My topic was on the Vietnam War focused on the immigration of the Vietnamese refugees. Here i have 3 interviews with my family members who each had their own personal experiences. My mother was a regular civilian who was able to give me an idea of how everyday life was like. My brother was a young child at the time but had a first hand experience with escaping, and my father was drafted into South Vietnam's army just before the fall of Saigon. These three interviews have provided me with valuable knowledge.
Interview with Nuong Tran:
Introduction:
Nuong Tran is a 55 year old house wife and loving mother of 3 sons. During the war she lived in Saigon with her family. She had lived through the war her whole life and experienced many of its hardships. As she looks back on her life, she is glad that it is all behind her now and is very grateful to be where she is today.
How was life in Vietnam?
When I was small, I had to balance a lot of things in life. I had to work and go to school at the same time. Money was tight back then. I was only in the elementary school when I began selling lottery tickets to make the extra money my family needed. I was very active in the church and would always do volunteer work when I could. I was very religious and found happiness in my church. Although I lived a very hard and poor life, I was able to get through things.
How was your everyday life affected by the war?
Being born in 1955, I do not know how life was before the fighting began. But as time went on, I was able to tell that it became even harder to live. But my mother tells me that before, she lived in the North on the country side. But when the Viet Cong began to invade, she was forced to move down south. She was able to escape to Saigon and rebuild a life from there. The war made our lives even more difficult. Our family was not able to make very much money as the war progressed. I was then forced to drop out of school as my situation did not allow it. The schooling fees were far too expensive for us to afford especially under the conditions of the war. I had to give up many of the small luxuries I had. We all had to make sacrifices.
What were the American soldiers like?
I was very fond of the soldiers as a child. They were very loving and nice towards us children. Whenever I would see a soldier walk by I would always run up to them asking them in broken English for a piece of candy or some chewing gum. “Okay gum? Okay gum?” and if I was lucky they would give me a piece of candy. My favorite kind was the small colorful chocolate pieces (M&M’s). I liked it so much because although the weather was hot, the chocolate did not melt in my hands. Every time I would see a soldier I would always get excited. Although they were very kind to the children, deep down I was afraid of them. They were big and looked very strange. They looked intimidating to me. I felt like at any moment they could take my life. I would always get in trouble by my mother when I go up to a soldier. But I really liked the chocolate pieces.
What were some significant outcomes of the war?
The Viet Cong had discovered that my sister is working for an American company. With this knowledge, they discriminated against me and my whole family. We had been restricted from our rights. It was very hard to find jobs or money.
When Saigon finally fell, my family was forced out of the city. They moved us into the jungle where we had to farm for a living. We had to grow our own foods and cut down trees for shelter and other purposes. Life became filled with hard labor.
During the fall of Saigon on April 30th, 1975, what was going through your mind?
I was very shocked and alarmed; I did not know what was to become of us. I thought that the Viet Cong were going to come in and kill us all. A lot of things were changing. I’m not sure but it seemed like they were assisting our poorer neighbors. I was told that the Viet Cong valued the poor and despised the rich. And knowing that my sister was a worker for an American company, they forced us into the jungle. I really thought we were going to die. I didn’t have much experience farming, but I was able to learn from my mother. Here we survived for some time until we were able to return to the city.
Why did you want to move to America?
We were not able to find jobs or anything in Vietnam. We were told that America held many opportunities for us and that they were very welcoming. We heard of all the riches America had. I didn’t really know all about the details of America, I just knew that it was a better place than here in Vietnam. When we heard of the refugee programs that America had we filled out the applications and took the opportunity right away.
How did you move to America?
We were able to move to America because we had an Amerasian child. But he was not my biological son. He was my nephew, my sister’s son. But when my sister was killed during the war, I took him in as my own. I adopted him. We had to live in the Philippines for 6 months before being allowed into America. Here they educated us about American life, the language, and how to get a job. They were preparing us for the transition into America. In the Philippines the housings were very crowded and run down. There was only one bed while there were 7 of us. The size of the space was as small as a storage shack. Food was of very poor quality and low in quantity.
Why did you choose Seattle?
I had family who lived here in Seattle who were willing to sponsor us into America. They supported us and helped us rebuild our lives in America. They helped us adapt to all the American customs. The first few years were difficult for it felt even more difficult getting jobs than back in Vietnam. I did not know much English and for some time I had to do low paying laboring jobs.
Interview with Nguyen Tran:
Introduction:
Nguyen Tran is my eldest brother at age 30. During his time in Vietnam, was still a young child residing in Saigon. Although young at the time, he had a very significant experience that occurred that may have changed his whole life. Today he is a recently married and happy husband, he was glad to tell me about his time in Vietnam as he had never really spoken to anyone about it.
How was life in Vietnam?
It is very hard to recall but I remember that it was very difficult back then. Mom and dad worked very hard to get dinner on the table and looking back I sort of took that for granted. Dat (2nd brother) and I were very mischievous kids back then. We would always be getting into trouble. At school we would always get scolded by the teacher. But mom always emphasized how important school was, so… we’d get scolded even more once we got home haha… I remember when dad enrolled us both into martial arts class. We were so excited for it that after the second lesson, Dat had already put his skills to use. He went out and got hired. Some kid from school paid him a few bucks to beat up some other kid from around the block so…. He did haha… Their parents weren’t too happy… Well our parents and our teacher was then informed about this and we were kicked out of the martial arts school. I was pretty upset and mad with Dat. I really wanted to learn! I’ve always been the more mature one of us two, but for some reason I’d always be taking the hit worse. But yeah… being a kid we were pretty care free and unaware of what was going on.
