18 Years. All it Took was One Phone Call.

Map of Vietnam Highlighting Saigon

Imagine waiting 18 years to be legally allowed to immigrate to a country, only to find that your brother is too old and must be left behind. This became the reality for Victoria Le, born on May 2nd, 1992 in Saigon, Vietnam (1), who immigrated to the United States with her parents in 2010. Her brother, who is 11 years older than she was, had been over the age of 21 by the time the papers arrived and continues to reside in Vietnam til this day. With the help of her grandparents Victoria and her parents were given the opportunity to make a life in America.The following is derived from an hour long interview with Victoria and edited to share her family's history in Vietnam and their reestablishment in the United States as close to her words as possible. However, the names of the characters have been changed in respect to Victoria and her family's wishes and identity. 

Well, if they ask me I [am going to] tell them, but the thing is I think I am willing to tell them because they can learn something for old[er] generations. Young generations need to learn more experience, but if they are afraid to fail, they need to ask old[er] people. So we are willing to share with them. It’s better. So, I’m willing to do that.

AT THAT TIME THEY HAD EVERYTHING

My grandmother is a brave woman. During the war, the communist took everything and made Vietnam was so poor, so she sacrificed time with her children to earn enough money to provide for them. She would babysit for neighbor’s children, cook for schools and do many other small jobs. I personally really appreciate what she did for the whole family, just as much as what my grandfather had done.

Le, Victoria. Family Picture, circa 2010

My grandfather was a high ranked Vietnamese U.S. soldier during the Vietnam War for Bien Hoa City. His role was to capture, interrogate, and harshly punish the communists from the North. 

But, one day my mom witnessed it. She was home from school and tried to find my grandfather. She found that he was still working, and there was a lot of blood everywhere. My grandfather pushed her out of the room. But, she was so scared, she had a nightmare about it. My mom told me that she never went to look for her father at his workplace again.

She was scared of him for a while, but they lived a good life. He would go to many parties and drink a lot of wine with the other soldiers, since the U.S. government gave us a lot of things. My grandfather became rich, and life was great. He had nine children, five girls and four boys, my mom being the oldest. It is a really big family. However, he had the power to take care of the whole family. With his wealth, my mom could have a car to take her to school, sleep in her own bed, live in an air conditioned house and be served by a maid. 

Le, Victoria. Family Photo, circa 1989

Now both of my grandparents are U.S. citizens living in a Vietnamese community in North Carolina. They are too old to work, but they still share money with their children. Even though they are viewed as selfish by the Vietnamese community their generosity has provided fortunate lives for their children and grandchildren.

THE LOVE JUST BEGAN

After the Vietnam War, my father became a singer. He sang everywhere to help his mother out, since his family wasn't as wealthy as my mother’s. My dad sang for three days at a small concert and my mom just waited for him there. We don’t know what our parents did, but it just suddenly happened: the love just began. 

After my parents got married, my father realized singing would not be enough to support a wife and family, so he gave up singing and became a construction worker. But, Vietnam has very tropical weather, so the work was hard and made him very thin. He had that job for many years, yet his job never made us rich. 

After a few years of marriage, my parents gave birth to my brother and me. Since, my mom grew up in a rich family, she was not used to household tasks, but someone had to stay home to care of the babies. My mother learned slowly and after eating her cooking, my father helps her in the kitchen til this day. 

IN COMMUNIST COUNTRIES THERE IS NO FUTURE

I am left with a lot of terrible memories from my time in Vietnam. In communist countries, there is no future for old people or low income families. The rich look down on you if you are poor. They say bad things behind your back and sometimes to your face. We did not want to look for that and listen to them. We just wanted to get far away from them. We wanted to come here, to America. When I was in 8th grade, I quit public school to attend English school to prepare to come to the United States. But, when you study English in Vietnam, you only learn grammar. You don’t practice your speaking at all. So I could not speak when I came to America.

18 YEARS. WE LOSE HOPE.

In 1992, my grandparents brought my single aunts and uncles to the United States, since my grandfather’s involvement with the United States in the Vietnam War had allowed him to sponsor and pay for them. However, they left behind three families: my mom's, my aunt's and my uncle's. So, we stayed behind and applied to immigrate to the U.S. right after my grandparents arrived there. We waited 18 years to receive our papers, we all were so disappointed in everything. We lose hope.

I will always remember the night [the papers came]. 

I said to my mom, “Mom, I have some weird feeling. What’s going on? I can’t sleep.”

And my mom went over to the phone to call my Grandmother back, who shouted, “ I have your papers right now, they call us! You ready to come to the United States?"

“That’s the night that changed my life.”

  

In a few months we had to fill out a lot of papers, underwent health examinations, got shots, and were interviewed by the government. We all practiced before the interview to make sure none of us made any mistakes. We could not risk staying in Vietnam. I wanted to give up everything over there. I didn't care about countries anymore. I just cared about my family. So we rush[ed] here. But my brother had to stay behind. He is 11 years older than me and by the time we were able to legally come, he was over 21 years old. He had to stay there and could not come to America with us. It has been very hard being separated.

In 2010, my grandparents helped us get to North Carolina, and for a few months they gave us money to live on for rent, food, and absolutely everything. Meanwhile I worked in my aunt’s fast food restaurant in the mall. But soon after the mall closed down, so did her restaurant. There were no more jobs for my family and I could not attend high school because my mom had forgotten to acquire my school records, so no school in North Carolina believed that I had been educated.

WE HAD NOTHING

   

If we kept living in North Carolina, it seemed like we would never have a stable life. I needed to go to school right away to earn my high school diploma because after I turn 21 I cannot attend high school anymore, and my parents needed to find jobs. So my parents decided that since my mom had some close friends and family in Minnesota, we should move there. So we did. 

