Memories of fall of Saigon still haunt Vietnamese refugees [Part II]

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Thirty-six years ago, the first wave of Vietnamese refugees landed on American soil. They had left in a hurry -- most of them carried nothing but the clothes on their backs. Many of these refugees have built successful lives in their second homeland. Some continue to struggle -- they face discrimination and poverty. But for many, no matter how successful, the memories of a lost country still remain a part of everyday life.

Reporter Christine Trang's parents fled to California in 1975, shortly after the fall of Saigon. Christine was born eight years later. This year, she sat down with three Vietnamese-Americans old enough to remember their first impressions of a new country. But first, Christine begins with a story of her own.

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The first thing my mother learned about America was back in Saigon in the early 1970s. She used to watch episodes of Bonanza and Mission Impossible. She understood some of the storyline -- but she also enjoyed the beauty and fashion. Women wore beautiful dresses, fancy shoes and sparkling jewelry. Through her eyes, Americans seemed to be the richest people in the world.

But memories like that don't just belong to my mother.

"I loved America even when I was young, way before in 1975."

Susan Nguyen recalls the moment three men landed on the moon in 1969. She watched on her small black and white television in Vietnam -- transfixed by what she saw -- aware that it was real but very far away. That was her first impression of America. She was 24 years old.

"One of 'em, his name is Neil Armstrong -- he was so handsome," Nguyen said. "So, I remember about Red Cross, about American soldiers, about very wealthy country; they do a lot of charity works, and they are the first pioneers in many areas."

For many Vietnamese back then, America was just an idea -- a place of dreams. For one Vietnamese boy, there were even dreams about something called a recreational vehicle. He'd never heard anything like it -- a motor vehicle equipped with living space?

"And he go, 'Oh yeah, this automobile have like, bathroom and shower and stuff," Yau Dang said. "It's, oh, it's beautiful. It's this big car with everything in there. And, you know, when you're a kid, that's like, 'Oh my god, that is so awesome.'"

As a boy living in Saigon, Dang also heard incredible stories from his uncle, already in America, about a theme park divided into make believe lands -- with seamless passages from one land to the next. In just one day, he could experience a 20th century Midwest town on Main Street, a jungle-themed cruise in Adventureland and an optimistic vision of the future in Tomorrowland.

"I mean, my uncle was like, 'Oh my God, it's Disneyland. It's great. You know, it's all this fun thing there,'" Dang said. "I think, you know, my uncle did that is because so we don't get scared and not wanna come here but that's the story he told us."

For some young Vietnamese, early impressions of America were shaped by a new regime. On April 30, 1975, Saigon fell to the invading North Vietnamese forces. Alan Vo was born that year, and he grew up with very different lessons.

"The things they teach you in school, it's just about praising the government of the communist," Vo said. "That's all they teach you about. But the main thing they teach you in there, is to love Uncle Ho, which is Ho Chi Minh, and praise the communists. They said America was evil -- they said they come in here to destroy the country, to take over the people's country."

But Susan Nguyen, Yau Dang and Alan Vo didn't know they'd soon be learning about America first hand.

When communists took over South Vietnam, Dang's parents lost everything -- communists took their belongings, their money, their business. That's when they decided to leave the country. At 4 a.m. on a cold morning -- from a beach in South Vietnam -- they climbed into a small boat to make their journey to America.

"When they come over here, we had nothing," Dang said. "In our neighborhood, there was a bunch of kids that, you know, we played outside every day and, actually, they were my tutor pretty much speaking English wise. If I have bad English, it's probably their fault."

My father and mother arrived with $120 between them. For them, the first view of America was of a refugee camp at Camp Pendleton. My mother remembers the cries from a woman forced to leave her five children in Vietnam. She recalls another woman weeping each night -- she had left her ill husband behind. All around my parents, people sobbed over a lost country.

Nguyen stayed in a camp, too. But she doesn't consider those days her first -- her first real day in America, she says, was in July 1975 when she drove from her refugee camp in Pennsylvania to the home of her sponsors -- a minister's family in Bridgewater, New Jersey.

"The scenery was beautiful, the street was clean," Nguyen said. "We arrived at the sponsor's house with many welcomes from his -- from the minister's family and a few members of the church. So, after we arrive, they show us our room. I ate a typical American dinner that night -- steak, salad, mashed potatoes and apple pie for dessert."

But there was one thing Nguyen and her family really missed.

"So I thought to myself, 'Oh my God, we want rice; we don't want meat -- too much meat,'" Nguyen said. "But finally, she took me to the supermarket, so I asked her to bought a big bag of rice, and I asked her, 'Can I cook the rice?' She was shock that I cook like, the whole big pot. She said, 'Can you guys finish this in a month or something?' I said, 'No, we will finish it in two days,' and we sure did."

Nguyen had arrived with just $300, and she knew she had to spend it wisely -- to this day, her most prized possessions are the ones she purchased with that money.