Did you want to leave Vietnam? Why or why not?
Part of me did want to leave, and part of me didn’t. I was excited to leave because of the many stories that I had heard of America. I talked to one of our cousins (who was also a child) who was already in America through the phone. He kept talking about toys and T.V. which got me very excited. He told me of how fun everything was and all the cartoon shows. As a child, that’s all I really cared about haha. But then, I didn’t want to leave my friends behind. We had to leave our whole family here. Although I didn’t know them too well yet, it really saddened me. And when we were in the Philippines, I met this one girl… I know I was still young but it felt like love heh. I really liked her. I didn’t want to leave but we were already in the Philippines, we were already on our way to America. When our education program was done, we went our own separate ways as we prepared to enter America. I had forgotten to ask her where she was going or her address and even her e-mail address! I thought I was never going to see her again. Ten years later after I graduated from high school I was able to reunite with her. We became friends again but she went to school in Boston, at Harvard. And on top of the distance between us, mom didn’t really like her. She always gave me trouble about her. So I guess it never really worked out. But uhh… I guess I’m pretty glad I got to leave Vietnam. When I went back there recently I was able to tell the difference in life quality. Even though here in America, we still live pretty poorly, it’s a lot better than over there haha. But life in Vietnam is improving, what really surprised me when I made my visit back there was the paved roads haha. I remember people having to wear face masks due to the dirt roads they used to have. And all the frequent street floods because there was no sewage system. I sort of miss those floods though, they were fun.
What was the process of escaping by boat like?
I was only 7 years old then. My parents had to pay smugglers money to assist us in escaping. I left with auntie dressed as if we were villagers going out to fish. I was very confused back then. I did not know what was going on. All I had been told was that I was going to leave everyone for a very long time. I didn’t have very much with me, nothing but the clothes on my back. I remember seeing mom’s face. She was smiling, yet crying at the same time. Happy, yet sad. I was young, I didn’t know what to make of it. I had no clue of what to expect.
What happened when you were caught?
Like I said before, I really didn’t know what was going on. We had only set sail for no more than 10 minutes when the water patrol stopped us. They questioned us for a bit and our guide was trying to explain how we were just going out to catch some fish. But I guess they didn’t buy it. I remember the patrol officers being real jerks to us calling us names and using foul language. It was as if he had a natural hate for people. They took our boat back to shore and we were transported to the nearby prison.
How was it in prison?
The officers were pretty harsh. I mean they didn’t torture us or anything but they dragged my arm pretty hard as they led me to my cell haha. The guards were very stern but for the most part no harm was done to us. But I was scared, I thought we would be in there forever. They didn’t give us much food to eat, I thought I was going to starve to death. If I was lucky, they’d give me and auntie a can of condensed milk and hot water. We’d mix it and drink it. It was the best thing they served us there haha. We were in there for about 3 or 4 days until mom and dad were able to find us. They bailed us out and we were free to go. It went a lot more smooth and simpler than I thought.
What was your impression of America?
I was already impressed when I entered the airplane. There I could notice the substantial quality difference between Vietnam and America. The seats were nice and comfy, the people were polite, and the food was good! I mean Vietnamese food was free yet good! Well I guess the food wasn’t technically free because we had paid for airplane tickets… when I looked out the window over America, I was astonished. I saw the big city buildings that I had never seen in my life before. They were monstrous. This place was so much different compared to Vietnam. Everything was just, so much bigger! When we got off the airplane, the first thing I noticed right away was the completely different climate change. I was not used it, I was used to the hot temperatures of Vietnam. I also noticed the courtesy of other people. The flight attendants smiled us on out and even gave me a little badge. Everything around me seemed so expensive and high quality. At the airport I felt as if I was in some space station.
How is life here is compared to Vietnam?
Life here is a lot more complicated than back in Vietnam. There’s so much more to worry about. Well… that might be because back in Vietnam I was a child but I could assume. There was simply a lot more aspects to life here. I guess mom and dad knew this already because prior to coming here we had to fill out a lot of paper work. And form mines and Dat’s file, they filled our age out one year younger than we actually were. They were afraid that we could not keep up in school with our other peers. Which was probably true because school was difficult to start out. It was a lot different than from in Vietnam. The teachers had different teaching styles, the curriculum was also vastly different, and in all the environment of school was different. But I guess America’s environment in all was different. Let’s just say, America and Vietnam were like two different worlds.
Interview with Hoang Tran:
Introduction:
Hoang Tran is my father, at age 55 he remembers much of the war. He predominantly lived in Saigon but for a short time during childhood he lived in a small village on the country side. Being drafted into the army, I am sure he has valuable information for me to discover.
What was your role in the Vietnam War?
I started in the army school in 1974, I was a soldier in training. I had not yet completed the training course when the war was over. When the communist took the city of Saigon, they came into the school and dispersed us all. We were all forced to go back home. I guess militarily, I did not have a very big role because I was still in training.
What were you doing before you were drafted?
