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These are the threads that bring together our individual pasts and shared history.
This past year has been extraordinary.
As we marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, something unexpected began to unfold. Stories buried for decades resurfaced. People who had searched for each other for fifty years found one another, sometimes by pure chance, sometimes through a shared photograph, sometimes through a conversation that changed everything. Connections appeared that felt too perfectly timed to be a coincidence. There were tears, reunions, and recognitions that are moments of grace that can only be described as magic.
We experienced this across a year of listening, learning, and sharing at events, gatherings, conversations, and unexpected meetings. And now, we are bringing it all to one place.
There is a thread, soft as breath, strong as the roots of an ancient tree…
An invisible thread tied us close, threaded through the heart, stitched with love, braided with courage.
-Noel Nguyen, Operation Babylift adoptee
Invisible Threads: Stories Connected by Operation Babylift
April 9–12, 2026 | East Window Gallery | Boulder, Colorado
This April, we will gather in Boulder, to the place where these records were first created and held, where so much of this story began. We are gathering everyone: adoptees, family and friends, veterans who served, crew members who changed our diapers, and caregivers who loved us. Generations of people whose lives have been connected by longing, by loss, by love, and by threads so invisible we almost didn’t realize they were there.
Let’s do this.
Four Days to Share Stories
Thursday, April 9 | Opening Welcome
We begin where the records were held and protected in Boulder, Colorado. Sister Mary Nelle Gage will share the story of her life's work with the adoptees and refugees from Vietnam. Hopefully, other Vietnamese adult volunteers will also be on hand.
Friday, April 10 | StoryShare: Stories Connected by Operation Babylift
Adoptees, veterans, and caregivers speaking in their own voices. It is the stories that are emerging, intertwining our individual pasts and shared histories.
Saturday, April 11 | Writing, Books & Film
A morning writing workshop with Andrew Lam, author of Stories from the Edge of the Sea, afternoon conversations with Operation Babylift authors, and an evening screening of We Were Soldiers,Too, with Thanh Tan will bring together a day focused on storytelling. Finding our voices that speak of displacement, belonging, and recognition.
Sunday, April 12 | Birth Search & Family Connections
Huyền Friedlander, LMFT, LPCC of Con Tìm Mẹ (Searching for Mother) will share her story and guide a discussion about the birth family search, grounded in care and respect, holding the complexity and beauty of searching for one’s roots.
The Magic We’ve Witnessed This Year
Stories were waiting to be told. Finding me through the oddest circumstances, friends and strangers. In the past year, I have received a fragment of the C-5A aircraft. I found a poem that rendered me speechless, as it shifted how I perceived my own beginnings. I watched a yellow dress transform from a symbol of shame into one of confidence and acceptance. I read a veteran’s dedication to an orphan that opened my heart. I learned that my missing piece was not about DNA or a family search, but about the contextual history and culture that had never been taught. I watched footage of a pilot greeting a survivor with open arms - an unexpected reunion. I understood, through an INS document, why my mother was so protective of her adopted baby and the precariousness of our place in this country - all in the past 365 days, well, more like 458 days.
This year has demonstrated both serendipitous moments and connections, as well as an urgency to gather and share our stories while we can. We want to use these moments to be in each other's presence and listen to one another.
We’ve witnessed the magic of recognition, a familiarity that you can’t quite place. A weird, “knowing” as you interact. It is the moment vulnerability enters the room, and suddenly you’re not alone. The moment you think, I know you. We share the same story. How have we never met?
This is not a coincidence. This is what happens when we create space for stories that live in our bodies and our memories, maybe not through DNA, but through lived experience, through shared moments, sometimes through a seat buckled on the same plane.
Come to Boulder
Let’s talk. It’s time to be together.
The gallery is just a conversation starter. The magic will be in finding one another. To make that happen, we hope you can attend, as we are here now.
“Whether you are an adoptee or someone who stands beside us, you are part of this thread, this beautiful tapestry of connection.
We are intertwined, bound by love, held by hope, lifted by inspiration.
Our story does not end here. It breathes through each word we speak, each truth we tell, each moment we rise.
This is our legacy: to ensure our stories are not left behind, to give voice to the silence, to let the next generation know they are never alone.”
- Noel Nguyen, Operation Babylift adoptee
Please join us for this special gathering, and we will welcome the sharing of our stories.
Together, we continue to weave this invisible thread into something seen, something felt, and something lasting.
The magic is real,
-devaki & Sr. Mary Nelle
RSVP to Join Us
Your questions, suggestions or ideas? Contact devaki@operationbabylift.org
Invisible Threads: Stories Connected by Operation Babylift
April 9–12, 2026 | East Window Gallery | Boulder, Colorado