By Barb Arland-Fye
and Lien Truong
The Catholic Messenger
After four of their daughters’ heartbreaking attempts to escape communist Viet Nam, the parents of Lien Truong decided the whole family would risk leaving their homeland by boat in 1977, two years after the fall of Saigon.
Their family was among nearly 2 million “Vietnamese boat people” who fled by boat over the next two decades, seeking freedom from oppression and persecution. “More than 500,000 people died or disappeared,” according to the National Bureau of Asian Research.
Nearly a half-century after her family’s arduous escape, Lien Truong, 71, a naturalized citizen and convert to Catholicism, expresses her deep appreciation to the United States through her work and service to her parish, Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport.
Lien, born in 1953 in Nha Trang City, Viet Nam, attended a French school as a child, College Francais. “All of the teachers, the principal, the superintendent from France and the majority of the students were Catholic. Even though my parents were Buddhists, I was pretty much immersed into Catholic practice because of the school.” She earned her French language teaching degree in 1974 and taught French for the eighth and 10th grades in Cam Ranh High School.
“After the collapse of Saigon on April 30, 1975, my parents decided to remain in Viet Nam, thinking that we should be able to live under the Communist regime,” Lien recalled. “As a teacher from the old regime, during the summer months I had to attend many ‘brain-washing’ sessions to learn the communist way, to love their chairman, Ho Chi Minh. When the Viet Cong came into the South, they burned all the books and forbade us from listening to our music. As teachers, we were responsible for our students’ behavior even out of class.”
Unbearable existence
The oppression accelerated. “The communist police came to my parents’ motorcycle/bicycle and supplies shop to investigate our business and to tax us 100-200% above its worth and to take over our ownership. In the end, it was better to give it to them. That is how they stripped people to poverty so that they could control us in every element of our lives,” Lien said.
Two years into the new regime, her parents saw no hope for their children’s future. Meanwhile, to divert police attention, Lien’s parents farmed a couple acres of rice field they had received from her grandmother. “This is what the communists wanted you to do: hard labor and farming. All the proceeds would be given to them and then they would distribute a limited amount of the proceeds to people as benefits from the government if we were good citizens and behaved to their liking.”
Lien’s younger brother left first. “Naturally, the communist agent suspected my brother’s absence and interrogated my parents for several months.”
“Then it came to the girls’ turn. Our trip failed twice. We went to the meeting point on ‘Hon Chong’ island, waiting for a boat to take us out to sea but it did not happen. We had to return home at the regular time to divert suspicion from the communist police. They watched us with keen eyes,” Lien said.
Authorities caught the smuggler and imprisoned him in the village jail. “He managed to escape and went into our farm to plan an escape with my family. After failing the two previous trips, my parents decided that the whole family would go this time.”
The big escape
She remembers the date they began their escape: July 29, 1977. “We left the house in separate ways, pretending to go to the farm like every day. We took a bus to go to a designated house along the shore in Cam Ranh where we hid out until evening came.”
“There we saw a few other families who had the same plan. One of them happened to be my colleague from the same school, nine months pregnant, whose husband was our principal. It was a small world!”
At dusk, they walked along the beach to get to their boat. They could see their shadows on the sand. “In front of me, our principal with two sons on the right hand, his wife, heavily pregnant with another son on the left hand, walked quietly under the moon. It was good to see where we were going, yet not good for fear that the communist patrols would see us.”
The group rowed a boat to a larger boat that would take them to the open sea. About 60 people filled the 26-foot-long fishing boat. “After six days and seven nights with very little food and water, we landed in Mindanow Island, Philippines.” Lien’s colleague gave birth to a girl whom she named Philippine.
Lien suffered motion sickness on the journey at sea and remained in the under cabin where the engine was spitting out oil. Finally, she heard someone on the upper deck shouting, “I saw the horizon; I saw the mountain.” She made her way to the upper deck and saw hope. She shouted in her mind, “We live from now on, we live from now on. All we need is freedom. Without freedom you die.”
