Vietnam's best singles player can't play at home

[VermontDem2004]

Her dual citizenship brings prejudice

It's a personal struggle symbolic of the lingering resentment and distrust between communist Vietnam and the hundreds of thousands who fled the south at the end of the Vietnam War nearly 30 years ago.

"I play tennis for my family," Huynh said before the Southeast Asian Games, a regional competition that runs through Saturday. "There's a lot of pressure because I know a lot of people, they don't like me very much."

Huynh, 18, was born in the U.S. territory of Guam. She is the first "Viet kieu," or overseas Vietnamese, to receive dual citizenship from the communist government to compete for Vietnam.

Huynh was four years old when her family moved back to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in 1989. She did not speak Vietnamese then but has since mastered the language and now considers herself more Vietnamese than American.

Still, many are wary. She is thought of as spoiled because of her American passport. It doesn't seem to matter that she's never been on the U.S. mainland.

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