Saigon to Sanctuary: Linh Tran's Journey to America
Profilers: Noah Le, Vivian Juarez, Siddarth Singhal, Emma Reinsvold, Matthew Kim
Introduction
Noah: Yes, why don’t you introduce yourself?
Linh: Hi, my name is Linh Tran. I am Noah’s mom. Yes, I’m here to answer all the questions that you might have about my life, so let’s go. My dad was a colonel and my mom was a school teacher. And I have four other siblings who [are] older than me. I have two older sisters and two older brothers. We own a house in Saigon. We own [a] car and a motorcycle and yeah, we had a good life before 1975.
Life Before The War
What do you remember of life before the communists?
Linh: So, I was like a year old right, when that happened and so I was told, my mom told me stories right, and so yeah I mean we had a good future ahead of us, right. You get to go to school, you are well fed and everything and then after that just you start from scratch again.
What was your childhood like?
Linh: They took my dad away. They took our house away. Everything in our possession they took away and then they moved us to this rural area where there is farmland. There is nobody there and then we, my mom, and my siblings – the older siblings – they all quit school. And there wasn’t any school, they wouldn’t allow us to go to school. They [helped] my mom [build a] mud house so we could live in [it]. And then I remember hunger became a constant part of our lives. And so we [survived] on potatoes, we ate a lot of potatoes and potato leaves as our daily meals. And then for protein we would [catch] the mice, like the mice in the fields or in the house as well, there’s a lot of mice. And then we actually had to borrow rice from neighbors who are doing better because they have gold and stuff that they could sell. So we had to borrow rice and we promised to repay them later. I actually remember helping my mom go into the rice field and actually plant each rice stem into the soil, like the mud. That’s how you grow rice right? I heard that my mom said by age four I already knew how to like, start the fire and cook rice. Other jobs that I had was [to] collect wood from the field so that we can start the fire, right. And then whatever we could grow and gather in the field would be our meal. So we became kind of like a survive day-by-day mode. Without having a future, there’s no jobs except for farming and then maybe fishing in the river, so yep.
What was it like having a father in the South Vietnamese Army?
Linh: It was tough. I was too young, but it was really tough on my mom. After they took my dad away, my mom had to go in and report to them and they actually asked her [things] like “What do you know?” and my mom would pretend that she couldn’t read or write. Yeah so, she had to go in on a weekly basis to report what she did for the week and all of that cause they didn’t want her to be planting something, to fight back right, yeah.
Did you ever have any interactions with the communists?
Linh: I did not, but my mom did because [of] the things that my mom was trying to sell. First, she tried out selling clothes, and then selling meat, but then she had to kind of sneak around because they didn’t want us to do that. So, she had to kind of like [sell] the clothes and the meat [by] hiding behind the scene so when she hears “oh the cop is coming” or something then they would run away and hide the stuff. I have to ask my mom why that is but it wasn’t allowed or something, for her to sell. And also, right, my sister didn’t get to go to school either because we were the sons and the daughters of the South [Vietnamese].
Were the children from the North able to get educated?
Linh: Yeah, they get to go to school. I think yeah, I think, my sisters and my brothers, because we were so poor we didn’t have anything and so they actually had to help with the farming. But, from what I heard, they could not go to school after like grade nine. So we could not afford to go to school, right? Yeah, we had to think about what to eat everyday. But after grade nine, I heard that the people that were able to go to school, they couldn’t go anymore after grade nine.
How did your family stay afloat economically?
Linh: Yeah so, so like I said, we would grow potatoes and peanuts. We also grew peanuts. Yeah, and just fish, go fishing at the local river for food. That’s it. That’s all we did to survive. There’s no jobs that you can have, like working at McDonalds [or] anything like that right, so there were no jobs, absolutely no jobs. If you’re very smart, and you like school, right, I mean even if you want to study, you won’t be able to get in to study. Even if you get to study and you graduate right, they won’t hire you because they would save whatever job there [was] at the time to the communist party. They get the priority.
What was the most motivating factor behind your family’s flee from Vietnam?
