The flag of the former South Vietnam is popular with the case of
Vietnamese Americans,
Vietnamese Australians, and other Vietnamese around the world who fled Vietnam after the war, who call it the "Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag", and they started the
Yellow Flag Campaign movement to struggle for recognitions for their political identity. In the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, few Vietnamese immigrants of that time period use the current
flag of Vietnam, which many of them
consider offensive. Instead, they prefer to use the flag of South Vietnam in its place to represent them.
Official recognition • In 1965, the South Vietnamese flag's design was incorporated into the
Vietnam Service Medal which was created by President Lyndon Johnson and designed by
Thomas Hudson Jones and Mercedes Lee. • In 2003, the Virginian state government rejected a bill that would have recognized the South Vietnamese flag. • From 2002 onward, the lobbying efforts of Vietnamese Americans resulted in the state governments of Virginia, Hawaii, Georgia, Colorado, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, California, Missouri, Pennsylvania, and Michigan recognizing it as the symbol of the Vietnamese American Community. Also, at least 15 counties and 85 cities in 20 states have also adopted similar resolutions. In May 2008, he made a speech at an
Army of the Republic of Vietnam rally, lending support to the program. • From 2015 onward in Australia, the City Councils of Maribyrnong, Greater Dandenong, Yarra, Fairfield, Port Adelaide Enfield, and Brimbank, respectively, have passed motions recognizing the "Cờ Vàng" Vietnamese Heritage Flag. File:This is your flag.jpg|State of Vietnam propaganda poster "This is our true national flag". File:Anti-communist propaganda poster with Trần Hưng Đạo, RVN.jpg|Propaganda poster "Following [the examples of]
Trần Hưng Đạo, all the people unite to fight against communism to save the nation". File:ARVN soldier with South Vietnamese flag.jpg|Soldier of the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam carrying the South Vietnamese flag. File:South Vietnamese flag parade.jpg|Vietnamese emigrés parading with Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag during Tết festivities in
Little Saigon, Orange County. File:Heritage and Freedom Flag in the Memorial for Battle of the Paracel Islands.JPG|Memorial for
Battle of the Paracel Islands, 2004. File:ChuaQuangMinh.jpg|A South Vietnamese flag being flown over a Buddhist temple in the U.S. state of
Illinois, alongside the U.S. flag. File:Garden Grove High School Vietnamese language parade.jpg|Vietnamese language school parade in Garden Grove, California
Controversies • When a Vietnamese-American videotape store owner displayed the current flag of Vietnam and a photo of
Ho Chi Minh in front of his store in
Westminster, California in 1999, a month-long protest against it climaxed when 15,000 people held a candlelight vigil one night, sparking the
Hi-Tek incident (Hi-Tek was the name of the store). • A faux pas by the
United States Postal Service in using the current Vietnamese flag in a brochure to represent the Vietnamese American community that it serves caused outrage among Vietnamese Americans and resulted in an apology. • In 2004, many Vietnamese American students at the
California State University, Fullerton threatened to walk out at their graduation ceremony when the university chose to use the current flag of Vietnam to represent its Vietnamese students. The Vietnamese-American students demanded that the university use the former flag of South Vietnam instead. This resulted in the university scrapping all foreign flags for the ceremony. • In 2006, Vietnamese-American students at the
University of Texas at Arlington protested against the use of the Vietnamese flag in the Hall of Flags in
Nedderman Hall and the exclusion of the South Vietnamese flag at a cultural diversity show during International Week. • In 2008, many protested against
Nguoi Viet Daily News, a Vietnamese-language newspaper in
Orange County, California, for publishing a photograph of an art installation depicting a foot spa bearing the colours of the flag. • In October 2014, the
Vietnamese Student Association chapter at the
University of Arizona discovered that the university had removed the South Vietnamese flag from the campus bookstore's Flag Display (which includes flags from all over the world to celebrate the diversity found among students). Afterwards, the VSA chapter launched an online petition in protest of the decision. The university then responded and explained that the removal was due to a misunderstanding amongst the staff. It then apologized and promised to reinstall the flag afterwards. • Some theories claim the flag was first introduced by Emperor
Thành Thái via an imperial decree in 1890. Some views even claimed this flag (called The Yellow Flag for short) is the first true "national flag" of the Vietnamese people for it reflects the aspiration and hope of the people, not just the emperors, for independence and unification of the Viet nation. However,
Flags of the World opposed these claims, arguing that no such flag showed up in images from Thành Thái's era, and associated claims on the Internet are not credible. Phạm Quang Tuấn, professor of Chemical Engineering from
University of New South Wales, traced the claim – that the yellow flag with three red stripes had originated during Thành Thái's reign – back, at the earliest, to Nguyễn Đình Sài, a former member of the anti-communist organization
Việt Tân, who had written the article
Quốc Kỳ Việt Nam: Nguồn Gốc và Lẽ Chính Thống (
The National Flag of Viet Nam: Its Origin and Legitimacy) in September 2004. To back up his claim, Nguyền Đình Sài cited a webpage from
Worldstatesmen website by Ben Cahoon, an
American researcher affiliated with
University of Connecticut. However, Nguyễn Đình Sài admitted Cahoon "did not name any specific documents" for Cahoon's claim that the yellow flag with three red stripes was used between 1890 and 1920. • During the
6 January United States Capitol attack, many South Vietnamese flags were seen in the crowd of rioters. There were mixed reactions among Vietnamese Americans in Southern California. Forty-five Vietnamese American community advocates, politicians, and business leaders signed a statement condemning the use of the South Vietnamese flag in this context, and various Vietnamese American government officials also wrote statements opposing such use. • During a
2022 FIFA World Cup qualifying match in
Melbourne between
Australia and
Vietnam, Vietnamese broadcasters delayed showing the match by ten minutes due to several
Vietnamese Australians waving South Vietnamese flags in support of Australia. However, local security did try to prevent the flags from going into the stands. A similar issue would occur when Vietnam also delayed broadcasting a qualifying match against
Japan that year when South Vietnamese flags were found in the crowd in
Saitama. • In 2023, Vietnam took issue with an Australian coin featuring the flag in its design to honour Australians who fought in the Vietnam War. • Vietnamese-Australian singer
Hanni, member of South Korean girl group
NewJeans, faced backlash from Vietnamese fans in February 2023 due to the allegations that some of her family members support the flag. Hanni has never publicly expressed any political opinions herself. • In August 2024, many Vietnamese
celebrities have been criticized by fans and media for performing overseas at events where the flag appeared in the background in the past. • In 2024, at the
Vietnam Military History Museum in Hanoi, the flag's exhibition drew many Vietnamese
students, who took photos and posted them on
social media in a
derogatory and rude manner, becoming an online phenomenon.
Los Angeles Times has referenced this as an example in its reporting on
communist-aligned
Vietnamese nationalism. ==Specifications==