b'14RAPPORT | Feature Story1954 Geneva Accords, which divided the countryasked to adopt me, since my mother had four in half. He was also Catholic, a high-rankingchildren and life in America would be very officer in the South Vietnamese Army and a U.S.difficult. She visited four times each time asking sympathizer. We now know that soldiers werefor me. As a child, I believed that meant I would imprisoned, their homes were seized, and theirhave been a princess! Mom burst my bubble wives and children were rounded up and taken to therecently and said this woman was a high-ranking uninhabitable New Economic Development Zone.government official, not a royal family member. I My father informed mom, we could not live understill prefer to think I could have been a princess.communist rule, and he decided we would all die byI think of how life would have been different poison. My mom told my father she needed some timeif we left before April 30th, when there was alone to pray. She took a walk and asked God whetherstill relative calm in the city. However, we may His will was for my family to die now. If so, she wouldnever have seen my father again, since he was accept it. However, if He had other plans for us, tostill with his troops in the battlefield. Would he give her a sign. As she made her way home, a strangerhave survived? Would he have found his way approached her and told her to go down to the riverout of Vietnam to reunite with us in Oregon? to meet a man, who had important information. MyMany years later, when I was in college, a friend mom was scared but believed this was the sign fromtranslated a page from my grandfathers diary. God. The man turned out to be her older brother,On April 30, 1975, my 80-year-old grandfather who secured a fishing boat for all of us to escape.was making his way to the U.S., when he heard The next day, mom dressed as a peasant, andSaigon fell to the communists. He wrote that carried me in her arms while holding my older sistershe wept for the loss of his country, his wife, hand, as we made our way to the docks. A soldierand his daughter, both of whom he buried in stopped her and asked where she was going. MomVietnam. He feared he would never see his son, said we were headed to the North to visit her in-laws.his other daughters, and his grandchildren The soldier accused her of lying and stated that sheagain. He concluded, Today is the day I died.must be trying to escape, because I was too WhiteI think about my clients who have shared their and too healthy looking. Mom was scared that I wouldsurvival stories with me. I think of a man who give us away. Evidently, I was a talker and tended towas a soldier and imprisoned for years. He recalls repeat everything I heard. She was sure I would revealwaking up every morning at dawn forced to go into our escape plan, so she squeezed me hard and staredthe jungle to dismantle landmines. Each time one down at me to keep me quiet. Thankfully, I kept quiet.goes off, he wonders which soldier will not make Mom reiterated to the soldier that we were headedit back that night, and each night, he cant sleep North. Perhaps because she still had her Northernbecause of the cries and screams of fellow soldiers accent, the soldier believed her and let us pass. Mombeing tortured and beaten. He recalls feeling guilty gave me sleep medication to ensure I wouldnt cry inabout being happy it is not his turn that night. the night and give us away. At midnight, 81 peopleI think of the men and women who have told me crammed into a 6-man fishing boat. We drifted athow they survived by lying beneath dead bodies sea for a week, before landing in the Philippines. Weof family members for days, waiting for soldiers were denied political asylum but granted religiousto leave, before they got up to walk through the asylum, because we had priests and nuns on board.borders to Cambodia and Thailand. I hear these Once we were granted asylum, we were placedstories over and over again, I am no longer their in a refugee camp. One of my favorite stories ofdoctor but a fellow refugee witnessing their pain, that time, was the daughter of the royal familytheir suffering and ultimately, their survival.'