Before joining the army, I was a student in school. At the time I was currently finishing up high school. Also, I was really involved with the church and had been studying to become a priest. I would go to the monastery after school whenever I could. My mother finally noticed my interest in religion and suggested that I join their classes. Here I met long life friends. But I was not able to become a priest and neither did many of my other classmates. It was a hard time period. Many of us had to leave class. Looking back at my class photo, I can tell you who’s currently living in America or Vietnam, or who has passed away. They were all good friends. Remember all those old men who came to our house for your brother’s wedding? They were my classmates! We had not seen each other for many years. I remembered, since we all had really common names, they’d give us a number. They called me Hoang64, and that’s what they still called me when we met for the first time in 30 years.
What were your thoughts when you were drafted?
I felt very nationalistic about it. I felt as if it was my duty to become a soldier and fight for my country. I was 19 then and was eager to join the army. My mother was very worried for me and did not want me to leave. I was her eldest son; she couldn’t have been able to bear losing me. Looking back, I was pretty reckless with my eagerness to join the army. At the time, I did not think about life or death. All the propaganda had filled my mind with nationalistic ideas. After the Americans had left, the army was in great need for more soldiers, and I couldn’t have been happier to serve my country.
One thing I remember that they taught us was that when we were in battle, anyone who was facing you on the opposite side… we shoot them. We were all Vietnamese. Vietnamese killing other Vietnamese. The Americans had already left, I don’t know how they were able to differentiate from us and the Viet Cong when even we had trouble. The Viet Cong did not have any sort of uniform. But now it was just us. The Americans had left and now the whole weight of the war was on us. We had to fight off the Viet Cong. Communist, yes, but nonetheless they were still Vietnamese. That was one thing I had trouble with. The thought of killing a fellow brother.
How has your life changed after the war?
They then did a 3 day re-educating program where they taught us of the new ways they were trying to incorporate. I didn’t really make of it much. It was just really tedious for me. I really tried to ignore all the nonsense they were trying to tell us. But what really pissed me off was that they changed the city name to Ho Chi Minh City and even changed the flag to some communist starred flag. It was quite hideous. But it became illegal for us to even have the old flag. We had to throw them away or hide them if we had any. They were trying to force us all to become communist.
How is life in America?
It is hard. But no doubt we are better off here than we were in Vietnam. Luckily I was able to continue my profession as a truck driver here in America. After the war and returning to the city, I had taken up this job. It was really all I could get because I was never able to finish school. It made decent money and every now and then I would run into a little extra money on the way. I can’t tell you how though. But the truck driving here in America is a lot different than when I was in Vietnam. Things are a lot more organized that I can’t do any sorts of “hustles” to get that bit of extra money. It was really hard for me to start off. We had very little money to start with and I didn’t have a truck to drive. I had to borrow one from a friend and from there I saved up my money until I was able to buy my own truck. Your mom also gave me a lot of trouble. Ever since we moved here she has been more and more troublesome. I really don’t want to tell you though for she might hear me nagging about her. Let’s just say things here are much more complicated than they are in Vietnam. A lot of conflicts and problems have formed since we moved here. But then again a lot of problems were solved.
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Showing posts with label Sino-Vietnamese War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sino-Vietnamese War. Show all posts
Chinese immigration - Vinh Mao
Interview #1
China, in my dad’s point of view, was a horrendous place to spend a childhood when he was born in 1947. In fact, he had to move to Vietnam and experience even more strenuous handlings within, moving from Hainan to Hong Kong, and working for a living. All of that changed when he moved to the United Sates via airplane, rather than by boat. Moreover, this experience made him feel lucky in many ways. In his point of view, from when he was born until 1982, seeing the danger is better than reading about it.
Nothing good came about in China, because my family and I were in danger. The government asked for the wealth gap to close down, and one way to do that was to have the rich people give money to the poor as much as possible. We hear of people anyway that keep all the land, the money, and the assets for themselves, so they would be dragged out until they bled to death by the numerous scratches on their back. This served later as a warning for nobody to be too greedy, but it also gave poorer workers an excuse to steal money off of just about anybody. However, they would target the rich people and if they didn’t give us any money, then that’s when they drag you out.
All of us were impoverished by that time, so we had no choice but to blame the rich folks ourselves while we protected what we had.
My dad perished among this crowd, but now I just forgot whether he interfered with the desperate workers. Anyway, we were in trouble, so my mom wanted us to leave for Vietnam to a cousin of hers already in Vietnam immediately after his death in 1953. Those poor workers in Dongxing would stop at nothing to get only themselves rich. They would be killed instead if they were found out, though. How did that sound to everyone else who was between poor and rich? The same thing: fear and no peace as they hopelessly thought they would be next. That didn’t include my family; we couldn’t feed ourselves…
I just heard from my mom that Vietnam would be better and such; it wasn’t as horrible as China at that time, so we took some chances and packed up, crossing the border like there was nothing to stop us. Here I was only two to three years old, and there isn’t much I would remember about this moment. All I thought about was how we would get there without dying.
All I remember was that Vietnam was not as good as China but in fact even worse. My family still lived in poverty over at the Hon Gai ward in North Vietnam. I only worked as a fisherman, carrying fish that were heavier than me and making only 20 cents in U.S. currency, I believe. I felt like I was doing farming for only my family, enough just for them. At the same time, not everyone was willing to help each other out when the economy was still bad from the war raging even in about 1977. So how would I live here anyway? I always asked myself this question every day as I worked with effort and earned much less than I should be getting.
