Stephanie Truong |
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The Boat Journey
Q: How about your parents when they get out of Vietnam? What was their experience?
ST: For my mom: my grandmother was pretty smart so she invested a lot of money into gold, which wouldn’t inflate or deflate, so she took all their money and invested. With that much money, she was able to sent two out of five her kids overseas, and she chose her older son and my mom. My mom was 14 and her brother is a couple years older. They went on a more official way out. They did it more legally. They went on a larger ship—it was a ship—and they ended up in, I would say, Thailand. It was close to Thailand. They sailed to Thailand and she was at a camp there, a refugee camp. She was there for 6 months. She studied German for 6 month, and somebody sponsored her to come to America.
My Dad snuck out in the middle of the night with a bunch of people. They were going through the vegetation and they were trying to sneak out because there are patrols, and they ended up on those fish boats. So he was on a fish boat with 14 other people, maybe even more than that. They were sailing on that boat for 2 weeks without food, water, and some people died. It was pretty intense. And they had to watch out for pirates. They also ended up in Thailand, a refugee camp. They took a stop at one of the islands. I remember, at certain points, these pirates raided their camp. They were raping and pillaging. My dad snuck on to their boat and took their supplies. And he was like, “oh yes, I know it’s a terrible timing, but thank God they are here, I would have died because I need food,” so he survived because of that. And then they ended up going again and ended up in a refugee camp near Thailand, and they got sponsored. Both of my parents got sponsored by these families in Minnesota. My dad was sponsored by a family, and he lived with them a little bit, and my mom was sponsored by a church. My mom went to high school and finished high school. My dad also went to high school and they ended up in the same college where they met.
Object Description
| Profile of | Stephanie Truong |
| Title | What My Parents Saw |
| Profile bio | Stephanie Truong is a junior student currently attending the USC School of Architecture. She is an American-Vietnamese second-generation daughter of two Vietnamese war refugees who found their way out of Vietnam in the early 70’s when they were in their teens. Her mother was born in the city while her dad was from a village, both of them from South Vietnam. Stephanie explained how her parents escaped from Vietnam. Her mother boarded a ship to Thailand and was in a camp there while her dad escaped in a fish boat in the middle of the night. He spent 2 weeks in the boat and struggled for food and water and saw people died. He ended up his journey in a refugee camp in Thailand as well. Both of her parents were sponsored by families who helped them come to America. They settled their new life in the United States and years later Stephanie was born. Stephanie is a great example because as a second-generation child she recognizes the sacrifice that her parents did to escape the war that could have cost their lives if they stayed in Vietnam. She feels proud of them and as an American-Vietnamese she wants to share her parents' experiences with future generations as well as her personal perspective towards the war and how it was taught to her in American schools. |
| Profiler bio | Andrew Herrera was born in East Los Angeles, CA. He went to East Los Angeles Community College, and transfer to USC in 2012. He currently majors in Architecture. Difan Feng was born in Beijing, China, where he continued to live until 2008. He came to the US afterward for college. He was an economics major and changed to architecture after his first year. Iliana Michelle Lopez was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador. She moved to California in 2003. She studied architecture in East Los Angeles Community College and transferred to USC in 2012. |
| Subject |
refugee camp Vietnam war sponsorship culture shock culture 2nd generation |
| Profiled by | Herrera, Andrew; Feng, Difan; Lopez, Iliana |
| Profile date | 2014-04-01 |
| Geographic subject (state) | Minnesota |
| Geographic subject (country) | USA; Vietnam; Thailand |
| Coverage date | 1970-1979 |
| Publisher (of the original version) | http://anotherwarmemorial.com/stephanie-truong/ |
| Type |
images video |
| Format | 1 image; 5 video files (00:17:43); 5 transcripts |
| Language | English |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Part of collection | An Other War Memorial -- Memories of the American War in Viet Nam |
| Filename | truongstephanie |
Description
| Profile of | Stephanie Truong |
| Title | The Boat Journey |
| Format | 1 transcript, 1p. |
| Filename | truongstephanie-vid3_tr3.pdf |
| Full text | The Boat Journey Q: How about your parents when they get out of Vietnam? What was their experience? ST: For my mom: my grandmother was pretty smart so she invested a lot of money into gold, which wouldn’t inflate or deflate, so she took all their money and invested. With that much money, she was able to sent two out of five her kids overseas, and she chose her older son and my mom. My mom was 14 and her brother is a couple years older. They went on a more official way out. They did it more legally. They went on a larger ship—it was a ship—and they ended up in, I would say, Thailand. It was close to Thailand. They sailed to Thailand and she was at a camp there, a refugee camp. She was there for 6 months. She studied German for 6 month, and somebody sponsored her to come to America. My Dad snuck out in the middle of the night with a bunch of people. They were going through the vegetation and they were trying to sneak out because there are patrols, and they ended up on those fish boats. So he was on a fish boat with 14 other people, maybe even more than that. They were sailing on that boat for 2 weeks without food, water, and some people died. It was pretty intense. And they had to watch out for pirates. They also ended up in Thailand, a refugee camp. They took a stop at one of the islands. I remember, at certain points, these pirates raided their camp. They were raping and pillaging. My dad snuck on to their boat and took their supplies. And he was like, “oh yes, I know it’s a terrible timing, but thank God they are here, I would have died because I need food,” so he survived because of that. And then they ended up going again and ended up in a refugee camp near Thailand, and they got sponsored. Both of my parents got sponsored by these families in Minnesota. My dad was sponsored by a family, and he lived with them a little bit, and my mom was sponsored by a church. My mom went to high school and finished high school. My dad also went to high school and they ended up in the same college where they met. |
| Archival file | Volume3/truongstephanie-vid3_tr3.pdf |
