Vietnamese Are Helping Cuba With 38-Cent Donations. A Lot of Them.

Asia Pacific|Vietnamese Are Helping Cuba With 38-Cent Donations. A Lot of Them.

Dinh Hien Mo was skimming social media on Sunday at her home in Central Vietnam when she stumbled on a post calling for aid to Cuba, where hunger has been spreading as inflation soars.

She watched videos and read about how Cuba supported Vietnam during the wars of the 1960s and 70s, building hospitals and sending doctors, sugar and cattle. Inspired, she donated 500,000 Vietnamese dong, about $19, from the modest income she earns at her family’s grocery store.

“I feel bad that people in Cuba are suffering from economic hardship,” she said. “They’re isolated by sanctions and their economy is cut off from the world — Vietnam used to be like that, but we opened up, and life here is much better.”

Her donation joined a chain-reaction of generosity. A new crowdfunding campaign for Cuba led by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Red Cross Society has raised more than $13 million in the first week — far more than organizers had expected for the entire two-month effort.

And with that unexpected surge has come a complex reckoning. For many in Cuba and Vietnam, the charitable transfers bring up memories of past solidarity, when both nations shared dreams of Communist independence won through revolution. But there’s also the awkward realization that their roles have reversed because of choices made as the Cold War ended.

Vietnam, when faced with shortages and starvation, pivoted quickly toward free enterprise in the mid-80s, leading to restored relations with the United States in 1995, and a manufacturing and agricultural boom that has nearly erased extreme poverty.