American professor looks for adopted Vietnamese-born twins' mother

Duarte-Silva, 64, a professor at Princeton University, is waiting for a DNA test result to verify whether there is a biological relationship between her adopted children and a woman she recently found in Vietnam whose story line up with her twins’ to a certain extent. This is the third time she’s conducted such a test.

"We are really looking forward to it," she said. "Even if the test result is negative, we feel grateful for contributing to looking for the kids’ biological mother."

Duarte-Silva and her husband adopted the two brothers 23 years ago, when they were only two years old. They named them Luke and Mark. The former is now pursuing his master’s degree in architecture, while the latter is a construction engineer.

Duarte-Silva, Luke, and Mark at their home in New Jersey when the twin siblings were eight years old. Photo courtesy of Duarte-Silva

Living a life of opportunity in the U.S., Luke and Mark have always wondered about their origins. They’ve often thought about "who they really are, where they come from, and what their parents are like," according to Duarte-Silva.

They have always wanted to find their biological parents, a desire that their adopted parents support.

Luke and Mark visited Vietnam for the first time in 2016. Welcoming them when they landed in the country was an elderly Vietnamese couple who were originally their first adopters. The twin siblings said they felt like they had come back home and reunited with their relatives, making Duarte-Silva and her husband even more motivated to help the brothers find their biological parents.

The American woman then sent her adopted children’s story to "Nhu Chua He Co Cuoc Chia Ly" (As If We Never Parted), a Vietnamese TV program that aims to help separated family members find and reunite with one another. Still, they got no response to date. Then the Covid-19 pandemic postponed some trips they’d planned to hunt down leads as well.

But the hardships did not discourage Duarte-Silva’s family. In May, they sent the twin’s story to a YouTuber who runs a channel that helps people reunite with their long-lost families.

Luke and Mark at their university graduation ceremony in 2022. Photo courtesy of Duarte-Silva

Among the little information Duarte-Silva and her husband have so far been able to collect about their two adopted kids’ identity was that they were born on Oct. 31, 1998 at a health center in the southeastern province of Binh Phuoc. The newborns were then transferred to a hospital in neighboring Binh Duong province due to health problems resulting from their premature birth.

Hospital documents say that the twins’ mother was named Do Thi Chinh, and their father was named Do Binh. The couple were age 16 and 23 respectively when the twin siblings were born, and both of them came from Binh Phuoc, according to the records. The last time they appear in the documents is when they brought the siblings to the Binh Duong hospital.

The documents state that the hospital tried contacting the twins’ parents several times without reply. The kids were subsequently sent to Binh Duong’s Social Sponsoring Center in Dec. 1998, where they were given their Vietnamese names: Loc and Minh. The center reported that it had also sent staff to the address the parents provided, but did not find them there.

As the YouTuber spread the story, the family got a few new useful leads. They filtered out two women with stories closest to the twins’ details and performed DNA tests to verify if there were biological relationships between the women and the siblings.

But both tests were negative.

"We were mentally prepared for that, yet we couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed," Duarte-Silva said.

Still, she has not given up.

During Duarte-Silva’s most recent trip to Vietnam in August this year, she was introduced to two local women in Binh Phuoc – Nguyen Thi Mo and Nguyen Huong – who have since been assisting her in the search.

Duarte-Silva (second from L) and Nguyen Huong (far L), a local woman in Binh Phuoc who has helped Duarte-Silva with her search. Photo courtesy of Huong

Mo said she had not expected the search to be as difficult as it had been, because they already had information about names and the address of twins’ parents. However, as they dug deeper, they grew doubtful the info’s veracity because they were told that the couple looked like people of ethnic minority origins while the names they provided were those of Kinh (ethnic Vietnamese) people.

The group of women in search now wonder whether the couple gave the hospital fake names or asked others to fill in the forms for them.

Meanwhile, Huong suggested that a part of the province’s population is made up of ethnic minority communities. Similarly, scores of the local population live in remote areas without Internet access, which might be preventing the twins’ parents from being exposed to information about their children, said Huong.

Based on these suggestions, Duarte-Silva asked Huong to help her print information about her adopted kids and distribute it to the heads of the local neighborhoods in order to ask their help. They also posted leaflets along streets in the area.

It was the American woman’s determination that made Huong offer to help Duarte-Silva with her search.

"She was willing to travel the long distance [between the U.S. and Vietnam] merely to prove her story," Huong said. "She was also willing to pay for the DNA tests, even though she was totally aware that the women’s stories were not completely similar to the story of the twins’ mother."

As Duarte-Silva’s daughter gave birth recently, the whole family was once again reminded of how difficult it is to take care of kids. Luke and Mark grew even more curious about their biological mother with a new baby in the family.

But they are also adamant that they simply "want to know if she [their mother] is living a fine life" and don’t want to "interfere in her [their mother’s] life."

So together with their American adopted mother, as well as everyone that has taken part in helping them find their real origins, they are waiting for the test result to see if they manage to find their biological parents this time.