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Pearl S. Buck: Advocate for Amerasian Children
Growing up, I've learned about the Vietnam War through both perspectives. Instead of learning about the battles fought during the war and how people felt after the war ended, I decided to look into the children who were impacted. Especially those who were put into orphanages.
In this exhibit, learn about Pearl S. Buck, and how her contributions relate to my family's history.
Pearl S. Buck's Beginnings
Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) was born in Hillsboro, West Virginia to two missionary parents. Her parents were Presbyterian missionaries in China since 1880, and they returned to China after Pearl was born. She spent her childhood in China, and found a connection by interacting with the Chinese children. This experience helped Pearl "develop the mind and the imagination of an alert, intelligent child."
When she grew up, she began to see the reality of how mix-raced children were treated in China. Before she went to America to study at a university, Pearl volunteered at a shelter and rescue center in Shanghai called Door of Hope where she met women of mix-raced children who were attempting to escape situations that made them targets of sexual exploitation. This made her hoped to devote her time to help those who needed it most.
The Founding of the Pearl S. Buck Foundation
During he life, she had been an advocated for world peace through cross-cultural understanding and racial harmony. In 1949 Pearl founded the Welcome House adoption program in Doylestown to provide long-term foster care for American-born, mixed-race children of Asian descent who were discriminated against the country they were born in. It would later grow into an adoption agency.
After the Korean War, Pearl thought of establishing an opportunity center in South Korea. Due to the lack of support, Pearl stopped her involvement with the Welcome House, and founded the Pearl S. Buck Foundation Opportunity Center in South Korea in 1965.
"Buck’s vision for the opportunity center was expansive and expensive. She wanted to cultivate a network of Korean specialists—including doctors, social workers, and pharmacists—who would provide for the children and their mothers’ physical, medical, and psychological needs. Buck did not want professional social workers to run the foundation or the center and instead relied on a group of young nonprofessionals to carry out the work of fundraising and day-to-day management. Buck chose young people without professional training in child welfare because, she explained, 'the Amerasian child is a young people’s problem,' and she wanted “a fresh approach to Asia through young and brilliant Americans.'"
- Kori A. Graves (2019)
Amerasians in Vietnam
By 1968, Pearl established opportunity centers in Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand. She then turned to Vietnam. At that time, Vietnam was in a middle of a messy war against the United States, and it was the country she was most concerned about where a large number of mixed-raced children were born. Therefore, she established the opportunity center in South Vietnam in 1971.
The children were born to Vietnamese mothers and American GI fathers. Not only did the US leave Vietnam in 1973, the GI fathers left behind the children they conceived. As a result, the children were known as the "children of the dust" due to being discriminated by both families in the United States and Vietnam. They served as a "physical reminder of American failure and abandonment."
"They grew up as the leftovers of an unpopular war, straddling two worlds but belonging to neither. Most never knew their fathers. Many were abandoned by their mothers at the gates of orphanages. Some were discarded in garbage cans. Schoolmates taunted and pummeled them and mocked the features that gave them the face of the enemy—round blue eyes and light skin, or dark skin and tight curly hair if their soldier-dads were African-Americans."
- David Lamb (2009)
"They grew up as the leftovers of an unpopular war, straddling two worlds but belonging to neither. Most never knew their fathers. Many were abandoned by their mothers at the gates of orphanages. Some were discarded in garbage cans. Schoolmates taunted and pummeled them and mocked the features that gave them the face of the enemy—round blue eyes and light skin, or dark skin and tight curly hair if their soldier-dads were African-Americans."
- David Lamb (2009)
As South Vietnam was falling to surrender in early April 1975, President Gerald Ford announced plans to evacuate over 2,000 orphans. Many of them were Amerasians. Hense, Operation Babylift was in place. Despite the first flight crashed down, the operation continued for three weeks. After the end of the Vietnam War, many orphanages were closed down, sending off orphans and Amerasians to rural work farms and re-education camps.
Fast forward to 1987 when the Amerasian Homecoming Act was passed, allowing Amerasians in Vietnam to immigrate to the US. A year later, the Pearl S. Buck Foundation negotiated with the Vietnamese officials (with approval from the US State Department) to establish a center in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) to conduct Amerasian interviewing and processing. They also proposed providing them with temporary housing and cultural services while waiting to fly to the US.
The Pearl S. Buck Foundation Today
As of 2026, the Pearl S. Buck Foundation became known as the Pearl S. Buck International, continuing the legacy of Pearl S. Buck's bridging cultures and changing lives through humanitarian aid and intercultural education. Her home in Bucks County, PA still exists, and is currently used as a museum for everyone to visit. It is currently designated as a National Historic Landmark.
To learn more about the organization, visit their website by clicking on the button BELOW!
During the war, two of my aunts worked at the Pearl S. Buck Foundation office in Saigon. They truly did play a huge role in taking care of the children left behind. One of my aunts is pictured below.
Bibiography
"About Our Founder." Pearl S. Buck International. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://pearlsbuck.org/about/biography/.
"'Children of the Dust': Amerasian Experiences in Vietnam.'" Dartmouth College. Accessed June 14, 2026. https://course-exhibits.library.dartmouth.edu/s/hist10/page/tiao5.
"Disorderly Departure An Analysis Of The United States Policy Toward Amerasian Immigration."
Graves, Kori A. "Amerasian Children, Hybrid Superiority, and Pearl S. Buck’s Transracial and Transnational Adoption Activism." The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography Vol. CXLIII, No. 2 (2019): 177-209. https://gwern.net/doc/history/2019-graves-2.pdf.
Lamb, David. "Children of the Vietnam War." Smithsonian Magazine. June 2009. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/children-of-the-vietnam-war-131207347/.
McClain, Charles. Asian Indians, Filipinos, Other Asian Communities, and the Law. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1994).