鳳 Operation Babylift Collection
A project of Archives in Love and War
Archives in Love and War · StoryScope Studio

Operation Babylift Collection

Bridging the records of the past and the voices of the present

In April 1975, as Saigon fell, thousands of Vietnamese children were evacuated to new families around the world. The records that document that evacuation were kept, box by box, for fifty years, by one person. In 2024, she gave them to one of the children.

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An Overview

What This Project Is

The Operation Babylift Collection holds more than 4,800 original documents, photographs, letters, and case files from the 1975 Vietnamese child evacuation. What started as 33 boxes in a basement in Colorado, entrusted in 2024 by Sister Mary Nelle Gage, the last surviving leader of Friends For All Children, has become an interactive bridge between the records of the past and the people they were written about.

"Connect as many adoptees as you can."

That was the directive. The children documented in these files are now in their late forties and fifties. Many are only now, at this stage of life, beginning to ask the questions that could not be asked before. The archive exists at exactly that moment. Every record is processed through Love Ethic Archival Practice (LEAP), a trauma-informed methodology that puts the dignity and agency of survivors first. Not institutions. The people.

This archive belongs to the community it documents: adoptees, birth families, caregivers, veterans, and diaspora members across all seven streams of Vietnamese displacement. The work moves across four areas, in order of priority.

33+
Boxes of Records
4,800+
Individual Records
51
Years Since Babylift
1
Generation Searching
The Work

Four Areas of Focus

An archive is only as powerful as the community it serves. These four areas, in priority order, are how the collection becomes a living resource.

01

Archive Processing & Record Management

The core stewardship work: opening boxes closed for fifty years, reading each document with care and context, and ensuring what is preserved reflects the full humanity of the people it touched, not just the administrative history of an evacuation.

  • Processing 33+ boxes through Love Ethic Archival Practice (LEAP)
  • Digitizing fragile, handwritten originals that exist in no other form
  • Building a cross-referenced index across nine datasets
  • Securing a permanent institutional home for the collection
Original Perma-Pak storage boxes holding the Friends For All Children records
The 33 original Perma-Pak boxes, as received in 2024.
02

Adoptee Connections

Returning original files to the people they document. The moment a record becomes a mirror, and a person recognizes themselves in history for the first time, is the space where this work lives.

  • Responding to adoptees coming forward to search
  • Returning original case files, photographs, and correspondence
  • First-family search support across the diaspora
  • Connecting people separated by policy who never knew the others existed
An adoptee showing a phone photograph of her found family at an Operation Babylift gathering
Adoptee showing records of found family at the Operation Babylift Gala, Pan Am Museum, April 2025.
03

Community Development

The work is not simply archival. It is relational. Building the network across all seven streams of Vietnamese displacement, and preserving the voices of those who were there before time runs out.

  • Gatherings that bring adoptees, caregivers, veterans, and families together
  • Oral history recording with caregivers now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s
  • Partnership with History Colorado on the permanent record
  • Honoring the caregivers and volunteers whose care shaped these lives
Adoptees and community members gathered around a table exploring archival binders and records
Adoptees explore archives and records together for the first time, Garden City, Long Island, New York, 2025.
04

Presentation & Exhibit Curation

Surfacing what has long been invisible. Drawing on the full history of the project, from the My Name Is Mimosa exhibition to panels, BookTalks, and the Children of War StoryDeck, to bring the archive into public space with care.

  • Curated exhibitions pairing original records with personal story
  • The Children of War: Lives Between StoryDeck facilitation system
  • Author talks, panels, and documentary programming
  • Translating the archive into experiences the community can stand inside
Devaki Murch being interviewed in front of an Operation Babylift exhibit display
Devaki Murch shares her story with Jeremy Hubbard, news anchor for KDVR-9, at her "New Perspectives" exhibit at Regis University, 2025.
2026 News & Documentary Emmy Award · Winner

Operation Babylift: The 50-Year Journey

The 20/20 and ABC News Live documentary Operation Babylift: The 50-Year Journey won the 2026 News & Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Light Feature: Long Form, presented in New York City this week.

The film follows the lives the Babylift children built, and the archive at the center of the search.

ABC News Senior Executive Producer: Seniboye Tienabeso · Executive Producer: Janice Johnston · Producers: Kieran McGirl, Brian Mezerski, Gary Wynn · Cinematographers: Akram Abi-Hanna, Daniel Fiore, Eli Gamson, Russ Marhull · Field Producers: Kaitlin Amoroso, Keturah Gray, Henry Lievsay · Field Audio: Gil Ben-Ze'ev, Steve Kashuk, Alex Sierra · Editors: Jonathan Cordell, Adam Siegel, Erik Zimmermann · Senior Graphics Producers: Christa Garubo, Ed Rydzewski · Graphics Producer: Marci Ichimura · Associate Producer: Natalie Cardenas

Watch the Documentary
Operation Babylift: The 50-Year Journey, ABC 20/20 special edition
In the Press

Coverage

Smithsonian Magazine

This Adoptee Discovered a Trove of Documents in a Nun's Basement. The Rare Vietnam War Records May Rewrite the Story of Operation Babylift.
ABC 20/20

Operation Babylift: The 50-Year Journey. Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Light Feature: Long Form.
Nexstar · WRIC

Operation Babylift: Flight to a New Future. Watch the full special.
Washington Post

The children of the Vietnam War's 'Operation Babylift' have turned 50. A look at the lives they built.
From the Collection

Records & Faces

A 1975 Saigon intake record for a child coded Mimosa, paired with a photograph
Saigon intake record, January 1975.
Country-sorted Friends For All Children placement files
Placement files, sorted by country.
Friends For All Children caregivers and infants gathered by a van in Saigon
Caregivers and children in Saigon.
Period newspaper clippings about Rosemary Taylor and the Vietnam orphanage work
Period press clippings in the collection.
Why This Work Matters

The Window Is Now

These records are fragile. Many are handwritten. Some are already deteriorating. There is no other archive like this one, and without active stewardship, the origin stories of thousands of people will be lost before the people they belong to ever find them.

Your support funds the digitization of fragile originals that exist nowhere else, the professional work of securing a permanent institutional home, and the capacity to respond to the adoptees who continue to come forward. A generation is searching right now.

Support This Work

Help us bridge the records of the past to the voices of the future, before the window closes and the boxes go dark again.

Donate Now