The Vietnamese Canadian Federation in Ottawa has published Gift of Freedom; How Ottawa welcomed the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian Refugees by Brian Buckley (General Store Publishing House, 2008). $20 The book sales benefit the Boat People Museum in Ottawa. Review by Jean Libby, VietAm Review: Gift of Freedom is an English-language history of the Southeast Asian refugees in Canada. It is professionally written and historically helpful for anyone who wants information about the issues and experiences of Boat People refugees to Canada from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos between 1979 and 2008. That’s right, 2008 – when the last refugee camp of Vietnamese Boat People in the Philippines, Palawan, was closed. The people who had not been accepted by other countries were in danger of deportation back to Vietnam. The Vietnamese Canadian Federation persuaded the Canadian government to take them as Permanent Residents immediately. The unique Canadian history alone would be worthy of a book, but Gift of Freedom also develops the original exodus beginning in 1977 and its roots in the Vietnam War of 1954-1975, continuing with the wars between the victorious Communist countries and that important relationship to the desperation so great that people knowingly risked their lives and those of their children to cast themselves into the China Sea on rickety boats to seek refuge and asylum. It is the best history for general readers of English that I have seen of the Vietnam War – in which Canadian troops also fought in alliance with South Vietnam (1)–and the aftermath as it affected people in the defeated country. Buckley describes it as a “proxy war between East and West, a struggle between contending ideologies, an interstate conflict among local powers, and a guerilla war.” Paths of migration of all ethnic groups are mapped. The graphic appeal of Gift of Freedom; How Ottawa welcomed the Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees is a meeting of professionalism and passion for the subject matter demonstrated by the Book Committee of the Vietnamese Canadian Federation, particularly former president Can D. Le. The Canadian government did not send official troops as they did in World War II, the Korean Conflict, Desert Storm, and presently in Afghanistan. Over 30,000 Canadians volunteered to fight with American units during the Vietnam War. Native Canadian people (Mohawk Indians) were especially represented as troops fighting alongside the U.S. in alliance with South Vietnam.    more »