Ho-Thanh
"I was standing alone with my mother at the bottom of the stairway of my parents' house. She took off her sweater, hugged me, tied her sweater onto me and said, 'Go now and take good care yourself and your brothers and sisters. Dad and I will meet up with you soon.' The gate to the harbor was closed by barbed wire and guarded by the military. It was chaos. We were standing in front of the gate trying to think of how we would cross the line. In my right hand, I held my twelve year old brother. I picked up my little brother, who was four years old, put him on my back and told my sister, who was 18 years old, to take care my other sisters. I then stepped on the barbed wired line so that all my sisters could run through. We ran as fast as we could to the harbor and tried to get on the boat. The boat was full and so many people kept trying to get on the boat by using a narrow piece of wood to cross from the harbor wall to the boat."
"We did not know where we were going and whether were we safe. We were on the ocean for one week with very little food and water until we got help from a US Navy boat." "At that time, I knew for sure that I had left Vietnam and lost my parents. My life changed in front of my eyes. I was a twenty years old woman who never had to be alone and I was force to take care of five younger brothers and sisters. Despite the hardship and sadness, we all survived for the last twenty-seven years. Life was good to my family and me. I try to take one day at a time and live life as full as I can."
|
.jpg) |
Ho-Thanh was born in Saigon, Viet-Nam in the mid-1950s, the oldest of six children. She escaped as a refugee on a cargo ship when she was 20 years old. She and her siblings spent one month moving from island to island until they received approval to come to Fort Indiantown Gap in Pennsylvania. She is married with two adult children and works as domestic violence liaison for immigrants.
 |
 |