When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
"When Heaven and Earth Changed Places" is a memoir by Le Ly Hayslip, co-written with Jay Wurts, that chronicles her tumultuous life in Vietnam during the war and her journey to the United States. The narrative begins with her childhood promise to her father, a devout Buddhist, to become a "woman warrior," a commitment she interprets as a responsibility to preserve her family's legacy. Throughout the memoir, Le Ly grapples with her shifting loyalties, initially supporting the Viet Cong while also facing suspicion and persecution from them. Her path leads her to emigrate to America in the 1970s, where she navigates a complex identity as an expatriate, marrying American men and raising her children in a new cultural landscape. Despite success in her new life, she feels torn between her Vietnamese roots and her American experience. After returning to Vietnam in 1986, Le Ly seeks to reconcile her past and her family's suffering, ultimately realizing that her journey is not just about leaving home but also about honoring and preserving her cultural heritage. This memoir presents a poignant exploration of identity, belonging, and the impact of war on personal and collective histories.
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Subject Terms
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
First published: 1989
The Work
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace, co-written with Jay Wurts, recounts Le Ly Hayslip’s life in war-ravaged Vietnam, her emigration to the United States in 1970, and her dangerous return visit to her homeland in 1986. As a young girl, Phung Thi Le Ly (her name before marriage) promises her father, a devote Buddhist farmer, that she will become a woman warrior. She interprets that charge to mean that she must stay alive in order to nurture other life and preserve her ancestral heritage. The memoir is her means of fulfilling that responsibility. She nevertheless offends her family by her presumed betrayal by marriage to an American civilian contractor and flight from Vietnam to join him in California. The autobiography is her tribute to her ancestral traditions and her testimony that she has not forsaken them.
Le Ly’s loyalties shift throughout her autobiography. Like most peasants in her village on the border between North and South Vietnam, she supports the Viet Cong against the republican government and its American backers. She performs many daring acts to advance the Communist cause, but the Viet Cong wrongly suspect her of collaborating with the South. She evades their deadly reprisals by fleeing to Danang and, later, Saigon. There she pins her hope for a better life onto the American servicemen she comes to know as she struggles to support her illegitimate son and other family members by working as a nurse’s assistant, black marketeer, and, briefly, a prostitute.
Although Le Ly leaves Vietnam during the war and enters the United States as the wife of one American and marries another when she is widowed, her expatriate status distresses her. She proudly regards her three sons—two born in Vietnam and one in the United States—as Americans but regrets that she is “something else: not quite Vietnamese anymore, but not so American as they.” By returning to Vietnam with a fresh perspective to write the account of her family’s suffering, she aids in their survival and recovery, thus reconciling with them and healing her divided sense of self. The memoir’s dual time frames, which alternate chapters of Le Ly moving toward emigration with ones of her preparing to return, converge near the end of the book when her departure and homecoming are complete. The narrative strategy suggests that the difference between leaving home and remaining there is not significant. Rather than forsaking her homeland by emigrating, Le Ly has protected and prepared herself for the mission of telling its story and preserving its culture.
Sources for Further Study
Cosmopolitan. CCVI, May, 1989, p. 50.
Hayslip, Le Ly, and James Hayslip. Child of War, Woman of Peace. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
Hoang, Trang. “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places.” Amerasia Journal 20, no. 2 (Spring, 1994): 119-121.
Library Journal. CXIV, May 15, 1989, p. 78.
Los Angeles Times Rook Review. June 25, 1989, p. 4.
Mother Jones. XIV, June, 1989, p. 10.
The New York Times Rook Review. XCIV, June 25, 1989, p. 1.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXXV, May 12, 1989, p. 272.
Shipler, David. “When Heaven and Earth Changed Places.” Review of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, by Le Ly Hayslip. The New York Times Book Review, June 25, 1989, 1.
The Washington Post Rook World. XIX, July 16, 1989, p. 1.