That Refugee Life
Near the coast of Malaysia is a small, rocky island called Pulau Bidong. Uninhabitable the in the 70s, the tiny bump in the ocean became overrun by 10s of thousands of Boat People fleeing the Vietcong, the Khmer Rouge, and the violent aftermath of the Vietnam War. Consumed by fear, civilians from several Southeast Asian countries simultaneously chose to abandon their homeland for a precarious escape. The government of Malaysia begrudgingly allowed the island to serve as a refugee camp from 1978–1991. My family arrived in 1979, at the height of the population boom. We lived among 45,000 other terrified refugees (the entire population of the city of Bozeman, Montana) on the one square mile of shore that was mildly inhabitable.
After the American retreated in April 1975, the infighting in Southeast Asia escalated. Militant communist groups like The Khmer Rouge and Vietcong installed themselves as the regional governments after the chaos of the Vietnam war. They terrorized, murdered, and kidnapped civilians. They abducted women and children for trafficking and summarily and publicly executed men. Ma moved us to live on her family farm south of Saigon to avoid the rampant violence and danger. We lived with extended family as we waited and hoped for Ba, his captors, in a POW camp.
Ba managed to bribe his way out of the prison and found us where they worked, collecting and selling fruit to sell. Soon after the birth of my youngest brother, My parents decided it was time to leave Vietnam. Their home had become too dangerous, and the risks to their children were too high. There was little remaining of their old life. So they packed food, water, and valuables to start a new life. Ba bribed a few spots on a boat escaping Vietnam. It didn’t have an engine or sails. But it had oars, and there was room for us. Under cover of the night, my parents, with several children in tow, quietly boarded the small vessel. We set off the destination unknown, but it had to be better than the danger we were leaving behind.
We were lost and floating aimlessly for nine weeks when a larger boat spotted, rescued, and deposited us on the shore of Pulau Bidong. Our small boat had been invaded and overrun by Thai pirates thirteen times. They took our oars, valuables, food, and dignity. Those who survived the two months of invasions and starvation were severely malnourished and dehydrated when we were finally rescued. Ours was a typical story of Boat People. We were lucky to be found. Many boats overflowing with terrified refugees were not.
I was 2yo when we touched land again. As we drifted for nine weeks, lost at sea, I sat. When Ba lifted me out of our small boat onto the giant vessel that had rescued us, my crossed legs only fell heavily under me. All the time we had been at sea, the muscles throughout my lower body had atrophied. I couldn’t walk anymore. It almost broke Ba. To have survived so much, but at what cost? Determined to teach me to walk again, Ba helped me strengthen my legs by playing with me in the shallow water around the Camp for months. It took so long that he almost gave up. One morning, he woke up with pain in his chest. He thought he had a heart attack and opened his eyes. It was me. I had walked on my own and jumped on him. He tells the story with intense relief even years later.
Kids are kids, anywhere they are, and we were no different. My youngest brother was only a baby when we arrived at the Camp. In my youth and folly, I was eager to adopt him as my own. I would coo and sing to my baby, barely allowing Ma these opportunities. Ba made toys from found things. My favorite toy was a Coca-Cola boat can cut in half, hotdog style. My brothers and I would use it to float like a little canoe in the island’s surrounding waters and tide pools.
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Logistically, Pulau Bidong was challenging to reach as large rocks sat in the shallow water around the island. Supplies would get airdropped or brought out by motor boats from the mainland. Food and medical supplies were sparse. Refugees built houses from whatever materials they could find. Sheet metal was helpful for walls and ceilings. Little grew since the ground was more stone than dirt. The sea had spared us, but we still endured famine, disease, and random violence daily.
The refugee camp was our home for over a year before the US accepted our application to enter. Other countries had open borders to refugees, but Ba had served in the US Airforce. It was the only country my parents had ever been to, so America was where they wanted to go. My mother’s cousin, who had married a soldier and came to the US years before, agreed to be our sponsors.
