Linh Dang |
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Leaving Vietnam
Two of my uncles escaped by boat. They were carrying a bunch of gold with them, and then one of them was rescued by Taiwan and the other one was rescued by the US. The scary thing was that they actually had to purposely sink their boat to be rescued and pretty much end up in whatever country that [they] were rescued by.
This whole time, we were actually waiting for the government—the US government—to accept us as refugees. So, we applied for that and then the uncle that made it to the US ended up sponsoring us, but that actually dragged out to many years before we actually got our acceptance letter.
It was a difficult transition for me because I didn’t know how to speak English because and they put me in a bilingual school and then in a Spanish class. So I actually thought, you know, “buenos dias”,”como estas”, “muy bien, gracias” was “hello”, “how are you”, “thank you” in English. And then, at the same time I was not really able to get—because I was placed in sixth grade, right—so it did seem to be very impossible to miss so many years of school and be able to catch up. And it was kind of difficult for me to make friends, because I didn’t really speak the language. I felt—you know—somewhat, like, alone? And I have a younger sister, who’s six years younger. And when we got here, since we were on Welfare, both of my parents had to work. So we were pretty much left home, like just the two of us. My dad worked in a liquor store and my mom worked in a restaurant. So it kind of forced me to take on responsibility of caring for my sister. So I was forced to become an adult, or you know, have the independence even though I’m not really ready. The hard part was that, both of my parents—you know—they don’t drive. And even today, they don’t drive. So we had to walk everywhere or take the bus. It’s somewhat scary to be that young and not having adult supervision, so there’s some incidents that I have encountered—an adult male was like following me home and like asking weird questions and stuff—so I kind of had to find a way of finding him off.
Object Description
| Profile of | Linh Dang |
| Title | Sprouting from Ashes: The Journey of Linh Dang |
| Profile bio | Linh Dang was born in Viet Nam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. As a wealthy Chinese family, Dang and her parents were targeted by the Communist government. After spending time in a re-education camp, Dang's parents were able to bribe their out, back into the city of Saigon, where their family lived in hiding for the next 10 years. With the help of an uncle, Dang's family was eventually able to emigrate to the United States. Dang entered formal schooling for the first time in middle school, knowing very little English, and went on to complete a B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). She later continued her education at UCLA, earning Master's degrees in both Materials Engineering and Management. Dang is now the Engineering Program Manager for the Electronics and Payload division at the Northrop Grumman Corporation. As a highly accomplished engineer managing multi-million dollar projects, she won the 2014 Asian American Engineer of the Year Award. This is her Viet Nam War story. |
| Profiler bio | Maria Bacci is a sophomore studying Chemical Engineering at the University of Southern California.; Juan Martinez and Elise Shea are juniors studying Civil Engineering (Building Science). Together, they worked to profile the experiences of Linh Dang in the context of the American War in Viet Nam. |
| Subject |
American Chinese Civilian Communism Fall of Saigon Profile Re-education camp Refugee Saigon Viet Nam Vietnamese |
| Profiled by | Bacci, Maria; Martinez, Juan; Shea, Elise |
| Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Saigon; Ho Chi Minh City; Los Angeles |
| Geographic subject (county) | Los Angeles |
| Geographic subject (state) | California |
| Geographic subject (country) | Vietnam; USA |
| Coverage date | 1975 |
| Publisher (of the original version) | http://anotherwarmemorial.com/linh-dang/ |
| Type |
images video |
| Format | 1 image; 5 video files (00:16:03); 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 | danglinh |
Description
| Profile of | Linh Dang |
| Title | Leaving Vietnam |
| Format | 1 transcript, 1p. |
| Filename | danglinh-vid2_tr2.pdf |
| Full text | Leaving Vietnam Two of my uncles escaped by boat. They were carrying a bunch of gold with them, and then one of them was rescued by Taiwan and the other one was rescued by the US. The scary thing was that they actually had to purposely sink their boat to be rescued and pretty much end up in whatever country that [they] were rescued by. This whole time, we were actually waiting for the government—the US government—to accept us as refugees. So, we applied for that and then the uncle that made it to the US ended up sponsoring us, but that actually dragged out to many years before we actually got our acceptance letter. It was a difficult transition for me because I didn’t know how to speak English because and they put me in a bilingual school and then in a Spanish class. So I actually thought, you know, “buenos dias”,”como estas”, “muy bien, gracias” was “hello”, “how are you”, “thank you” in English. And then, at the same time I was not really able to get—because I was placed in sixth grade, right—so it did seem to be very impossible to miss so many years of school and be able to catch up. And it was kind of difficult for me to make friends, because I didn’t really speak the language. I felt—you know—somewhat, like, alone? And I have a younger sister, who’s six years younger. And when we got here, since we were on Welfare, both of my parents had to work. So we were pretty much left home, like just the two of us. My dad worked in a liquor store and my mom worked in a restaurant. So it kind of forced me to take on responsibility of caring for my sister. So I was forced to become an adult, or you know, have the independence even though I’m not really ready. The hard part was that, both of my parents—you know—they don’t drive. And even today, they don’t drive. So we had to walk everywhere or take the bus. It’s somewhat scary to be that young and not having adult supervision, so there’s some incidents that I have encountered—an adult male was like following me home and like asking weird questions and stuff—so I kind of had to find a way of finding him off. |
| Archival file | Volume3/danglinh-vid2_tr2.pdf |
