I Was Sixteen and I Was Lost

By: Lala Stein

I had in my possession a little bag filled with memories and hopes.  I was heading south, to Chau Doc, in the company of a small group of people with the same purpose: we were seeking freedom.

After about a week in Chau Doc we managed to get on a ferry that was heading for Cambodia.  During the few days we were on the Mekong River I started to lose all sense of time.  I was just happy not to have been caught.

Finally we arrived in Cambodia. From Cambodia you can go to Thailand, and my plan was that from there I would try to contact my five siblings who were already living in the United States.  We were hidden at the home of a relative of the group leader and we did not see daylight or breathe fresh air for days.  I was scared and hungry and missed my mother and my little sister very much.  I was also upset with myself.  I was sixteen, and I was lost.

There are seven of us brothers and sisters, and I am next to the youngest.  In 1977, a couple of years after the war ended, my mother sent the first two of my siblings away in the hope that they might find their way to the US.  Everything went brilliantly for them, and in very quick time they were accepted as refugees in that country.  Then two years later the next three siblings followed, but their journey was very different.  I remember the tortured feeling of waiting to hear from them – day after day we got more and more worried.  Then finally, there was good news: They were safe and were staying temporarily on an island in Indonesia.

So on the whole things were going well for our family.  Then one day in 1980 our house was raided by police officers carrying guns and a search warrant.  Not only did they turn our house upside down and steal our possessions, they took our mother away.

My little sister was eight and I was ten, our father was in a concentration camp and our mother was in jail.  My world had fallen apart.  One of my aunties came and stayed with us for a while, and I started to help her scratch a living by selling food, cigarettes, and sweets.  Those days were a long nightmare, and I remember how my sister and I used to cry ourselves to sleep cuddled together.  We missed our mother so much, and the thought of her alone in a dark cell ached my heart.  We also missed our father, whom we had not seen for a long time.  And we missed our older brothers and sisters.  I longed for the normal childhood other kids had.

After about a year my mother was freed.  Life got better, but it was not what it had been.  We continue to grow, but on different paths.  My mother was busy working and living her life; I was growing apart from her.  I tried to escape the country a few times but to no avail – until finally I made it to Cambodia.

It was 1986 and I had left behind my home, a precious little sister and my mother – and a letter begging for forgiveness and asking her to picture me with a brighter future.  Not only I did not make it to Thailand, I was also raped.  I hitchhiked back to Vietnam full of shame.  Freedom was not for me, I decided.  Running away had been total bat hieu (ingratitude) to my parents, and I deserved the consequences.

In 1989 the government allowed us to leave the country to be reunited with my brothers and sisters, so I got to America at last.  It was a struggle, but I put myself through school and got myself a job.  The most rewarding thing, however, was that I married and became the mother of two children.  I have a husband who loves me very much, understands me and helps me erase the bad memories, and I have loving children who help me recapture some of my lost childhood.

On top of that, I have brothers and sisters whom I love very much. 

Lala lives in Philadelphia with husband and two children.

Lala Stein

This story excerpted from the book "Boat People, personal stories from the Vietnamese exodus 1975 -1996" edited by Carina Hoang