The big change came in 1979, when South Vietnam won and North Vietnam lost, bringing every Chinese man and woman out of the North Vietnamese territory. I knew, though, that we were welcome anytime because we were authentically Chinese who needed another route to life from the understandably harsh government. I just don’t understand what happened with the Vietnamese-Chinese people in South Vietnam; if their side won, were they still advised to get out? Either way, I had to return to my hometown; Cambodia and the other countries meant nothing to any of us. Besides, we would only feel safe if we traveled by boat to Hong Kong, not Hainan and those other poorer cities.
In Hong Kong during 1979, it felt great; the air quality matched the one in the U.S. today and businesses and schools were decent. I even reviewed Cantonese there too! I learned Cantonese when I was in Vietnam, and I learned Vietnamese there too. In addition, I learned some English to keep me updated with the world.
In 1980, I found some more opportunity because I had much more work to do and made much more money too. I began working as an architect but got bored of it later and ended up delivering goods on boats. They included iron, yellow beans, oranges, and other necessities that I strived to earn with the underpayments I was getting. Even with that, I still made less than $2 in U.S. currency per day, still not enough to take care of my mom when she was in need of it to buy food and clothing, copious around Hong Kong.
Later, I heard about the U.S., not from my Cantonese classes at school, but from my worker friends who had the same goal as me: to make a living and live with those meager wages as much as possible. Most of my friends also came from Vietnam after it shooed us away and in fact the rest of Hong Kong knew about this; if they didn’t then how did we ever make it here and why did we? None of us were intruders; we were just refugees. And now I would become a refugee in the U.S. but a legal one. I wanted to go to the U.S. because I, like other people, needed a better life and Hong Kong was still inadequate at the time.
All I had to do was petition for one from the government. Simple as that. Then I could go on an airplane without paying because as a legal refugee, I had a visa and that was all it required. Once my name was called, that was it for me in Hong Kong. I never said goodbye to any of my worker friends, who felt more helpful in supporting each other in a time of poverty, unlike back in Vietnam, but I will always remember them when I can because I would have experienced the same kind of labor back at Vietnam without them.
I could not have chosen a better time to enter into the U.S. since I knew English and the spread of my language would be the best I could give for not just the U.S., but any country if I had to go there. But I chose the U.S. mostly because of the reasons my friends gave me. One of them included the money I could get and the lifestyle I could live. I did not want to be too rich just in case I would be hated by everyone, and I don’t know if I can handle that.
When I did arrive over to the U.S., I wanted to look around. Specifically, I chose Seattle, but only back in Alabama where I worked as an oyster seller, because magazines told me of the Seattle Space Needle and the grand Downtown Seattle; those attracted me, and making $50 a day made perfect sense to go there and live a dream I wanted to see.
Today Vietnam should be much better than before. If I had the chance, I would go back there and put my past memories aside to make new happy ones.
Interview #2
In 1966, my mom was born in Vietnam, later finding out the Sino-Vietnamese War was closer to her than she thought. This involves the loss of Vietnamese-Chinese education, and the Sino-Vietnamese War, both taking deadly blows on the diversity in the world. However, China was the next best bet, and it helped her marry and come over to Seattle, Washington, safely and with ease. Today, she is 44 years old.
I learned so much as the best student there was in the class. In Vietnam, every subject that school children today have to learn was there: math, history, science, foreign language, and other classes, those I did not get to choose myself. Either I passed the class and moved onto the next level or stayed behind while everyone else jumped ahead of me. However, I have never flunked a class, and those who did, I felt sorry for them and try to help them out by studying with them.
Mostly, I learned history of the Chinese and Vietnamese in class, and I even learned both Cantonese and Vietnamese. Now, I think that it was odd for the Cantonese to make their way onto Vietnam and bring their language into these schools of another country. In fact, they did, and I learned them efficiently up to today. Therefore, I spent my 7th and 8th grade years in the best way I could: excelling in all my classes and hanging out with my Chinese and Vietnamese friends whenever I could. Plus, I didn’t have to work like some of my other classmates did, so I focused on studying and only studying.
But what I didn’t know was that that Vietnam plotted itself against the U.S. in a war, and we were all being put in danger. Actually, every Vietnamese person got very hostile on us Chinese, because of the history back then between the two of our countries; did they concern China’s conquest of the country and the Trung sisters? If so, then that’s not rational of them. But it came to me later that there was no reason why the Vietnamese wanted the Chinese out.
And so they weren’t rational, and used it as the reason for the hostility. All my Vietnamese friends ditched me and boldly ignored me while they talked bad stuff about my culture and how they lost to the Chinese. Eventually, the schools of Vietnam banned all studies of Chinese, Cantonese, and Mandarin; basically, they wanted everything Chinese swept from the eyes of the Vietnamese. Now most of my Chinese friends and I lost an education for a couple of years when the Vietnamese wanted ALL of us out of their country. But when they meant all of us, I’ve always wondered if that included the Vietnamese-Chinese back in South Vietnam, since schools only taught texts and all other subjects in Vietnamese instead of Chinese; that would have led to extreme miscommunication and loss of direction for anyone in South Vietnam. So I ran off to China with my family, who had ancestry to the Chinese and were allowed, along with me, through the borders to China. I didn’t want to see the gory deaths, if there were any, which I doubt to this day.
