Le Ly Hayslip |
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On Finding Hope When I was in a village up to when I was fourteen years old it ate me alive until the war ended, victory bring peace to the land. My lover, my boyfriend, my dream husband, had a lot of children. He died and was buried at the same graveyard as my ancestors are buried. When war came so many people died. The more you see people die, the more you want to fight because there is no reason why they died. Nobody told you why they died except that they died you die for your father’s land. You die for what you believe in. But the South Vietnamese and Americans believe in the same thing and the Viet Cong says the same thing. Nobody answers which side they believe in right or wrong. They are willing to die for their country. Our country is small compared to the US but it is big for us because we never go outside our village, but we are willing to die for our country. So we did what we had to do. Now looking back I had a beautiful childhood. I had rice patties, water buffalo, coconut trees, pond, river, the things you don’t see over here (US) that’s what kept me going. When I left the Village and went to Saigon when I was working in the city you would see the rich with the refugee and jobless we would never complain. The poor villagers belonged in the village. We should be working on the land and be with our ancestors. But because of the war we had to become refugees, homeless, and jobless. This is what we had to deal with. This happened today in many countries. We never asked why we only know what propaganda said, the Americans and outsiders invaded our country and we fought for our ancestors graveyard, rice paddies and it was the right thing to do. So we did fight. When I came to the US it was opposite. You come here to take care of the children, housewives and you keep your mouth shut and believe in whatever the news says. But little by little I became widowed twice and raised three children on my own. I start to question, why America and why Vietnam? Why this? Why that? You have your own mind and you play with it however you want. That is when I started to travel back to Vietnam in 1986 that is what opened a new door for me of new thinking, new questions and new answers. But who am I to ask these questions? I want to write books. I want to help Vietnam as a single mother with three kids and very little education background, what can I do to help? However my mind and my soul told me that I am equal to everyone. The only thing is my English is funny, my writing is limited, I’m a single mother and sometimes it held me back at times. But other than that I ate the same food as you, breathed the same air, thinking my own thoughts and have my own compassion and love like you. So it doesn’t hold me back. It just keeps me going. Unlimited thinking. Nobody pulled a gun on me in this country and told me what to do and what not to do like a young kid in a village. So that freedom changed my thinking a lot and made me look back on what Vietnamese people had to endure and go through. The entire refugee coming they knew nothing about the war and hated the commoners. It gave me a lot of thinking to do but then when the FBI came to me and told me to be a spy when I go to Vietnam and work for the CIA. I only could laugh at myself and think I’m a fool nobody knows what I am doing. But that’s okay I know what I am doing. That is the key knowing what you are doing for the good or for the bad but that is all on you. Do something that you won’t regret. Do something when you die people will still talk about you and people will remember you. That is important.
Object Description
Profile of | Le Ly Hayslip |
Title | The Special Gift of Suffering |
Profile bio | Born on December 19, 1949 in the small town of Ky La in Central Vietnam, Le Ly Hayslip was the sixth and youngest child in her family of farmers. At the age of 12, American helicopters invaded her village, and at the age of 14, the South Vietnamese government prison tortured her under the premise of “revolutionary sympathies.” Soon after, she was raped by two Viet Cong soldiers. She then fled to Saigon, where she and her mother worked as housekeepers for a wealthy Vietnamese family. After she had an affair with her employer and became pregnant, she and her mother fled to Da Nang. She then met and married an American civilian contractor named Ed Munro, whom she had another son with, and together they moved to San Diego, California. After he died of emphysema in 1973, she married again to Dennis Hayslip, with whom she had her third son. The couple filed for divorce in 1982. In 1989, Hayslip published her first and most popular book: ""When Heaven and Earth Changed Places: A Vietnamese Woman’s Journey from War to Peace."" In it, she talks about returning home to Vietnam in 1986 to see her mother and siblings. Today, she lives in Los Angeles, California, with her three sons. She is a founder of two charitable organizations: East Meets West Foundation and Global Village Foundation. Through these two foundations, she hopes to rebuild cultural bridges between Vietnam and America. |
