Canada welcomes Vietnamese refugees lost in limbo: Asian Pacific Post

Wed, March 12 2008

 
The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration announced last week the arrival of the first of a number of Vietnamese who have been living in the Philippines without status since the 1970s.

 http://www.asianpacificpost.com/portal2/c1ee8c4418a404dc0118a56d107f011f_Canada_welcomes_Vietnamese_refugees_lost_in_limbo.do.html

 Refugees in Vancouver: Asian Pacific Post

Last of the Boat People

Thu, March 20 2008

By Lucy-Claire Saunders

It’s taken over two decades, but the first wave of the last remaining Vietnamese boat people set foot last week on Canadian soil — their new and final home.

http://www.asianpacificpost.com/portal2/c1ee8c4418c3a89d0118cd71520400e6_Last_of_the_Boat_People.do.html

Toronto welcomes 65 forgotten boat people

Mar 22, 2008 04:30 AM

Nicholas Keung
Immigration/Diversity Reporter
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The first of 65 Vietnamese "boat people" who languished for years in refugee camps after the West slammed the door, landed in Toronto yesterday, 18 years late for the start of a new life of freedom.

Thai Van Nguyen is just one of 2,200 lost refugees, all uprooted by a war that ended more than a quarter of a century ago. They were left stranded after the United Nations declared in 1990 they were no longer in need of protection. The declaration led the West to slam its doors, leaving people like Nguyen out of luck.

But Nguyen's luck changed yesterday when he landed at Pearson, joining a welcoming community of 150,000 Vietnamese-Canadians who settled here long ago.

http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/349687

 Vietnamese families given 'chance to rebuild their lives' in Ottawa

'Stateless' people spent decades in Philippines

Jessey Bird, Ottawa Citizen

Published: Thursday, April 17, 2008

The first of several Vietnamese families moving to Ottawa arrived late last night, after nearly two decades of living in limbo in the Philippines.

Nhan Thanh Nguyen, 55, and his wife, Hue Thi Le, 46, descended the escalator right on time, where they were greeted by a group of anxious and excited members of Ottawa's Vietnamese community.

Loan Thi Le, who travelled from Los Angeles to greet her family, raced in to Hue Thi Le's arms, before she even had the chance to step off the stairs.

"I'm very, very, happy," said Loan Thi Le, breaking in to sobs. "This is my sister."

"This is a chance to rebuild their lives," said Can D. Le, national co-ordinator of the Vietnamese Canadian Federation's project Freedom at Last.

Canada recently granted stateless Vietnamese people living in the Philippines permanent entry on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

After the fall of Saigon in 1975, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fled, mainly by boat, with many arriving in the Philippines.

Though a number were able to settle in other countries, those who remained in the Philippines were considered stateless.

Freedom at Last has raised more than $500,000 to support families immigrating to Canada as well as the United States and Australia.

 In March, families began to arrive in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.

"They had no status," said Can D. Le. "They were not allowed to work, their children were not allowed to go to school, so many had to get by by buying and selling things illegally."

"They live on a day-to-day basis without hope," he said.

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THE FORGOTTEN ONES by Brian Doan

On a rainy September afternoon in 1980 in South Vietnam, in a small village 100 kilometers northeast of Saigon, my family received a telegram from America. “Huy and Tuan arrived safely in Palawan.” It was signed by Truong Tan, a cousin in California, telling our family that my brother and his friend were safe at the Palawan refugee camp in the Philippines. We became silent for a moment, then broke out in joyful tears. After several months waiting anxiously, the telegram appeared like a miracle. Ever since then, the word “Palawan” has been recorded in my innocent mind as the land of hope, a land of legend, a paradise for Vietnamese asylum seekers, and I regretted that I had been unable to go with my brother.

In January 2004, almost a quarter century later, I finally entered that “legendary” land, not as a refugee, but as a documentary photographer. I was in Palawan to document the refugee camp for my Vietnamese Diaspora project. Surprisingly, Palawan did not look like the dream land which I had imagined in my childhood. Instead, I encountered people living in misery—the “left-over” Vietnamese boat people and Amerasians, who have been isolated there since long before I immigrated to the United States in 1991.

The Palawan camp is located on the western Philippine island of Palawan, near the city of Puerto Princesa. The camp is located near the ocean, bordered by Puerto Princesa Airport. From here, I could see planes lining up and taking off; from here in 1995, hundreds of Vietnamese were forcibly repatriated to Vietnam until the denouncement by the Catholic Bishops conference in the Philippines in 1996. In my mind, I could imagine the other hundred thousand Vietnamese who were repatriated from other camps in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand in the 1990s.

Find out more about Brian Doan and the Vietnamese Diaspora Project

http://www.vietnamesediaspora.org/

The Story of Palawan by Honglien Do, now an American citizen

I am Honglien and I lived on Palawan as a detainee with my daughter and three nieces for seven years before we were returned to communist Vietnam. We recognized many of the faces in Brian’s book. Our journey to Palawan started aboard a small open boat without a working motor with 62 other refugees, four of whom died. The sea adventure lasted 22 days without proper food and water. But we were among the lucky ones: we survived it all and made it to the U.S.A in good time. One of our cousins was on Palawan for 16 years.  He just got to America last year.

Brian’s pictures tell a lot but the photography alone leaves one wanting to know more. How did this happen? How could this happen?

Brian and other experts provide the necessary background text for those that don’t know the story of the Boat People of Vietnam and the men, women, children and families held in limbo for years in refugee centers like that on Palawan: many only to be returned to the nation they had fled: communist Vietnam.

The trip to Palawan for almost all the people started in 1975, when Saigon fell to the communists. A few are still being brought out of Palawan today.

It was illegal to leave Vietnam once the communists took over. But more than a million people made the attempt anyway: and tens of thousands lost money to disreputable “brokers” in the process and wound up in communists jails, over and over again.

http://www.nowpublic.com/book_marvelously_documents_forgotten_saga_of_war_refugees_and_freedom_seekers