Linh: Because there wasn’t anything to look forward to. It’s like, are we going to be doing farming our [entire] life, right? I mean, are we going to be able to learn? At the time, I didn’t know the world was round. I thought it was a square. I mean we absolutely [had] no education so, this is like another thing that’s crazy, kids, you know I would remember thinking if you sit next to a boy then you could become pregnant. So that’s how stupid we were. Because we knew nothing. What triggered us to move? Because the life was so bad, right, cause we didn’t have enough food and then my uncle, he was a low ranking officer at the time. He got released from prison after eight years and so he suggested we move to a place called Vung Tau, where it’s closer to the ocean. We can plan to escape on [a] boat because there’s no future for the kids staying around, right, because you can’t go to school, you can’t do anything, there’s no jobs. And so we moved to Vung Tau, instead of doing farming [in] the rural area, that’s where I found out my mom was trying to sell stuff to make ends meet everyday. And that’s how she got chased by the-
Noah: The communists?
Linh: The police, yes, yes. And my uncle actually had connections to the boat builder, and so what we did was my mom was able to, at Vung Tau we actually built [a] mud house again. So we lived in like, you know, little mud house. There’s no bedroom like here, where you have just one common room and everyone kind of like [sleeps] on the floor. So we had connections, my uncle had connections to the people organizing the boat escapes from Vietnam. So, we were able to [hide] some of those people that [were] fleeing in our house. Those people were mainly from Saigon, so they [needed] a place to stay to get on the boat without being arrested. So we would give them a chance, you know, to stay at our house. We hid them, right, because if they found out that we did that they would arrest us. For doing that, in return, [my] mom would make some money, and then also if you get to hide people you know, a certain number of people, then you get one spot on the boat. And so that’s how my mom was able to send every single kid on separate boats. So, I was the last one that my mom sent and I went with my neighbor. I was, I believe, thirteen at the time. And I do know that when my sister and my brother left me, before us, my mom was super sad because she didn’t hear back from my brother or sister and so we didn’t get letters or anything. So, when you don’t have that, you would assume that your kids [died] in the ocean. But luckily for us, the five siblings, we made it, yeah.
Escape and Life as a Refugee
Linh: It took me two tries to escape. So the first one that I got on, we didn’t get very far, and then there was a storm and I remember everyone on the boat was praying and crying so bad because the engine had stopped working and then we saw waves like way high up. It’s like, just think, you’re just a little leaf, right, in the ocean and then you could see the waves. And then after that, the boat actually got pushed into the land and then we got arrested. And the people, like the older people, they would keep them, one year, two [years], depending on if you have money to bribe, to bring them out. But, they released the kids so I got to go home. And then the second time that I escaped I also went with my neighbor. And after one week at sea, one of the [people] on the boat passed away, so they threw his body in the ocean. On day probably eight or nine the pirate saw us and so they came to the boat and they asked everyone to, if you have gold rings or whatever, give it to them. So, they did that, they took everything and then they let us go. On day ten we got to this oil rig, in the ocean. That’s the first time I saw something in the ocean. That was pretty interesting. So [at] the oil rig they… they [showed] us where to go so we reached Indonesia on day 14.
What did you have to eat on the boat for those 14 days?
Linh: We had noodles and then just water. So you would have some noodles like [a] little bit every day cause my boat we had 60 people on the little boat. So everyone [would] sit together like sardines yeah like tight. There’s no wiggle room. And then if you go you just sit there and you go, you don’t go anywhere, right, you just like poop and pee right there.
How did you feel leaving your home behind?
Linh: All I knew was that I don’t have a future, I can’t do anything to survive. I mean I could just grow something and eat right. Without having any education [we could] just marry, have kids and then that cycle would continue right. At the time, when I got on the boat I didnt even think about death. It was just like, oh I gotta make it to America right or somewhere else right, to another country. Yeah, that’s all we thought about, we didn’t think about death.
What was your experience like when you made it to Indonesia?
Linh: So, when I made it to Indonesia, they separated me from my neighbor cause I was a minor. They kept kids under like 14, 15 or 16 I can’t remember. But, they kept all the kids without parents together. And then I remember crying the first month. It was hard [because] I missed my mom, I missed my home right cause I was never away from my mom. After a month I met many friends there that were there [because of a] similar situation. And then, also, when I was there, I learned so many horror stories about the people that escaped that had died. And then, also, the ones that escaped right and got raped by the pirate and then when they got to Indionesia they took their own life. And then I stayed there for like 6 months. That’s very short because the reason I stayed there only for 6 months was because my brother and my sister, they were already in the U.S. cause my brother got really lucky; he, on his third day at sea, he got rescued by a U.S. Navy ship. And so he got kind of like an [expedited] passport to get to the U.S., right. So that’s why I was able to get to the U.S. within 6 months.
Did anything happen with your other siblings?
