My Refugee Journey - Knowledge is Power

Written by Sarah Nguyen

I hear the car door slam shut. The car alarm chirms and the front door to our house creaks open. The sound of footsteps approaches my bedroom door. It’s dad. It’s 1 am, and he had just come home from another tiring, long day of work. Dad is quiet, reserved, and hardworking. Dropping out of high school to support his recently immigrated parents and eight siblings, he was burdened with many responsibilities from a young age. Our family of four resided in a petite one-story house in Garland, Texas, an impoverished and predominantly Asian community in Dallas. Attending the local public school up to 2nd grade, my younger sister Annie and I never felt different or disadvantaged since all the school kids lived similar lifestyles to ours. My classmates spoke Vietnamese, ate Vietnamese food, and went home to their small, one-story homes. Our close-knit Asian community reinforced my vulnerable thoughts of indifference in our society. And from what I remember, mom and dad were always frugal with their spending. We never went on vacation, consistently ate the same foods, and TV time was sacred. But although we had nothing, Annie and I never desired anything more. We never noticed our indifference until midway through second grade; my uncle’s and dad’s restaurant became a local hit! Over the course of that year, my parents became financially stable and could afford to send Annie and me to private school. Oh, how private school was different. Every kid dressed properly, came into class with nice school supplies, and looked different. For the first time in my young life, I felt secluded. My eyes were smaller. I was tanner. I didn’t own a Nintendo and was insecure in my parents’ broken English.

Mom and her two younger siblings were refugees of 1987, escaping the oppressive, communist government in Vietnam. My mom’s father/my grandfather/my grandmother’s husband died of alcoholism, leaving grandmother and her 10 kids to fend for themselves in rural Vietnam. Poverty is an understatement; in order to feed her large family, grandmother would buy discounted, expired groceries and constructed everyone’s wardrobe. Even then, her family still wasn’t the poorest in their village. A young, widowed woman of conservative, communist Vietnam, grandmother defied social norms. She was the primary provider, a father to her children, a clever saleswoman, and an ambitious individual; once she acknowledged the potential in the United States, she took the risk: smuggling her kids out of communist Vietnam. After years of frugal spending and food rationing, she finally scraped together enough gold to smuggle her three youngest, which included my mom, her brother, and her sister, to the United States by boat. Simply overnight, my 19-year-old mother filled the absent maternal role and became her siblings’ primary guardian.

Knowledge is power. When first arriving to San Diego, California, mom and her siblings received little to no assistance. Society feared their foreign behavior and rejected their arrival. Yet, this discrimination and abuse only further motivated academic pursuit. People can start from anywhere, but knowledge is the only rightfully earned quality that separates you from your acquaintances. A growing intelligence lifts you from poverty and can only benefit your life. Motivated by this belief, mom and her siblings proceeded to earn college degrees and future comfortable lifestyles which later allowed them to sponsor grandmother’s immigration to the United States. Mom earned her engineering degree from San Diego State University and currently resides in Richardson, Texas with dad. And as for their kids, I, Sarah Nguyen, am their eldest daughter and currently attend SMU (Southern Methodist University) as a sophomore while my younger sister Annie attends TCU (Texas Christian University) as a freshman. Mom’s younger siblings currently practice medicine and reside in Highland Park, Dallas.

Mom and her siblings live that American Dream: Anyone can be anything. And much due to motivation and gratitude for knowledge, my family is a proud example of that

profound dream. Unfortunately, not every refugee family lives this reality. The significance of assisting those less fortunate in similar predicaments remains dear to my family’s priorities. And so, currently, Doan, my aunt’s fourteen-year-old son and a current 8th grader attending St. Marks School of Dallas, and I have involved ourselves with this service and are ecstatic to contribute towards the betterment of the refugee community. Doan shares, “I enjoy every Thursday evening when I get to come and teach English. Although I may be my students’ mentor, my students have become my teachers as well; they have taught me valuable attributes in leadership, patience, and a greater appreciation for education. Sometimes, I can’t help but imagine my own mom in their shoes just a few decades ago,” Knowledge is power. And with the improvement of every child’s English at Refugee Resources, knowledge encourages positive change and motivates future contributive behavior in unimaginative ways.