Upon arriving to Minnesota, I began to attend Minnesota High School. On my first day, I was really careful: I wrote all my classes and the instructions on how to get to the rooms, but I still had to ask a lot of teachers for help to find them. I even managed to get to my classes early, but no one sat near me. 

In my biology class, the teacher paired us up boy-girl boy-girl that day to work on a lab with our partners. We had to look at colors and do chemical stuff, but I had no clue what we were doing. I felt so bad because my partner, he did not say or ask me anything. I could not help him at all. Even though we were in the same high school, [it felt like] I lived in a different world. I was so embarrassed. There was a boy in front of us who was actually his friend that asked my partner, “How are you guys doing?”

And all my partner had to say was…

“This sucks.”

  

WHY SO DIFFERENT THAN MY SCHOOL IN VIETNAM?

 

Vietnamese schools are very strict compared to American schools. In my school in Vietnam, we would sit in the classroom all day, and a new teacher would come in to teach a lesson and then leave. If a student did anything wrong they would be punished. Getting out of my seat during the lesson would result in a call home to my parents and forced to stand outside of the classroom with a bucket of water on top of my head for 2 hours. When a student gets a bad grade the teacher is allowed to smack them with a ruler. But to make matters worse, all grades would be posted on a wall in order from highest to lowest for every student to see, to embarrass us into getting better grades. You want to run away. The teachers' involvement with us was very limited unless we had money, so only the rich could afford to improve.

As I was transitioning from Vietnamese to American schools, I noticed that asking for help was a regular thing. I was shocked because back in Vietnam there was no asking for help, we just had to figure it out for ourselves. But during my three years of high school, I was in ESL. I had a lot of friends because English was all of our second language.

I really wanted to learn, but for others it depended on the student in that class. If they did not care, their English would not be very good. But, my friend and I studied really hard and asked teachers for help so we could pass the English language barrier. 

My English is not as good as it could be, yet I have been able to graduate high school and am now a student at the University of Minnesota- Twin Cities to earn a bachelor's degree in computer science. I’m happy I went to American schools.

HERE EDUCATION IS THE WAY YOU GET THE AMERICAN DREAM

In America, knowing English has given me a large responsibility in my family because my parents do not know much English. I am an interpreter for my parents. I help translate bills, mail, and doctor and hospital visits along with anything else they may need. My parents are currently working in a fast food company, and since I am able to, I work when I am not in school to help them pay the bills. Everything is about money because you always need to go to the bank, but in Vietnam people just hold the money themselves. They don’t give it to a bank. We did not even know how banks work when we got here. 

In the beginning, my parents were scared of using a credit card because my relatives only told of the dangers of owning one if it is used irresponsibly. My parents were freaked out, so they said no credit card at all. However, I figured it out later. It’s really easy, but you need to be very careful with the money you use and pay it on time, so we can build credit to buy a house and a car later on.  

Our lives began to change from that point on. We love to eat American food: pizza, hot dogs, and hamburgers. I personally like it better than Vietnamese food. We listen to American music and love watching American shows. I find it really hard to balance between American and Vietnamese things. My family and I used to heavily practice Buddhism, but since we got here we broke those traditions. We don’t go to temple very much anymore. My mom always complains on the day, “Oh, I’m staying home, I don’t wanna go” because it is too cold to go out during the winter. Also, back when I lived in my country I used to receive a little red bag and it was “lucky money,” but I don’t anymore. (2)

I AM VIETNAMESE

There is a guy who is younger than me in my family, but I have to call him uncle because of the family kinship. He calls himself American, but I think that’s wrong because he was not born here. He came here earlier than me when he was three years old. He believes he is the same as anybody else in the country. I think he is confident, but he should not call himself American because of his eyes, skins, and culture. He still maintains Vietnamese culture. His parents still go to temples and eat Vietnamese food. However, I don’t think I am an American because I am half culture right now, and English is the tool that I use it to survive in this country. I have to build my future here. I have to call here home. It’s really hard to control the balance between both cultures because I like American things. When I go home, they all speak Vietnamese. I need to translate. I try to balance the two, but sometimes it’s hard, but I cannot lose either one. 

I consider myself Vietnamese, but I don’t think this matters because I just want to be myself.

BE READY

I have two cousins from Vietnam that are international students at the Washington University. They did not do anything to prepare themselves for America, and when they arrived they were so overwhelmed and scared they cried on the phone with my aunt for the first month. 

Be Ready! Don’t wait until the time you arrive in America to find out what’s going on. Just ask the people who went before you. If you don’t believe it go on your computer and investigate. Look at what other immigrants have said, talk to them, learn what is happening in American culture right now. But whatever you do, don’t let yourself struggle, because if you struggle it is really hard to move on, especially if you come here without your family. Don’t come on your own, help each other strive for something better.

I DO NOT WANT TO MAKE A PREDICTION, BUT I HOPE...

I will get my citizenship here because I am going to live and work here. That’s definitely the thing I want to do, but my parents don’t want to get it though. They want to go back and live in Vietnam because they were born there. In Vietnamese culture, wherever you were born, you need to go back and die there. 

I have not been back to Vietnam, since I arrived but I hope to visit my family in the next few years. I hope I will graduate college and make enough money to buy a house and sponsor my brother and his future family.

This is my story. I just speak whatever is on my mind.

FOOTNOTES

(1) Saigon, a city located in southern Vietnam
(2) Small red bags filled with money are given to friends and family during the Vietnamese New Year.

STORY FACILITATORS:
Nina Meltzer, Huan Shi, Berkley Edwards