The Vietnamese Boat People

Steve, born in 1961 in Vietnam, was only 14 years old when the South had lost the war to the North Vietnamese. The eldest son of a socialite family, Steve’s childhood was filled with whatever he wanted. All of that disappeared overnight. A wealthy boy who had never had to do anything for himself but enjoy life, was suddenly forced to become a man. As the oldest child of seven, he quickly felt the burden of having to provide for the family.

Episode 3 continues the story of JoAnh who was just three days old when her family had to flee the city of Da Nang Vietnam, just 30 days before the Fall of Saigon. After the war ended, families were stripped of any wealth and personal possessions and many were separated and sent to reeducation camps under the Communist regime. JoAnh’s family escaped Vietnam in phases, eventually reuniting in America in 1981. She shares her earliest memory of what life was like as a refugee child and the...

On March 30, 1975, a Saigon government spokesman said that radio contact with South Vietnamese port of Da Nang had been lost, indicating that the city had fallen to the North Vietnamese. Just days before, a mother wrapped her three-day old baby in a hand-knit sweater as she prepared to evacuate the city of Da Nang. The family, with five other children and a newborn, fought their way through the flooded streets of rampant panic would later get separated, including losing their newborn baby.

Hi I'm Tracey Nguyen Mang. I was just under four years old when my Mom organized an escaped from the Vietnamese Communist regime in 1981. With nothing but clothes on our backs, she left everything behind and took three girls under the age of 10, deep into the jungle in the middle of the night, and eventually out into the treacherous seas. Thirty-seven years later, I'm on a mission to document every part of that escape and the events and turmoil that led my family and many others to choose...