At Hoa Lò Prison in Hanoi, known to Americans as the Hanoi Hilton, my husband, Ted, and I first saw exhibits about Vietnamese resistance to French colonial rule.
The exhibits described how Vietnamese prisoners were confined, abused, and tortured under French rule. They detailed the overcrowding, forced labor, starvation, and other horrors of prison life. The Vietnamese prisoners were presented as people who had suffered for resisting colonialism and fighting for their country. That part of the museum was powerful because it did not soften what had happened to the Vietnamese people. Their suffering was made visible, and the cruelty of the prison system was described in detail.
Then we moved into the exhibits about American prisoners of war. I had wanted to visit the Hanoi Hilton partly to honor John McCain who fought bravely on behalf of the United States. Although he was beaten, tortured, and given inadequate medical care, he refused early release and would not leave his fellow prisoners behind. Yet the exhibits our guide showed us emphasized American prisoners receiving medical care, exercising outdoors, and playing cards. The guide told us that former prisoners had returned and described how well they had been treated. He explained that the nickname “Hanoi Hilton” reflected treatment resembling the hospitality of a hotel.
That explanation was blatantly false. The name “Hanoi Hilton” was ironic and sarcastic. The contrast between the two parts of the museum was striking. The museum thoroughly detailed the imprisonment and torture of Vietnamese people under French colonial rule, but when the story turned to American prisoners, it emphasized comfort and care given by the Vietnamese captors. The photographs may have captured real moments, but medical treatment and card games could not tell the whole story of captivity. By leaving torture out of the account we were given, the presentation offered a misleading version of history.
What happens when a country minimizes the cruelty in its own history? I worry that softening past abuses makes present ones easier to excuse .
Together, the two sections presented the Vietnamese people as both victims of cruelty and humane captors. The museum was telling a story about Vietnam—one that condemned French colonialism while defending Vietnam’s treatment of American prisoners.
The visit brought me to a question closer to home: What are the stories my own country tells? It is uncomfortable to examine our own history: Columbus’ treatment of Indigenous peoples, the mythology of westward expansion that idealizes cowboys and portrays Native people as “savages,” and the cruelty of slavery. By sanitizing history, are we eroding truths needed to understand the past so that we make wiser choices today?
The Trump administration’s efforts to soften how slavery is presented—and its criticism of exhibits that emphasize it—raise the same concern I felt in Hanoi: What happens when a country minimizes the cruelty in its own history? I worry that softening past abuses makes present ones easier to excuse, including abuses against brown-skinned immigrants. When we are guided to look away from suffering in the past, we may become more willing to overlook it in the present.
I went to the Hanoi Hilton hoping to understand the past. I left thinking about how countries shape the stories they tell about themselves. We can only learn honestly from history when we acknowledge the whole story, including the parts that trouble us. ∆
Janice Mundee writes to New Times from Paso Robles. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Nov 12-19, 2026.