Linh: My other siblings, one of them, [because] each one… went by themselves, right. One of them actually didn’t get so lucky; they got rescued by the French, right, and so he couldn’t be together in the U.S. because he already left for France. The family had split up right, so one brother is living in France and then the other four went to the U.S.
How did you keep in touch with them over the years?
Linh: Uh, letters. And that’s how we [communicated] with my mom and everything, through letters. There’s no email, or anything like that, you just write letters and then probably [in] one or two months then it [arrives].
What was the process of immigrating to the U.S.?
Linh: For me, it was easy I think because I was a minor. They helped me do all the paperwork. For me, all I [had] to do [was] remember my sister’s name, yeah. But, for my mom, it was a lot harder. My mom actually tried to escape after me, she did it three times. The third time she got here, but the second time was really bad; she was in prison for two years. They made her work really hard and they beat her up when you know she’s slow, right. She had a really rough time in the Vietnam prison for escaping, yup. On her third try she got to the Philippines and she actually stayed there for like a year and a half. So, it took her a lot longer than me.
What was it like being away from your family, especially your mom, for so long?
Linh: It was sad. You lost that time growing up with your parents, right. By the time my mom got here and reunited with us, it was just kind of like, we missed all those time so we were not as close as we used to be so we had to build that relationship again, right. Because I was independent for so long, all the kids were by themselves basically.
How old were you when your mom finally came back?
Linh: I think I left her when I was 12. I didn’t see her until I was like 18; I didn’t see her until I turned 18.
Life in America
Linh: Life after arriving in the U.S. has been incredible. I remember my aunts took me to Walmart and I was like “Wow, such a beautiful shop with [such] beautiful clothes”, right? And then the abundance of food, good food, and jobs are everywhere, right? I wasn’t old enough to work but then I actually worked at a strawberry field. I picked strawberries and earned some money. And then [being] able to go to school [I learned] English and, you know, you dream about your future, having your own house and not getting chased around by the cop right. Since I arrived here in the U.S. I’m grateful, grateful everyday for the life [here]. You know, I went to high school, and then I got a degree from high school. I went to college, [and] I got a [bachelors] degree in business finance, and I love my new job now. And so everything is just like a dream.
How was the process of adapting to the U.S.?
Linh: I think the hardest thing was just learning the language, right. Because I didn’t know a word of English so I actually had to learn [things] like “yes”, “no” just the simple stuff, right. When I got into high school I had to learn all of that. So, that was the only hard thing other than that everything was like, to me, was peachy. Everything was just so nice, so nice. It’s like once [you’ve] been in a country where you don’t have food, don’t have the freedom, don’t have a future, and then you come to this state, it just makes you realize how fortunate you are and how grateful you are to be in this country. I think the kids that [are] born here in the U.S. don’t see it that way because they’ve never experienced that. For me, my husband [is] also an immigrant right, we have the exact same feeling. We’re grateful for everything; we don’t take it for granted.
How did going through the war affect your overall outlook on life?
Linh: My outlook on life is that I don’t like war. So, what I observed out there right, war is just going to be just sad. There is nothing good coming out of it. Now that we have the freedom here I completely support the U.S., right. The freedom of speech, the freedom to do things that you can’t [do in] other countries.
Have you ever gone back to Vietnam?
Linh: Yes, I went back to visit my aunts and yeah, I did. And do I wanna live there? No, [the] U.S is my country now. So, if you ask me, “Where do I consider my country?” It’s the U.S. I’m indebted to the U.S. for giving me a home here.
Do you miss anything about Vietnam from your youth?
Linh: I miss having that, growing up being a kid, I didn’t have that. I mean if I want something I want that back, right. I didn’t have that part of my life where I didn’t have any good memories. But, if I could have something back that’s what I want. I want to actually grow up normal [and] in a good environment right.
Noah: Yeah.
Linh: And I didn’t have that at the time.
How do you think the experience has shaped you as a person?
Linh: I think it shaped me to be stronger. Because when you’re in a bad situation, right, you have to find a way, and then when you get to a good spot, then it makes you appreciate so much of what you have right. I mean, I appreciate my life here every day, every day. And I love my job. Yeah, and the freedom that I have and the opportunities like, endless, endless opportunities. And I never have to worry about food right.
Noah: Yeah.
Linh: So, yeah, so that’s what I’m grateful for and if I had to do it over again [I would] 100%. My wish though, for the people that live here, is that you should appreciate what you have because you don’t know how good you have it.