I never heard of the name for this war until after I made it into the U.S., and that it had a name: the Sino-Vietnamese War. I’ve always thought of this war as something similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act in the Americas.
In 1979, I ended up in Dongxing, crossing through the border by boat. After that, it was all work once I was later brought to Lingshan by my parents, just a little to the north of Dongxing. Of course, I could finally go to school there and went up until high school in the 10th grade; back then, there was no 11th or 12th grade, probably because we only had to learn so much to work in the farms. Actually, the farms consisted of planting every kind of fruit, which felt extremely tiresome; agriculture was not my thing, but I wasn’t the one working in the fields. Instead, I stayed home and played around in my new home, also learning to cook from my grandmother by simply watching her and doing it by myself. In fact, I began cooking the same dishes my mother cooked throughout the time! My classmates had to work to support their family, but my family was more decent because they worked and knew I was too young to handle the muscle work.
I still couldn’t choose my classes back in China, but I did feel relieved that there were no more restrictions on what I should know. I reviewed Cantonese and Mandarin at once and didn’t hear much Vietnamese until I came to the U.S. a decade later. Before that, I spent that decade going through school and relying on subsistence farming done by my father in the farms. I think this was the best part of the story, because I did not need too much and I did not want too little of anything. Life in China was truly better than in Vietnam.
Later, my friends told me that the U.S. felt better to them and that they wanted to move there for the lifestyle that people would dream of. Of course, they found the life in China just not enough for them. But I thought it was if you could make the most out of it. Besides, I graduated from high school and lived a free life.
My life actually felt freer, especially when I was welcomed to the U.S. by my future husband, who was already in Seattle, Washington. All I had to do to seal the marriage was to ask the government to get me the documents to fill out to go to America, and prove that I had someone related to me coming over to pick me up. I always knew this law for the government would apply if I was not born in China, but I would still be a legal refugee in America with a visa after sending in the documents. Later, I went to Hong Kong in early 1992 for the first time and met up with my future husband at the airport. He knew Hong Kong all along because he was there before I was. In fact, I had nothing to worry about.
The airport immediately accepted me for a ride on an airplane to the U.S., and I was glad. I heard that some of my friends took boats to go to the U.S., but I knew it would be dangerous and that it may get lost and possibly sink under impact of large winds.
Looking through the skies, the airplane carried me over to Seattle, and I remember seeing the Space Needle from an angle, one that made me feel taller than the structure. I would want to go there, but not after checking out American life. I was new to the U.S., but my husband was not. I just need to get used to everything that comes at me, and that makes me feel good. It was time for me to make a new start in my life and make things right!
Interview #3
She was born in 1963, hearing more about the history than what she could imagine. At that point in time, she also escaped the Sino-Vietnamese War as a refugee in 1979 but ended up in Hainan and eventually to Nanning for the purpose of farming and such. Once again, like all other immigrants, she made this switch to the U.S. way of life in order to keep her survival on track. Truly, she owes it to the fact that she could stay around Nanning and make a decent amount of money in time. However, as one of my mom’s friends, she has a similar story close to hers.
Learning too much could have been the best part of my life because I knew so much that I could fill up five books with what I knew! Vietnam’s schools taught me so much about the history of the country and China itself. I even learned Cantonese when I had the time to do so in class. It was a good thing that the schools taught it and that I could be part of it. I even remember this being taught during preschool too! At only five or six years old, I made so much progress in my life to become the smartest historian.
However, everything changed when I heard that all my Vietnamese friends would leave me in the dust and forget about me, all because the Trung sisters defied my race, committed suicide for their acts, were caught by the Chinese… I felt so confused because this is not the best reason to kick us out. They know there’s a war going on and it made perfect sense to make the people feel as if they were threatened by the war, not the fact that the Chinese made all of this happen. I guess it was because we were making up too much of the population in Vietnam; after all, I saw an equal number of my kind in school like the Vietnamese.
Being kicked out felt like the world was crushing down. First, I don’t get the full education I wanted because the government of Vietnam banned both Mandarin and Cantonese lessons, along with all translations of school subjects in those languages. I was fine with learning Vietnamese, but I wanted the best out of my education back then because I wanted to be the best student. Anyway, I really wanted to go back to Vietnam and see everyone who has denied my chance to talk them out of hating me. None of this seemed reasonable to me anymore because I wouldn’t do this to another race!
But I had to go anyway, for my own good. I already began to hear people talking about how their relatives died straight from the mouths of my Chinese and Vietnamese friends alike. I never actually got to see the deaths in any chance, and all I could do was listen to the Chinese and make the nicest comments I had; I could only watch as the Vietnamese hopelessly slandered me and my culture without considering the fact that we are all people. Therefore, I crossed the border of North Vietnam and made my way over to Hainan, a place where I was waiting to be deported to another place from.
My family was too poor to do anything expect get all of us some fruit from the trees of other people’s farms to eat. But Hainan did not have as much farming as my family and I had hoped. So I waited and waited, until my parents finally decided to walk and cross more to Nanning, a place full of farming and agriculture, and recommended by some of my mother’s friends who have already made the journey there.
I loved crossing any rivers because I knew they were safe at all costs. It seemed to me that every time I looked at a river, I would close my eyes and dream of a better life, one that is as tranquil and peaceful as the flowing water and the quietly whistling trees. I would soon hear of a place that seemed to match this description and make my dreams come true right before my eyes.