Lien Truong stands outside Sacred Heart Cathedral in Davenport which is home to the Vietnamese Catholic community since 2001.
Waiting refugees
They were registered and transported to a “refugee” camp on the Manila outskirts. “Jimmy Carter was the president at that time. After the American government pulled out of Viet Nam, leading to the collapse of South of Viet Nam, he commissioned to save all Vietnamese refugees, especially the ones who escaped by boat, hence the name “boat people,” Lien said.
The waves of refugees caught the Philippines by surprise, so the makeshift camp had bare necessities. They remained in the camp for one year, as they sought a new homeland, Lien said. Because she spoke French, her family hoped to go to Canada to settle into their new life. Canada turned down their request, preferring to resettle single, young adults who could contribute to the workforce rather than families, Lien said. Her youngest sister, Betty, was 13. The United States agreed to resettle the family. “Destiny led us to America, the best country in the world — it was, it is and it will be,” Lien said. “We are so blessed to be in America and to be Americans.”
Her younger brother’s classmate, already in the U.S., asked his church, Trinity Lutheran Church in Moline, Illinois, to sponsor the family. The church agreed. Lien’s family arrived in Moline in July 1978.
A fresh start
“The church provided a temporary place for us to stay, helped us register with the Social Security Office and we began to look for work,” Lien said. Her younger brother and sister attended school while her parents eventually got a job cleaning the doctor’s office until retirement. One month after their arrival, Lien obtained a job with John Deere Harvester with the help of a couple on the church council.
“The husband happened to be the general supervisor from the engineering department. I am still in contact and close to his children,” Lien said. “I learned to drive at the age of 24. I went the wrong direction one time and got the middle finger from other drivers. I did not understand what it meant.”
Ten months later, while working full-time, she returned to school, attending Black Hawk College in Moline and then Western Illinois University through the Board of Governors Program. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1989 and with a Master of Arts degree in 20th Century Literature in 1994.
At work, she ran into an individual who disliked the “boat people,” Lien being one of them. “But, later, he changed his mind and we became friends.” Her other interactions over the years have shown a country where people are “kind and generous and friendly, especially the Midwesterners. I am the most blessed person.”
Gratitude and grace
Her love for gardening connected her with Sacred Heart Cathedral. In late summer 2006, Father Joseph Phung, a diocesan priest then serving as parochial vicar at the cathedral and the Vietnamese Catholic community there, returned from a wedding in California during which he met members of Lien’s family. They asked him to give their regards to Lien in the Quad-Cities.
“While visiting my home, he saw my work with the garden, and the landscaping. A few weeks later, he asked if I would assist the Vietnamese Catholic community in making a patio around the Mother LaVang statute where people could adore and pray.”
She began working for the parish in August 2006 as an assistant to the Vietnamese community. With Father Phung’s encouragement, she enrolled in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. She was confirmed at the Easter Vigil in 2007. “In my heart of hearts, I was already Catholic,” Lien said. Receiving the sacrament “propelled me further into the religion, to practice and live the Catholic way.”
Today, Lien serves as a liaison between the Vietnamese and Anglo community at Sacred Heart Cathedral, assists the Vietnamese with paperwork and serves as a translator. “Lien has been invaluable as a member of the Cathedral parish. She is always eager to help and puts in a lot of time ‘off the clock’ on Sundays and other days,” Father Thom Hennen, the pastor, said.
“In addition to her personal and language skills, she has a flair for the artistic and a green thumb — she does miracles with the flowers in the backyard. She also makes sure I keep well fed, bringing me all manner of wonderful Vietnamese food, as well as baked goods. I tell her regularly that she spoils me, but that’s the kind of person she is. She has a servant’s heart, a generous heart. She is a bridge between our parishioners, especially since the Vietnamese community moved to the Cathedral from St. Ambrose in 2001. (Next year we hope to have a big celebration for 25 years of the Vietnamese community at Sacred Heart). She has a joy and grace in everything she does.”