Profiler bio | Jack Zang is a senior majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in Accounting. He was born in Shanghai, China and grew up in Arcadia, California.; Ryan Cenicola is an undeclared freshman from La Quinta, California. He is pursuing a career in the Music Industry.; Jingyuan (Hazel) Li is currently a sophomore majoring in Accounting. She was born in China, moved to Singapore 5 years ago, and is now in the United States for her college education.; Chase Koplow is a sophomore from Boca Raton, Florida. He is currently majoring in Real Estate Development and has hopes for a career as a developer. |
Subject |
Civilian Profile Refugee Viet Nam Vietnamese |
Profiled by | Zang, Jack; Cenicola, Ryan; Li, Hazel; Koplow, Chase |
Profile date | 2016-04-05 |
Geographic subject (city or populated place) | Saigon; Ho Chi Minh City; Da Nang; Ky La; San Diego; Los Angeles |
Geographic subject (county) | San Diego; Los Angeles |
Geographic subject (state) | California |
Geographic subject (country) | Vietnam; USA |
Coverage date | 1949; 1973; 1982; 1986; 1989 |
Publisher (of the original version) | http://anotherwarmemorial.com/le-ly-hayslip/ |
Type |
images video |
Format | 1 image; 3 video files (00:13:32); 3 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 | haysliplely |
Description
Profile of | Le Ly Hayslip |
Title | On Finding Hope |
Format | 1 transcript, 2p. |
Filename | haysliplely-vid2_tr2.pdf |
Full text | On Finding Hope When I was in a village up to when I was fourteen years old it ate me alive until the war ended, victory bring peace to the land. My lover, my boyfriend, my dream husband, had a lot of children. He died and was buried at the same graveyard as my ancestors are buried. When war came so many people died. The more you see people die, the more you want to fight because there is no reason why they died. Nobody told you why they died except that they died you die for your father’s land. You die for what you believe in. But the South Vietnamese and Americans believe in the same thing and the Viet Cong says the same thing. Nobody answers which side they believe in right or wrong. They are willing to die for their country. Our country is small compared to the US but it is big for us because we never go outside our village, but we are willing to die for our country. So we did what we had to do. Now looking back I had a beautiful childhood. I had rice patties, water buffalo, coconut trees, pond, river, the things you don’t see over here (US) that’s what kept me going. When I left the Village and went to Saigon when I was working in the city you would see the rich with the refugee and jobless we would never complain. The poor villagers belonged in the village. We should be working on the land and be with our ancestors. But because of the war we had to become refugees, homeless, and jobless. This is what we had to deal with. This happened today in many countries. We never asked why we only know what propaganda said, the Americans and outsiders invaded our country and we fought for our ancestors graveyard, rice paddies and it was the right thing to do. So we did fight. When I came to the US it was opposite. You come here to take care of the children, housewives and you keep your mouth shut and believe in whatever the news says. But little by little I became widowed twice and raised three children on my own. I start to question, why America and why Vietnam? Why this? Why that? You have your own mind and you play with it however you want. That is when I started to travel back to Vietnam in 1986 that is what opened a new door for me of new thinking, new questions and new answers. But who am I to ask these questions? I want to write books. I want to help Vietnam as a single mother with three kids and very little education background, what can I do to help? However my mind and my soul told me that I am equal to everyone. The only thing is my English is funny, my writing is limited, I’m a single mother and sometimes it held me back at times. But other than that I ate the same food as you, breathed the same air, thinking my own thoughts and have my own compassion and love like you. So it doesn’t hold me back. It just keeps me going. Unlimited thinking. Nobody pulled a gun on me in this country and told me what to do and what not to do like a young kid in a village. So that freedom changed my thinking a lot and made me look back on what Vietnamese people had to endure and go through. The entire refugee coming they knew nothing about the war and hated the commoners. It gave me a lot of thinking to do but then when the FBI came to me and told me to be a spy when I go to Vietnam and work for the CIA. I only could laugh at myself and think I’m a fool nobody knows what I am doing. But that’s okay I know what I am doing. That is the key knowing what you are doing for the good or for the bad but that is all on you. Do something that you won’t regret. Do something when you die people will still talk about you and people will remember you. That is important. |
Archival file | Volume4/haysliplely-vid2_tr2.pdf |