Our first home in America was a recreation room in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Ba got a job picking up trash at a park. We didn’t have a car, so He walked to work. He was often the last to arrive at the park since it was miles away, so he was usually the last to arrive for assignments, so he would get the duties that none else wanted, like cleaning the park bathroom. But he did it because it meant moving our family forward. The walk home from work sometimes felt long after a day of cleaning toilets. But the longest walk was the one that ended with the sight of his four small children and wife sitting on our packed things next to the mailbox. The cousins wanted us out.
Soon, We found a one-bedroom apartment for the six of us in HUD housing. It was beautiful because it was ours. Our kitchen. Our bathroom. We slept together in a puppy pile on a mattress on the floor. Sometimes, we got lucky and spotted toys sticking out of the dumpster. Ba pulled them out to check the condition, ensuring he could fix a minor defect before we brought them back to our apartment. And sometimes, there were gunshots at night.
It was exciting when we moved to a townhouse in Sugarland in Sterling, Virginia. Many refugees also lived in the neighborhood. We had a community for the first time I could remember — aunties to dote on me and cook for us. We began adapting to our new life, lacking poverty, malnutrition, and constant fear. My brothers and I happily played grass tag with the neighborhood kids and rode the vacuum cleaner inside when it was raining. We were kids, content playing in a world occupied only by children’s imagination.
Ba stopped picking up trash at the park. He worked bussing tables at a Chinese restaurant owned by an old friend from Vietnam. The place was called Wu’s Garden and would become a staple among my family’s favorite celebration spots. However, we would only visit a handful of times. Uncle Wu would treat us with an abundance of unique dishes. He would spoil us, kids, with fruity drinks with umbrellas. Each one was special. We would co, pare the designs and colors. I was cherishing our little tiny ornament.
Ba worked several part-time jobs while taking ESL (English as a Second Language) and engineering classes. With his positions and what they could save from Ma’s seamstress work, we were able to purchase a second-hand Pinto. The four of us kids would squeeze into the back seat, complaining that the others were touching us. But really, we were so tiny; there was plenty of room.
Being a Pinto, it didn’t last. It broke down one night in a hospital parking lot in the rain when Ma had an emergency. Ba handled it. How could a man with so much ingenuity not? I remember how I would need to crane my neck, almost flipping backward, to look up at him. To me, He stood taller than anyone else. Ba worked tirelessly, sometimes coming home to a 3yo crying over not wanting to give up diapers. Sometimes he came home to four very excited human puppies jumping and yipping in a frenzy to get the first hug.
Only a year into our stay in the US, we were still relying on government assistance. Food stamps bought things like milk, cheese, bread, and cereal. It was generous, but southeast Asians are unaccustomed to consuming dairy and gluten. They are allergy foods for many of us. But we were happy to eat. At times stamps didn’t stretch far enough, and we would have to put things back. The embarrassment that spread over my parent’s faces, especially Ba when we didn’t have enough money, pains me still. I would see that face repeatedly during back-to-school clothes shopping trips. Feeding and outfitting half a baseball could not have been easy.
Most days, the dinner table was covered with steaming bowls of fragrant jasmine rice, one or two perfectly simmered meat dishes, and a soup of fresh vegetables. To say ma was a good cook does her no justice. On the weekends, she would spoil us with more time and labor-intensive recipes made from scratch.
If ma didn’t have the ingredients she needed, she would take the 4 of us for a long walk. I sat in our second-hand umbrella stroller, my little brother in my lap, and my two older brothers walked with Ma, taking turns to push the stroller. The market was a few miles away, on a major highway. One time a couple picked us up as we were walking in the rain, heavy with groceries. On another occasion, one of my brothers slipped down a hill of dry dirt behind a gas station and cut his ankle open.
I celebrated my 5th birthday in that townhouse. I remember it fondly because Ba came home with a chocolate cake with a candied cherry. It was perfect and memorable because he hated chocolate. I was deeply touched that they made an exception for my birthday. I received my first pair of New shoes for my 5th birthday: shiny, black Mary-Janes.
I remember it as one of my best birthday celebrations. The journey we had endured was over. And I had to brand new shiny shoes to start a new one.
