A man leaves his country and everything behind in a journey to America that takes him several years.

Interviewer: Charlie Pham
Interviewee: Van Nguyen
Date of Interview: June 3rd, 1999
Translated by: Charlie Pham

What is your full name?

My name is Van Nguyen.
What is your nationality?
I am Vietnamese.
What is your date of birth?
My date of birth is October 15, 1955.
Where were you born?
I was born Hai Phong, Vietnam.
When did you move to the US?
I left my country in 1980 and headed for Hong Kong and remained there for two years and then moved to the United States and live in New York.
When did you move to Philadelphia?
I 'm living in New York for six years now, along with my friend Thanh and then she moved to Philadelphia. She had been living there for a while now and asked me to come and visit. I liked the way Philadelphia looks; it was a calm place, not crowded like New York and noisy also. That's when I decided to move there and that was 1986.
Why did you leave Vietnam?
Vietnam was under Communism, I think it still is under Communism, today. Anyway, Vietnam was under Communism and that made [it] very difficult to live in Vietnam because I had to follow the orders of the Communists unlike in the United States. United States was the land of freedom, I could do whatever I wanted, the rules here was easier to live by than having to listen to the Communists back in Vietnam.
Why did you choose Philadelphia?
Philadelphia wasn't a noisy place. It was easy for me to get a job and my friend introduced me to this city in the first place. There wasn't that many Vietnamese people that I knew in the United States. My friends and I had to stick together because I didn't know English that well.
How did you travel here? / What type of transportation did you use / take?
When I went to Hong Kong, I went by boat then later, I took a plane to America when I got my papers to be able to come to America. I landed John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, I think.
Did you know anyone in Philadelphia? If so, who?
Yeah, I knew a person named Nguyen Van Thanh but she moved to Connecticut.
With whom did you travel?
During my travels, I traveled alone.
How did your life change when you moved and what were the differences between the two places?
It's really different. United States is a big country, the land of freedom. I could eat, sleep and do whatever I wanted. In Vietnam, I had to listen to the Communists and do what they wanted. Living in America is easier than in Vietnam and the jobs were less stressful, too.
What were your expectations about you destination? [U.S. / Philadelphia]
My expectations were pretty simple: come to America, get a job, work, and live my life. That was it.
What did you sacrifice / leave behind when you left?
I left almost everything, family, brothers and sisters, my job and things that I like and had in Vietnam. I was the only one that was allowed to go to United States.
What kind of problems did you undergo during your travel, if any?
When I went to Hong Kong by boat and I wasn't the only one who was going, people died because they either drowned or starved. Going to Hong Kong took months to get there, the people I went along with encounter storms, massive waves that nearly sunk the boats and many other things. Fortunately I was lucky; my experience on the boat that I traveled on wasn't as harsh as what other people have come upon when they traveled to Hong Kong.