I thought that Nanning would be the most beautiful place and it was. Farmlands surrounded the farm houses that were built just near them, and unfortunately, I had to working them to support the family. This meant I lost my education and had to become a working object, a slave, if I could think of another word for it. In fact, many children like me during that time faced the same thing; they came from the time when Vietnam shooed every Chinese man and woman from the premises of their own country.
Eventually, I heard that the U.S. would be the best kind of thing there was in the world. I mean, they seemed to be exaggerating, but I heard of jobs that let people make $20 an hour, compared to a small, crumb-sized $4 an hour for working and not much profit from the fruits and veggies made. I remember that they told me that they heard all this from recently published newspapers about the development of the U.S. from the Great Depression until now. Plus, they have freedom of speech, a lack of discrimination for the Chinese ever since WWII, and a sense of pride that I would enjoy. All I had to do was get a visa. Besides, my uncle already settled into the U.S. long before I was even born, and I could use that to make my documents legal. Later, I would become a legal refugee as the government of Hong Kong called it, and I would travel alone without my parents to another country and another surrounding.
On the plane, I wondered about where I should go to. I knew of the California Gold Rush, but that was back in the 1800s or something. Then I remembered Seattle, Washington, a city that one man talked about briefly but excitedly back in China. This was because I would land in either Los Angeles, California, or Seattle. But when the airport reached Los Angeles, I just sat there, getting up and sitting back down multiple times. Then break was over, and the doors went shut. Now I knew my destination was clear…
China, in my dad’s point of view, was a horrendous place to spend a childhood when he was born in 1947. In fact, he had to move to Vietnam and experience even more strenuous handlings within, moving from Hainan to Hong Kong, and working for a living. All of that changed when he moved to the United Sates via airplane, rather than by boat. Moreover, this experience made him feel lucky in many ways. In his point of view, from when he was born until 1982, seeing the danger is better than reading about it.
Nothing good came about in China, because my family and I were in danger. The government asked for the wealth gap to close down, and one way to do that was to have the rich people give money to the poor as much as possible. We hear of people anyway that keep all the land, the money, and the assets for themselves, so they would be dragged out until they bled to death by the numerous scratches on their back. This served later as a warning for nobody to be too greedy, but it also gave poorer workers an excuse to steal money off of just about anybody. However, they would target the rich people and if they didn’t give us any money, then that’s when they drag you out.
All of us were impoverished by that time, so we had no choice but to blame the rich folks ourselves while we protected what we had.
My dad perished among this crowd, but now I just forgot whether he interfered with the desperate workers. Anyway, we were in trouble, so my mom wanted us to leave for Vietnam to a cousin of hers already in Vietnam immediately after his death in 1953. Those poor workers in Dongxing would stop at nothing to get only themselves rich. They would be killed instead if they were found out, though. How did that sound to everyone else who was between poor and rich? The same thing: fear and no peace as they hopelessly thought they would be next. That didn’t include my family; we couldn’t feed ourselves…
I just heard from my mom that Vietnam would be better and such; it wasn’t as horrible as China at that time, so we took some chances and packed up, crossing the border like there was nothing to stop us. Here I was only two to three years old, and there isn’t much I would remember about this moment. All I thought about was how we would get there without dying.
All I remember was that Vietnam was not as good as China but in fact even worse. My family still lived in poverty over at the Hon Gai ward in North Vietnam. I only worked as a fisherman, carrying fish that were heavier than me and making only 20 cents in U.S. currency, I believe. I felt like I was doing farming for only my family, enough just for them. At the same time, not everyone was willing to help each other out when the economy was still bad from the war raging even in about 1977. So how would I live here anyway? I always asked myself this question every day as I worked with effort and earned much less than I should be getting.
The big change came in 1979, when South Vietnam won and North Vietnam lost, bringing every Chinese man and woman out of the North Vietnamese territory. I knew, though, that we were welcome anytime because we were authentically Chinese who needed another route to life from the understandably harsh government. I just don’t understand what happened with the Vietnamese-Chinese people in South Vietnam; if their side won, were they still advised to get out? Either way, I had to return to my hometown; Cambodia and the other countries meant nothing to any of us. Besides, we would only feel safe if we traveled by boat to Hong Kong, not Hainan and those other poorer cities.
In Hong Kong during 1979, it felt great; the air quality matched the one in the U.S. today and businesses and schools were decent. I even reviewed Cantonese there too! I learned Cantonese when I was in Vietnam, and I learned Vietnamese there too. In addition, I learned some English to keep me updated with the world.
In 1980, I found some more opportunity because I had much more work to do and made much more money too. I began working as an architect but got bored of it later and ended up delivering goods on boats. They included iron, yellow beans, oranges, and other necessities that I strived to earn with the underpayments I was getting. Even with that, I still made less than $2 in U.S. currency per day, still not enough to take care of my mom when she was in need of it to buy food and clothing, copious around Hong Kong.
Later, I heard about the U.S., not from my Cantonese classes at school, but from my worker friends who had the same goal as me: to make a living and live with those meager wages as much as possible. Most of my friends also came from Vietnam after it shooed us away and in fact the rest of Hong Kong knew about this; if they didn’t then how did we ever make it here and why did we? None of us were intruders; we were just refugees. And now I would become a refugee in the U.S. but a legal one. I wanted to go to the U.S. because I, like other people, needed a better life and Hong Kong was still inadequate at the time.
