never saw any accusation of one person to another as the worst enemy of the US, like the Nazis for example. But many active VA minorities accuse each other as the communist hand.
And many of them cannot accept the real-life events but live with the propaganda.
For example, the Geneva Agreement clearly said in the 6th annex that the 17th parallel would never be a nation border ( https://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/KH-LA-VN_540720_GenevaAgreements.pdf , page 41). But many of them said that VN was divided into DRV and RVN “by Geneva accord” .
Or, the POTUS Eisenhower wrote that 80% of VNese would vote for HCM in the unification referendum in 1956 ( Eisenhower's Views on the Popularity of Ho Chi Minh ). Following this estimation, If we suppose that 100% NVNese people supported HCM (never), at least 60% of SVNese people would in the same line. In another word, the majority of SVNese supported communist force. So, by democratic rule, (majority of) SVNese people chose communist. But they, the politic active VA (and many anti-communist) still said that SVN did not.
Also, with its minority, the cancellation of the reunification referendum in 1956 showed that RVN was not a democracy at all like they announced.
In brief. The VA community in general is just like many others. Some people in that community, even living in the most democratic nation of the world in at least 45 years, do not have the correct notion of democracy and history.
2. About other answers saying the VC committed huge amounts of torture, rape…
Do you really know who were the VC, where was their zone of activity, how was the population structure of that zone and how could they hide from RVN/US hunter?
The VC were local farmers who took arms against the US/RVN alliance. Here is what Pentagon Papers said about VC ( The Pentagon Papers, Chapter 5, "Origins of the Insurgency in South Vietnam, 1954-1960" )
“ In 1957 and 1958, a structured rebellion against the government of Ngo Dinh Diem began. While the North Vietnamese played an ill-defined part, most of those who took up arms were South Vietnamese , and the causes for which they fought were by no means contrived in North Vietnam ”
Their zones of activity were their village. And almost all of the village people were their relatives or their majority supporter as the POTUS Eisenhower once said. Then they were covered by those people.
How could they rape those people?
Maybe some collateral damage happened but considering the VC like the RVN army is totally absurd.
I regularly talk now with an ex-RVN captain who was in SRV reeducation camp for more than 5 years. No torture at all in his camp. And my neighbor surely does not get any favor from me if he lied then I really believe in him more than someone said VC tortured to some American. Sorry about that.
Another famous evidence for SRV forced labor camps no-torture is the case of Doctor Tran Dong A, a lieutenant major of RVN Airborne Division, one of two most hatred divisions of RVN beside the Marine because of their brutality. He had to stay 2 years in camps then tried to become a boat people right after he went out the camps. But he was arrested, released immediately.
Then he stayed. Even later, he officially participated in many international conferences abroad and received a lot of invitations to stay abroad, he chose to return to VN. He said “ the kids (VNese) need me ”. He even became a SRV congress man and communist party member. If he really had or eye witnessed the regime brutality in camps, I am sure that he did not do what he did - stay and success, gets respect from the whole inland VNese.