Thanks to a joint resolution passed by Congress in 1994, our country recognizes Thursday, May 11, as Vietnam Human Rights Day. Thousands of Vietnamese Americans will gather in our nation’s capital to draw attention to the continued atrocities and abuse of communism.

As a refugee from Vietnam and an immigrant to the United States, this day means more to me now than ever before because of the current state of our country.

My family knows the evils of communism well. My mother was the last person to see my grandfather alive. “I’ll be back soon,” he told her as the Vietminh hauled him away in the middle of the night. His body was never found, but proof of his murder was returned to his wife and children. My father’s father was also taken away from his family, but thanks to his skills as an electrical engineer, he was conscripted to maintain power in mobile hospitals. This is the face of communism: fear, kidnapping, torture, and murder.

Forty-eight years after the fall of Saigon, I am grateful that we escaped days before that fateful 30th day of April 1975. My father, then a South Vietnamese government official, would have been sent to a reeducation camp, tortured, or even killed if we had stayed. My life would have taken a different trajectory if the U.S. had not opened its doors to us or the millions of other refugees who fled Vietnam.

Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese didn’t have the luxury of leaving, and they still live in the shadow of the country’s communist government. People still disappear if they speak out against the government in Hanoi. Those of us in the U.S. — there are more than 2 million Vietnamese Americans — fear for our family members remaining in Vietnam and especially worry about whether speaking out against human rights could bring harm to them.

So many Americans have immigrated to the U.S. with similar experiences, whether having escaped Vietnam or the countless other oppressive communist regimes worldwide. Yet their experiences are scarcely represented in our nation’s leadership. In the 116th Congress, just 3% of members were foreign-born, and an even smaller amount had escaped communism. Yet, in 2017 alone, 1.1 million immigrants who were born in countries under communist regimes, such as China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam, came to the U.S.

Why does congressional representation of these populations of Americans matter? Not because of our skin color or ethnicity but because of our experience living under the evils of communism.

This is especially important now. We live in an era in which government officials spend $29 million to rename military bases named after old Confederate soldiers and tear down monuments of Founding Fathers, but those same officials turn a blind eye to the slave labor that builds our iPhones. Leftists ban words that may “trigger” someone but ignore the 85,000 children trafficked across our southern border for sex or labor.

Is our nation turning into the same authoritarian regimes we have fought against for nearly 250 years? Cancel culture suppresses speech and punishes dissenters. Government agencies vilify those who question their power, such as when the Biden Justice Department sent the FBI after parents who questioned critical race theory in local school board meetings, or when the Obama administration used the IRS to target political foes. While we speak out against human rights abuses around the world, we must first look in the mirror and assess ourselves.

Those of us who escaped Vietnam have seen firsthand the harms the communist ruling class can inflict on people. We have an unwavering appreciation for the U.S. and the values our country was founded upon because of it.

The pervasive feeling that being American is something to be ashamed of and that our great American experiment is failing is cause for great concern. But I believe there is no one better than those who have escaped the grips of evil to step up and defend America as a beacon of hope.

On this recognition of Vietnam's Human Rights Day, I ask that every American who believes our country’s best days are still ahead of it and that those committed to working toward a future in which all Americans can reach their full potential will elect leaders who will restore confidence in American politics.

We came to this country for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The U.S. gave us a home, a flag to stand under, and countless opportunities. We have been committed to returning the favor ever since.

Hung Cao is the honorary chairman of Unleash America PAC and a senior adviser at POLARIS National Security . Cao is a refugee from communist Vietnam and a retired Navy captian who served in special operations for 25 years.