All I had to do was petition for one from the government. Simple as that. Then I could go on an airplane without paying because as a legal refugee, I had a visa and that was all it required. Once my name was called, that was it for me in Hong Kong. I never said goodbye to any of my worker friends, who felt more helpful in supporting each other in a time of poverty, unlike back in Vietnam, but I will always remember them when I can because I would have experienced the same kind of labor back at Vietnam without them.
I could not have chosen a better time to enter into the U.S. since I knew English and the spread of my language would be the best I could give for not just the U.S., but any country if I had to go there. But I chose the U.S. mostly because of the reasons my friends gave me. One of them included the money I could get and the lifestyle I could live. I did not want to be too rich just in case I would be hated by everyone, and I don’t know if I can handle that.
When I did arrive over to the U.S., I wanted to look around. Specifically, I chose Seattle, but only back in Alabama where I worked as an oyster seller, because magazines told me of the Seattle Space Needle and the grand Downtown Seattle; those attracted me, and making $50 a day made perfect sense to go there and live a dream I wanted to see.
Today Vietnam should be much better than before. If I had the chance, I would go back there and put my past memories aside to make new happy ones.
Interview #2
In 1966, my mom was born in Vietnam, later finding out the Sino-Vietnamese War was closer to her than she thought. This involves the loss of Vietnamese-Chinese education, and the Sino-Vietnamese War, both taking deadly blows on the diversity in the world. However, China was the next best bet, and it helped her marry and come over to Seattle, Washington, safely and with ease. Today, she is 44 years old.
I learned so much as the best student there was in the class. In Vietnam, every subject that school children today have to learn was there: math, history, science, foreign language, and other classes, those I did not get to choose myself. Either I passed the class and moved onto the next level or stayed behind while everyone else jumped ahead of me. However, I have never flunked a class, and those who did, I felt sorry for them and try to help them out by studying with them.
Mostly, I learned history of the Chinese and Vietnamese in class, and I even learned both Cantonese and Vietnamese. Now, I think that it was odd for the Cantonese to make their way onto Vietnam and bring their language into these schools of another country. In fact, they did, and I learned them efficiently up to today. Therefore, I spent my 7th and 8th grade years in the best way I could: excelling in all my classes and hanging out with my Chinese and Vietnamese friends whenever I could. Plus, I didn’t have to work like some of my other classmates did, so I focused on studying and only studying.
But what I didn’t know was that that Vietnam plotted itself against the U.S. in a war, and we were all being put in danger. Actually, every Vietnamese person got very hostile on us Chinese, because of the history back then between the two of our countries; did they concern China’s conquest of the country and the Trung sisters? If so, then that’s not rational of them. But it came to me later that there was no reason why the Vietnamese wanted the Chinese out.
And so they weren’t rational, and used it as the reason for the hostility. All my Vietnamese friends ditched me and boldly ignored me while they talked bad stuff about my culture and how they lost to the Chinese. Eventually, the schools of Vietnam banned all studies of Chinese, Cantonese, and Mandarin; basically, they wanted everything Chinese swept from the eyes of the Vietnamese. Now most of my Chinese friends and I lost an education for a couple of years when the Vietnamese wanted ALL of us out of their country. But when they meant all of us, I’ve always wondered if that included the Vietnamese-Chinese back in South Vietnam, since schools only taught texts and all other subjects in Vietnamese instead of Chinese; that would have led to extreme miscommunication and loss of direction for anyone in South Vietnam. So I ran off to China with my family, who had ancestry to the Chinese and were allowed, along with me, through the borders to China. I didn’t want to see the gory deaths, if there were any, which I doubt to this day.
I never heard of the name for this war until after I made it into the U.S., and that it had a name: the Sino-Vietnamese War. I’ve always thought of this war as something similar to the Chinese Exclusion Act in the Americas.
In 1979, I ended up in Dongxing, crossing through the border by boat. After that, it was all work once I was later brought to Lingshan by my parents, just a little to the north of Dongxing. Of course, I could finally go to school there and went up until high school in the 10th grade; back then, there was no 11th or 12th grade, probably because we only had to learn so much to work in the farms. Actually, the farms consisted of planting every kind of fruit, which felt extremely tiresome; agriculture was not my thing, but I wasn’t the one working in the fields. Instead, I stayed home and played around in my new home, also learning to cook from my grandmother by simply watching her and doing it by myself. In fact, I began cooking the same dishes my mother cooked throughout the time! My classmates had to work to support their family, but my family was more decent because they worked and knew I was too young to handle the muscle work.
I still couldn’t choose my classes back in China, but I did feel relieved that there were no more restrictions on what I should know. I reviewed Cantonese and Mandarin at once and didn’t hear much Vietnamese until I came to the U.S. a decade later. Before that, I spent that decade going through school and relying on subsistence farming done by my father in the farms. I think this was the best part of the story, because I did not need too much and I did not want too little of anything. Life in China was truly better than in Vietnam.
Later, my friends told me that the U.S. felt better to them and that they wanted to move there for the lifestyle that people would dream of. Of course, they found the life in China just not enough for them. But I thought it was if you could make the most out of it. Besides, I graduated from high school and lived a free life.
