Refugee and Immigrant Stories

My Country and the Way to America
by Huong Nguyen, girl, age 11

Stone Soup has included one of my former newcomer students’ works on their website. Huong’s story first self-published in Light of the Island, as a collection of Hosford Middle Sshool students’ work. Jimmy Carter, former president, kindly sent the students a letter and photo. Please read this story to see how other immigrant student were inspired to tell their escape stories. The following is taken directly from a webpage at StoneSoup.com.

This is an extraordinary story, extraordinarily told, first published in the May/June 1985 issue of Stone Soup. It is a story about how Huong made her way from Vietnam to America. We have published several stories about a child’s travel from a land of danger to one of safety, but this one remains our favorite. The style is sparse, even austere. The section about their time on a boat, beginning, “After three days or four days out the ocean, the boat have a hole and the water coming. Everybody was cry and scary . . .” is a particularly strong section. In it style and content are perfectly blended. A more grammatically correct English would be hard pressed to tell as effectively this frightful tale.

I live in Vietnam. I go to school in Vietnam. I have three pigs and one dog, but the dog is dead. My mother she was sad. My mother my father my sister is go to work. Me and my younger sister we stay home. Everybody is go to work. We has a restaurant in Vietnam. So my family they work there.

In Vietnam is very awful so we leave. One night my sister she take my younger sister and I go in to the boat. But we ask her where do we going, and she said she take us to the zoo. And we very happy because we don’t know what the zoo mean. She tell us the zoo is for the animals use to live.

So we go to see we saw the lion and the tiger and the elephant and the monkey and the wolf and snake and the bear and the very old cat. The old cat is very big but if we touch that cat he bite you and you have to go to the hospital. That cat so grumpy.

After we went to the zoo and we go to buy a lot of food. My younger sister she ask what for? My oldest sister said we going to have a party.

And she take us to get on the boat. And I see too much people. When we start to go I am too small and I am so stupid.

Because they want everybody to put the children to go sleep because they start to go but I don’t want to go to sleep but I want to play with the water. I put my feet under the water. The people in the boat they gave me a medicine but I don’t know what is that. Then I drink the medicine. After I drink I was sleeping.

When I wake up I saw the ocean. And I put my feet under the water again.

After three days or four days out the ocean, the boat have a hole and the water coming. Everybody was cry and scary. The boat was rocking and raining. The people they felling down the ocean. The captain in the boat. He jump down the ocean and he help everybody to get on the boat. Then he was tired and he can’t swim no more. He dead under ocean. His wife was sad and lonely. Everybody they are wet. Me and my younger sister we are under boat. And we didn’t get drop down the ocean. My sister she said we are lucky. The people they take care of the lady because that lady she is very lonely and sad.

We stay in the ocean for a month and two days. The last day we saw a people dead on the water. We saw money and the wood, the shoe, the paper, the clothes, the pants. And everybody was scary.

Another day we saw a big ships. We are happy they let we get on the ship. We saw a lot of toys. We play on the ship for one day.

And they get my boat to Malaysia. We lived there two month.

And they take we go to Indonesia. We lived there one years. We live in Indonesia. We have no food no water to drink no soap and shampoo for hair in Indonesia is very dirty and messy. They has a lot of the bad fly. If the bad fly sting we get sick. And no medicine.The people they dead every day.

I sick one time but not much because I drink the bad water it make me sick. My sister she think I might dead so she feel sad. And worry about my mother and my father and my sister in Vietnam.

Next morning the America people they call my family name to get on the ship. They take us go to the big mountain.

A lot some people. And we are talking to the Vietnamese people. We came to a big mountain they have everything. They have water and food, and no fly nothing. We lived there we don’t have to cook. They cook for us to eat every day. We can eat anything if we want to. Because we got to come to America some day. So we very happy.

The mountain is very beautiful. It look very big then in Vietnam. The mountain look like a city. I like America we like to live there. We live there they give us candy every day. We live there one week. Then we get on the airplane to came to Hong Kong. And we came to America. Then we live in the hotel two days in Los Angeles.

The Rising Moon
Sou Fou Saeturn, 17, boy, Portland, Oregon

“The Rising Moon” was published in Treasures 2: Stories & Art by Students in Oregon. Whenever I leaf through copies of the Treasures anthologies, I am amazed at the students’ heartfelt sincerity, depth, and wisdom. I am moved as I gllimpse moments of them through their words. Sometimes, I am transported to distant lands when reading narratives written by ESL students about their native countries and cultures.

Anytime I want to visit Laos, I read, "The Rising Moon." You can't help but be there with Saeturn and see what he sees through his rich, photo-like imagery. Reading this piece aloud brings alive the song in the words. It's one of the most beautiful student pieces I have ever read.

There is a hill near my house that I often climb at night. The valley is full of the noise of animals that often come out and watch the moon at night.

From this hill I have watched many moons rise. Each animal has its own
family and home. The trees are full of owls and all kinds of animals that watch the moon. These animals settled these hills before we came.

There have been broad, confident harvest moons in autumn, shy misty moons in spring, lonely white winter moons rising into the utter silence of an inky-black sky, and smoke-smudged orange moons over the dry fields of summer.

Every night I go out of my back door and see all these animals watching
the moon rise as I watch. But we, who live indoors, have lost contact with the moon. The trail is dark and it is hard to see the barn down near the pond.

Every hour the moon gets brighter and brighter, and my mind and my heart are feeling hopeful and happier.

Moonlight shows me none of life’s harder edges. Hillsides seem silken and silvery, the river still and blue in its light. In the moonlight I become less calculating and more drawn to my feelings.

And odd things happen in such moments. On this July night, I watch the moon for an hour or two and then go back to the mountains with the moon on my shoulder and peace in my heart.

I turn often to the rising moon. I am drawn especially when events crowd ease and clarity of vision into a small corner of my life. This happens in the fall. Then I go back to my hill, await the moon, enormous and gold over the horizon, filling the night with visions.

An owl swoops from the ridge top noiselessly but bright as flame. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank. Here will I sit and let the sound of the light winds blow across the hills.

At moonrise as I slow my mind to the pace of the heavens, enchantment
steals over me. I open the vents of feeling and exercise parts of my mind that reason locks away by day. I hear across distances from below the hillsides.

By the time the moon stands clear of the horizon, full-chested and round
and the color of ivory, the valleys are shadows in the landscape.

And then I turn back home and get a good night’s sleep, for the animals
are peaceful and quiet and have gone back to their nests to rest.

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