“No beds were provided! Approximately 20 people were crammed into a house this big, and we piled bamboo mats together and that’s how we slept; each family takes a corner. My impression of Hong Kong is not very good. The “jail guards” – the police who guarded the camps – were not very nice to us, refugees. Hostility towards refugees who committed crimes makes sense, but they were impolite to the children and women, to us refugees in general… For example, everyone was lining up for buckets of water in a narrow space, so there were inevitably some pushing and shoving. Then, one of the guards kicked one of the buckets and yelled at us with profanity. He didn’t tell us in polite tones to keep order, but yelled and swore at us… Not everyone was like this, but 6 to 7 out 10 of them were.” -Excerpt from “Finding the Sino-Vietnamese: The Historic Process of the Identification of the Sino-Vietnamese in Vancouver” a graduating essay by Angela Wong (May 2008)
Between the period of 1979-1980 resettled 60,000 Vietnamese and Sino-Vietnamese refugees who were escaping Vietnam by the masses in boat. This period was often referred to as the Boat People Exodus during the late 1970s and 1980s, and was often compared to the plight of the Jews in the Holocaust. This year would mark the 30th anniversary of this horrific event.
The Canadian Red Cross is hosting a talk featuring a Vietnamese survivor,Tuoi Nguyen.The event will be at the Central Vancouver Public Library in the Alice McKay Room. It will be on Tuesday, May 19th, from 7-9 pm. Admission is free but seating is limited. For more information, visit: We Came By Boat – A Story of Survival