My life actually felt freer, especially when I was welcomed to the U.S. by my future husband, who was already in Seattle, Washington. All I had to do to seal the marriage was to ask the government to get me the documents to fill out to go to America, and prove that I had someone related to me coming over to pick me up. I always knew this law for the government would apply if I was not born in China, but I would still be a legal refugee in America with a visa after sending in the documents. Later, I went to Hong Kong in early 1992 for the first time and met up with my future husband at the airport. He knew Hong Kong all along because he was there before I was. In fact, I had nothing to worry about.
The airport immediately accepted me for a ride on an airplane to the U.S., and I was glad. I heard that some of my friends took boats to go to the U.S., but I knew it would be dangerous and that it may get lost and possibly sink under impact of large winds.
Looking through the skies, the airplane carried me over to Seattle, and I remember seeing the Space Needle from an angle, one that made me feel taller than the structure. I would want to go there, but not after checking out American life. I was new to the U.S., but my husband was not. I just need to get used to everything that comes at me, and that makes me feel good. It was time for me to make a new start in my life and make things right!
Interview #3
She was born in 1963, hearing more about the history than what she could imagine. At that point in time, she also escaped the Sino-Vietnamese War as a refugee in 1979 but ended up in Hainan and eventually to Nanning for the purpose of farming and such. Once again, like all other immigrants, she made this switch to the U.S. way of life in order to keep her survival on track. Truly, she owes it to the fact that she could stay around Nanning and make a decent amount of money in time. However, as one of my mom’s friends, she has a similar story close to hers.
Learning too much could have been the best part of my life because I knew so much that I could fill up five books with what I knew! Vietnam’s schools taught me so much about the history of the country and China itself. I even learned Cantonese when I had the time to do so in class. It was a good thing that the schools taught it and that I could be part of it. I even remember this being taught during preschool too! At only five or six years old, I made so much progress in my life to become the smartest historian.
However, everything changed when I heard that all my Vietnamese friends would leave me in the dust and forget about me, all because the Trung sisters defied my race, committed suicide for their acts, were caught by the Chinese… I felt so confused because this is not the best reason to kick us out. They know there’s a war going on and it made perfect sense to make the people feel as if they were threatened by the war, not the fact that the Chinese made all of this happen. I guess it was because we were making up too much of the population in Vietnam; after all, I saw an equal number of my kind in school like the Vietnamese.
Being kicked out felt like the world was crushing down. First, I don’t get the full education I wanted because the government of Vietnam banned both Mandarin and Cantonese lessons, along with all translations of school subjects in those languages. I was fine with learning Vietnamese, but I wanted the best out of my education back then because I wanted to be the best student. Anyway, I really wanted to go back to Vietnam and see everyone who has denied my chance to talk them out of hating me. None of this seemed reasonable to me anymore because I wouldn’t do this to another race!
But I had to go anyway, for my own good. I already began to hear people talking about how their relatives died straight from the mouths of my Chinese and Vietnamese friends alike. I never actually got to see the deaths in any chance, and all I could do was listen to the Chinese and make the nicest comments I had; I could only watch as the Vietnamese hopelessly slandered me and my culture without considering the fact that we are all people. Therefore, I crossed the border of North Vietnam and made my way over to Hainan, a place where I was waiting to be deported to another place from.
My family was too poor to do anything expect get all of us some fruit from the trees of other people’s farms to eat. But Hainan did not have as much farming as my family and I had hoped. So I waited and waited, until my parents finally decided to walk and cross more to Nanning, a place full of farming and agriculture, and recommended by some of my mother’s friends who have already made the journey there.
I loved crossing any rivers because I knew they were safe at all costs. It seemed to me that every time I looked at a river, I would close my eyes and dream of a better life, one that is as tranquil and peaceful as the flowing water and the quietly whistling trees. I would soon hear of a place that seemed to match this description and make my dreams come true right before my eyes.
I thought that Nanning would be the most beautiful place and it was. Farmlands surrounded the farm houses that were built just near them, and unfortunately, I had to working them to support the family. This meant I lost my education and had to become a working object, a slave, if I could think of another word for it. In fact, many children like me during that time faced the same thing; they came from the time when Vietnam shooed every Chinese man and woman from the premises of their own country.
Eventually, I heard that the U.S. would be the best kind of thing there was in the world. I mean, they seemed to be exaggerating, but I heard of jobs that let people make $20 an hour, compared to a small, crumb-sized $4 an hour for working and not much profit from the fruits and veggies made. I remember that they told me that they heard all this from recently published newspapers about the development of the U.S. from the Great Depression until now. Plus, they have freedom of speech, a lack of discrimination for the Chinese ever since WWII, and a sense of pride that I would enjoy. All I had to do was get a visa. Besides, my uncle already settled into the U.S. long before I was even born, and I could use that to make my documents legal. Later, I would become a legal refugee as the government of Hong Kong called it, and I would travel alone without my parents to another country and another surrounding.
On the plane, I wondered about where I should go to. I knew of the California Gold Rush, but that was back in the 1800s or something. Then I remembered Seattle, Washington, a city that one man talked about briefly but excitedly back in China. This was because I would land in either Los Angeles, California, or Seattle. But when the airport reached Los Angeles, I just sat there, getting up and sitting back down multiple times. Then break was over, and the doors went shut. Now I knew my destination was clear…
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