"The first thing that I bought in America I remember so well," Nguyen said. "I bought my pink wedding dress and two wedding rings. That left us just $30 to start our life together."

Dang distinctly remembers his first taste of Coca-Cola. In Vietnam, his relatives never let him drink it -- he could only look.

"And when we saw Coca Cola in the store, it was like, 'Oh my God, it's Coca Cola,'" Dang said. "It's not just the little bottle. This is Texas, so it's like, this big bottle, like... we were like, 'Oh my god, look how big this Coke is.'"

When he saved enough money, Vo bought his very first stereo system. But one of his most prized possessions was the Sony television he purchased for his family -- it was in color.

"The other TV, the first TV that we had was some TV that was broken that we picked up on the street," Vo said.

That was in Westminster, in 1984, when Vo was 9 years old.

"It was a black and white," Vo said. "And then um, it worked for like, a month or so, and then, we tried to fix it, but it would cost too much to fixed."

But Vo also remembers poverty and the shortage of food. At the age of 10, he started working at a nearby vegetable farm.

"Our landlord owns the house that we rent with a big piece of land," Vo said. "It's like, half an acres. And they would grow all kinds of vegetable. He would pay me a full day like, $10 and half a day $5."

The vegetable farm took most of Vo's nights -- he wanted to help support his parents and five siblings. But during the day, he was in school. He says the language barrier there was almost unbearable. Vo still remembers the bullying and the teasing.

"You got picked on a lot," Vo said. "You know, because you were a scrawny little kid, and then, you know, with all the other kid much bigger than you. I remember that in school."

But one child at Vo's school defended him when nobody else did.

"My first name is Alan, and it came from a friend of mine that is named Alan also," Vo said. "I told myself that I'm going to take his name to help other people that are in need if they were like in my shoes."

Dang found American schools challenging, too. He was just 9 years old when he fled Vietnam -- but on paper, he was 7.

"When we come to America, my mom and my dad fibbed my age a little bit -- well, fibbed two years, so we could stay in school a little longer so we could learn English a little longer," Dang said. "So, I'm 42 now, and I shouldn't be saying this, but on paper, I'm 40."

Some children were too young to remember the hardships of war; some, like me, weren't even born. My father told me a story about the Tet Offensive -- a military campaign during the Vietnam War that began in 1968. The eve of Tet -- or Vietnamese New Year's -- was usually celebrated with firecrackers, so when people heard the first gunshots, they dismissed them. But as the shots continued and the differences in the sounds became apparent, people in my father's neighborhood realized they were under attack.

Other people told me stories I'd never heard.

"They used to eat like, cockroaches and, you know, um, roots from trees just to keep them survive," Vo said.

Vo's father endured forced labor for nine years in a concentration camp -- he had worked for the South Vietnam Army Intelligence Agency. He remembers the inhumane conditions.

"And then there's a lot of prisoners in there that got sick, and then what happened is, inside the camp, where they sleep together, the one that throw up, the other one would eat that throw up because that's the only food that they had," Vo said.

Some Vietnamese refugees fled in boats and headed toward the South China Sea. Women and children were raped. Others were robbed of the possessions they carried. Food went quickly -- so quickly that few crew and passengers sometimes ate human flesh out of necessity.

"The first person that just died fresh, you would drink their blood from the head," Vo said.

Several days after my father left Vietnam, communist soldiers invaded my grandmother's home and demanded that she leave -- she was terminally ill with cancer at the time. Her neighbor called a relative of ours nine days later to drive my grandmother to the countryside -- the place where she was born. That night, she passed away.

Since then, my father and mother have not returned to Vietnam -- the memories are still too painful. My parents say they'll return when Vietnam is a free country.

Now, 36 years later, there are more than one million Americans of Vietnamese descent; of those, a little more than 150,000 live in Southern California. They've established a strong community. One of the largest Vietnamese-American enclaves is located in Westminster. It's a slice of Vietnam that some Vietnamese now consider their cultural home.

Dang's family has owned a restaurant there for years. He'll never forget the tough times his family experienced in America -- but he says there's one good thing about their journey here.

"The best part of that is, it got my family together more," Dang said. "I mean, before, when we had money, my parent never really eat together. We never eat together. We always eat separately, you know, separate times. And I wish, not, I don't wish we were poor, but it just seemed like my family worked better when we were struggling."

Vo owns an auto insurance company in Westminster. He says it's most important to be thankful for his parents -- the two people who worked hard to give him an education and a new life.

"Every parents that come to America pretty much sacrificed themselves and they worked their fingers to the bones for their kids to provide whatever they can for educations," Vo said.

Nguyen is a self-employed business woman. She visits Westminster often. She was worried when she first reached America -- what would she do to survive, how would she carry on with so little money. But now, she speaks for many Vietnamese Americans when she says, things are different.

"We went through a lot of hardship and hard times, but I think back, we're very happy," Nguyen said. "Things turned out even much more than I expected. Our kids have grown and have a great future ahead. This is the land of opportunity. No doubt this is heaven on earth."