Praise for Dragged Off
Dr. David Anh Daos memoir Dragged Off: Refusing to Give Up My Seat on the Way to the American Dream is a study in resilience and determination. From his escape of the collapsing South Vietnamese city of Saigon at the end of the war, to his early days studying medicine in America, to his struggle to regain his medical license and good name, Dr. Dao shows the grit and stubbornness necessary to make the American dream come true. His refusal to give up his seat on a United Airlines flight, and the ensuing assault he suffered, is emblematic of how far we, the people, still have to travel to create a world with liberty and justice for all. Told with grace and dignity, this is a book you wont want to put down.
Marlena Fiol, PhD, globally recognized scholar and speaker and author of Nothing Bad Between Us
He is known for the viral images of being dragged off a United Airlines flight in 2017, but Dr. David Anh Daos story is much more interesting than those fifteen minutes of fame would imply. Dragged Off: Refusing to Give Up My Seat on the Way to the American Dream is no ordinary immigrants tale. Dr. David Anh Daos escape from Saigon during its fall to the North Vietnamese in 1975 on a crowded boat full of refugees heading for an uncertain future in America is just one step on his amazing journey. Dao shows how to rise and fall and rise again even higher in this memoir, which will become an inspiration, and perhaps a cautionary tale for all who read it. Dao delves deeply into the cost of the American dream and makes it seem achievable, no matter the p rice tag.
MJ Fievre, author of Empowered Black Girl
Copyright 2021 by Dr. David Anh Dao.
Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.
Cover Design: Roberto Nez
Cover illustration: Sergey at Logan Masterworks
Layout & Design: Roberto Nez
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Dragged Off: Refusing to Give Up My Seat on the Way to the American Dream
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2020951504
ISBN: (print) 978-1-64250-401-9, (ebook) 978-1-64250-402-6
BISAC category code: POL004000, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civil Rights
Printed in the United States of America
I was sixty-nine years old when I was forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight. Theres a good chance that the United Airlines incident is the only thing you know about me. And theres a good chance you saw that infamous video bef ore I did.
I remember what happened on the plane. I remember being asked to leave. I remember refusing. I remember being removed by force. At some point, I lost consciousness. I dont remember how I got to the hospital.
I woke up to find that I was suffering from a concussion, as well as a broken nose and several broken teeth. I had a suture in my mouth. My daughter Crystal was in the room with me. Before I could tell her what had happened to me, she was urging me to do two things: get a lawyer and refrain, under any circumstances, from turning on the t elevision.
Hiring a lawyer made sense. I knew that the security team had crossed a line in how theyd handled the situation. I also knew from a lifetime of experience that, if I didnt call them out on what theyd done, theyd do the same thing to other passengers in t he future.
But why did my daughter urge me not to turn on the television? And why had she taken my phone away from me? Clearly, she didnt want me to get upset while I was in the hospital. My imagination immediately began running through possibilities. Something had happened since Id lost consciousness. Had there been some natural disaster? A terrorist attack? What didnt she want me to know? Even though I promised that I wouldnt turn on the television, as soon as I was alone in my room, thats what I did. It didnt take long for me to find a channel running the story that she didnt want me to see.
Of course, the news story that she hadnt wanted me to see was my own. The incident had occurred only hours earlier, yet the video had already gone viral on a global scale. People all over the world had seen what had happened to me. More importantly, people all over the world had condemned what had happe ned to me.
Far from upsetting me, this global show of outrage and support touched me deeply. It confirmed that millions of people shared the same ideal that Ive held all my life: the belief that everybody has rights. Nobody deserves to be treated the way Id been treated on that plane. I cried as I flipped through the channels, listening to different newscasters express their shock over what had happened.
Im sure that most of the people reading this story will assume that April 9, 2017, was the worst day of my life. But it wasnt. In 1970, I was forced to leave the National Conservatory for Vietnamese Traditional Music. In 1975, I had to flee Vietnam (leaving my parents and siblings behind) after the fall of Saigon. In 1977, I was attacked while working as a physician in the Indiana State Prison. In 2003, my office manager robbed my business of thousands of dollars. In 2004, I had to give up my medical license. And in 2005, I was convicted of a crime I didn t commit.
And yet, looking back on the last seventy years of my life, what I feel more than anything else is a profound sense of gratitude over my good fortune. I have been blessed with an amazing life, and I want to spend whatever years I have left helping others who havent been as fortunate as I have.
After the United Airlines incident, the media reported various bits and pieces of my life, painting a distorted picture. At one point, several sources even confused me with a different Dr. David Dao. Im writing this story to set the record straight, but also to give some insight into why I didnt simply give up my seat when I was asked (which Im sure many people wondered).
My story begins over fifty years ago i n Vietnam.
I was born in Vietnam and raised in a large family with six brothers and sisters. My mother didnt have time for a job since she was raising seven children. That meant my father had to support our family with his job as a nurse. As anyone whos raised a family knows, you take the opportunities youre offered when it comes to making more money, so when my father was offered the chance to train for a better career in the army, the fact that his studies would relocate him to the United States for several months didnt deter him. While he was away, our family stayed with a friend of my mothers.
When my father returned, he became convinced that my mother had been having an affair while he was away. I never saw any evidence that my mother had cheated on my father, and, to my knowledge, none of my siblings ever saw anything either. To this day, I dont know what put that idea in my fathers head, but he couldnt be convinced otherwise. Eventually, his questioning of my mother went from simple accusations to outri ght abuse.
