Much has been discussed over the last several days about the sentencing last Friday of Marguerite Vuong, and her husband Michael Vuong, both 67, in the fatal hit-and-run in Pacific Palisades, California of 23-year-old David Pregerson, an aspiring filmmaker who was the son of Federal District Court Judge Dean Pregerson and grandson of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Harry Pregerson.
Superior Court Judge Kathryn Solorzano sentenced Marguerite to three years in prison and Michael to one year and probation. By most accounts, a very fair sentence, given the gravity of the crime.
The facts of the case were fairly straightforward. David was walking home intoxicated following a Christmas party around 3 a.m. Marguerite, on her way to her job at the Palisades postal annex, fatally hit David, left him in the street, and then reported to work as usual. She continued her silence for several months while the ongoing investigation was reported in the local newspaper which was distributed at the sorting station where she worked.
And it gets worse. When the police finally tracked Marguerite’s car to her west side home, and she was brought to the station for questioning, a hidden recording reflected that she told her husband to take the blame, to “just lie, don’t admit anything.” Ultimately, Marguerite pleaded no contest to hit-and-run, and Michael pleaded no contest to being an accessory after-the-fact.
The defense portrayed the Vuongs as an honest, law-abiding couple who made one mistake, albeit a really enormous one.
It is impossible to grasp the magnitude of the moral anorexia that would cause one to hit another human being with one’s car, and then, with complete disregard for that life, immediately flee the scene. Even if one suffered a momentary lapse of civilized moral judgment, say, due to emergent shock or trauma, to then stay silent for three months and work daily in the post office in the same part of town where the crime occurred, and then tell one’s spouse to lie and take the blame when the police came calling, is so morally bereft that it simply defies any notion of human decency.
That said, the defense continuously noted that the Vuongs’ fled Vietnam right before the fall of Saigon, immigrated to America, and raised three children of their own, all of whom became productive citizens. At first blush, that information seems totally irrelevant to the crime. As if surviving wartime Vietnam somehow excuses the criminal behavior which ensued three decades later. No amount of suffering, no matter how egregious or long-sustained, can ever excuse the Vuongs’ continuing morality lapse, even one year after the Vietnam war ended, much less thirty years later. What the Vuongs’ background does, though, other than to reflect the fact that this terrible incident was a first offense, is to perhaps, ever so marginally, partially explain it, so as to possibly permit a modicum of healing. More on that in a minute.
As a parent, my heart completely shatters for the Pregerson family. They displayed an inordinate amount of compassion when seeking the person(s) responsible for their devastating heartbreak, and were far more patient than most mortals would have been in the same circumstances. The Pregersons suffered the very worst possible parental nightmare from which there is no rest. Not for a moment. Not ever.
As the only-American born child of two immigrant parents (though from a different corner of the globe with different wars and different sufferings), my heart also aches for the Vuongs’ children, who must now live with a truly horrible, and to a great extent, inexplicable legacy that will mark them forever.
The vast majority of us lucky enough to have been born in the United States are raised with a general level of trust in our institutions and the basic ideals of a democratic and representative government. We are taught to believe that to participate meaningfully in our society, we must engage and must vote, and that our votes count and matter. And despite some well-known and well-publicized lapses of our police forces across the nation over the years (1965 Selma, 1967 Detroit riots, 1992 L.A. riots, 2014 Ferguson, etc.), while we can certainly question the conduct of our men and women in uniform, we are nevertheless taught as children to respect them.
These principles, however, are not, and should not, be solely in the purview of, or unique to, those born on American soil. Naturalized Americans, who by virtue of war, asylum, lottery, refugee status (as in my father’s case), or blind luck (as in my mother’s case), who are fortunate enough to acquire U.S. citizenship, owe America and its citizens a firm and continuing commitment to those basic ideals. One should not reap the benefits of American citizenship — including many years working as a civil servant in the postal service, as Marguerite did — and live here for decades with the same level of distrust, fear of authorities, and sense of institutionalized corruption as if still living on the banks of the Mekong of the early 70’s.
To be sure, the moral lapse displayed by the Vuongs’ hit-and-run is not unique to naturalized citizens who originally hail from corrupt, communist, or non-democratic countries. Last year in Los Angeles alone, 27 people were killed by hit-and-run drivers, and 144 people were severely wounded. While I can’t be certain of the citizenship status of those drivers, logic would dictate that the majority of them were native-born citizens.
I’ve spent a substantial amount of time in Asia, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia. Until one has spent a significant amount of time in the region, it is nearly impossible to grasp fully how the vast differences in government and daily life affect almost every aspect of one’s existence: the extent and pervasiveness of corruption, the permeation of greed born of poverty and suffering, the necessity of paying bribes, the constant need to try to be invisible to avoid the often unfair ire of authorities. From bribes to get one’s child into a “public” school, or or to acquire working papers or other necessary documents, to the lengthy disappearances of those wanted for questioning by the authorities, or even more blatant and overt institutional corruption — it’s everywhere, and it’s frustrating, debilitating, frightening, and often life-threatening. How much the Vuongs’ personal history played into their willingness to fatally hit a young man, then stay silent, and then attempt a cover up, only they can know.
Again, none of that begins to excuse the Vuongs’ conduct in the aftermath of the hit-and-run. It does not and never will.
However, I posit that it is still very important to attempt to understand the Vuongs’ cultural context, born of their personal history, in order to make some sense of the utterly inexplicable. Although understanding a cultural need to be silent, invisible, and even to lie and cover up will never act as a salve, result in a plausible excuse, or take away any of the ensuing pain and the great suffering of those tragically affected, it might allow the victims some small bit of healing. For this reason alone, that exercise is worthwhile.
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