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19
February, 2001
THE
MOVING STORY OF
A VIETNAMESE REFUGEE
I was born in Japan and grew up in the decade following the US Occupation, and have vivid memories of what Japan was like back then. But to most Americans, once the war was over, Japan became as shrouded in mystery as it must have been in the centuries before it opened up to the West in the 1800s.
| During parts of the book, it's hard to believe that any more tragedy and heartbreak can befall Kien and his family. |
It's only in recent years that the united Vietnam has opened itself to the West in an effort to join the world economy, and allowed Westerners to travel through the country. What little some of us know of Vietnam we know from Vietnamese immigrants and their families. But as with many older Japanese who prefer not to talk about their experiences during WWII, or older Japanese Americans who refused for years to speak out against the injustice of internment, many immigrant Vietnamese seem to avoid dredging up their past. Younger people seem more eager to shares their memories.
Erin and I have had fascinating conversations with the young son of one of the owners of Peking-Tokyo Express, a fine restaurant in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, which serves Chinese and Thai food in addition to superb Vietnamese cuisine. Tommy is in his late 20s, and remembers escaping Vietnam in the 1980s when he was a young boy. He shared some harrowing accounts of his family's escape, and the tragic death of his aunt at the hands of Cambodian pirates who attacked a boat carrying refugees from Vietnam. He recounted how his mother led his family finally to the US, where they rejoined his father, who had escaped earlier. The family came to Denver, and were taken in by another refugee who ran a restaurant, one of the first Vietnamese restaurants in the area.
From there, the family members worked hard together to establish their own eatery, and they have obviously succeeded. His mother runs the business, and his uncles are the chefs. We love dining at Peking-Tokyo Express not only for the great food but also because of the symbol that Tommy's family represents for us, of victory over struggle and adversity.
Recently I was privileged to read an advance copy of a new book that will be published in March, for a book review that will run in the Rocky Mountain News. The book, which is called "The Unwanted," and the story was so moving that I wanted to share some thoughts about it in advance here.
"The Unwanted" is by Kien Nguyen, a 33-year-old dentist living in New York City. He originally wrote the memoir of his family's years of suffering after the fall of Saigon as therapy to purge disturbing dreams that haunted him from his experiences.
I'm sure his story is typical in many ways of many South Vietnamese families in the wake of the war- Tommy and his family must have suffered a similar fate - but two things complicated the Nguyens' life: Kien Nugyen's mother was a successful Capitalist, a glamorous banker who lived a lavish socialite's life in a mansion in the city of Nhatrang. And, Kien and his younger brother Jimmy are both Amerasians - Kien's father was a civil engineer in Vietnam in 1967 who was transferred back to the states, and Jimmy's father was a GI stationed in Nhatrang during a tour of duty.
The book chronicles the horrible treatment the family endured both for their "counterrevolutionary" history and the boys' blonde curly hair. There's an intense scene early on before the Communists arrive at their door, when Kien's mother tries to dye her sons' hair black in an attempt to soften the fate that awaits them.
When the family's attempt to leave Vietnam with the final departure of US troops from Saigon fails, they return to Nhatrang only to find that their gardener has become the community leader and demands to take over the family mansion as a government office. That's just the start of the Nguyens' journey. Even family members mistreat them, and Kien is tortured unmercifully by the Communists when he joins a group of boatpeople but the escape attempt fails. During parts of the book, it's hard to believe that any more tragedy and heartbreak can befall Kien and his family.
The book continues as Kien grows into a man, and suddenly the door to America is opened through diplomatic channels - precisely because of his Amerasian roots. The Orderly Departure program allows Amerasians and their families to leave Vietnam legally - after being screened. Kien writes eloquently of the interview by an American woman that ultimately leads to their providence:
"As soon as she opened the door to her office and invited us in, a blast of cold wind from the air conditioner swallowed me in its gentle, westernized embrace. I took in a deep breath, and suddenly, America was inside my lungs. Next to me, my mother began to cry."
This moving passage is close to the end of Nguyen's epic travails, but amazingly, there are more roadblocks, false hopes, and yes, even more tragedy before the final page.
There is already a movie in the works for the book, and I hope it does the story justice. I also hope Kien Nguyen can find the time to write the rest of his story - after he left Vietnam, his experiences first in a refugee camp in the Philippines and then his assimilation into the US, which I suspect wasn't easy and was fraught with its own perils.
You'll want "The Unwanted" - it's a truly wonderful book and one you won't soon forget.
There are a number of resources on the Internet about Vietnamese refugees and the boatpeople, including The Vietnamese Boatpeople Connection, which features stories by boatpeople of their escape from Vietnam as well as a directory of and resources for boatpeople.