Journeys from Vietnam – Dai Le

Issue 1 | 3 March 2009

On Tuesday 3 March 2009, The Sydney Institute held a discussion of the Vietnamese contribution to Australian settlement presenting Quang Luu, a Board Director of Austcare and former Head of SBS Radio, and Dai Le, a community relations coordinator, member of the NSW Liberal Party and a former producer and broadcaster with ABC Radio National. Quang Luu and Dai Le recalled their very different journeys to Australia which led them to becoming Australian citizens, along with their experiences and gradual adoption of Australia as “home”.

JOURNEYS FROM VIETNAM

DAI LE

Thank you Gerard for inviting me to speak here today and to share with you my journey from Vietnam.

“Journeys from Vietnam”, is a subject that has triggered memories: of my actual escape, my life here, my identity and my current journey. I looked at my five-and-a-half year old son, Ethan, the other night and thought, he was part of my journey from Vietnam.

Vietnam is a country I still don’t understand or know very well, but from the visits I’ve been making over the years, it is certainly a country that has become close to my heart. My maternal grandmother still lives there as well as all my aunts, uncles, cousins and relatives. It is a country where I dream that, one day, the people living within and outside of it can see a way forward in reconciliation. To begin this journey, I will take you back to that fateful day in April 1975.

Leaving Vietnam

In April 1975, when the war in Vietnam ended, my life changed forever and my personal journey began. I had turned seven and was on my little tricycle in the front yard of our house, riding around as I always did, when a group of soldiers ran through the gate, yanked me off my bike, rushed into our house and soon after stormed out with my mother, two younger sisters and an aunt. My mother had one small suitcase in one arm and my middle sister in another. Our maid, whom we had come to call Aunty, carried the youngest sister. We were bundled into the back of a small military ute, full of fearful faced grandmothers, crying mothers and screaming children.

The next thing I remember, I was running. My little legs were trying to keep up with my mother and aunty; we were not alone. I recalled seeing cone hats bobbing up and down in amongst the tall grasses. People were rushing toward a big grey metallic looking ship, and we scrambled to get on board. We were fighting to make sure we were not left behind; panic was in the air.

As the ship pulled out, I turned around to take one last look at my beloved birth country. I remember vividly till this day the decision I made then, as a seven year old: everything was destroyed, I had lost my home, I’d lost my father, my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. I felt all alone and wondered if I’d ever return home again. I looked at the departing shore and saw total destruction – people left behind, distant explosions, the sound of helicopters flying above and cries and screams. These were the last memories I had of my escape from Vietnam.

For the next three years my family and I lived in limbo. We landed in the Philippines, where the ship brought us and lived in displaced people’s camps. There we were supposed to wait for my father who, I have since gathered, worked in some intelligence capacity with the Americans. The hope was that he would join us and then we’d resettle in the US together as a family. But my father never came and after three years of uncertainty, of living in overcrowded and very poor circumstances – my mother, a woman who spoke little English, at the age of 33 with three young children to care for made the courageous decision to escape one more time.

At the beginning of 1979, my mother, Anh Le, decided to join 32 other Vietnamese refugees to take one last chance of finding a safe haven and a future for her daughters. On a small, rickety boat, 36 of us waded through the warm waters in the middle of the night on a shore somewhere in the Philippines and set sail again. After nearly ten days on the ocean, a Hong Kong patrol boat finally pulled us in. We stayed in Hong Kong refugee camps till the end of 1979, when Australia accepted us for refugee resettlement. I was 11 years old. It will be thirty years on December 5, 2009 since we’ve called Australia home.

Becoming an Australian or is it Australian-Vietnamese, or Vietnamese-Australian, or Vietnamese in Australia: who am I?

Nowadays sometimes I ask myself who am I? I have spent nearly three quarters of my life in Australia, three times longer than I spent in my country of birth and the years of escape. Has this particular reality, this long journey, given me a truer identity? Have I now developed a sense of belonging?

Our first home in a free and democratic society, was in the small town of Fairy Meadow, a quiet suburb close to the beach in Wollongong. Besides the first white faces that greeted us at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith airport, the next group of white faces that greeted and welcomed us was the St Vincent De Paul Society ladies’ group. They welcomed us with cut sandwiches spread with vegemite and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands, as well as ham and cheese sandwiches and canned pineapple. We will forever owe gratitude to this group of loving, warm and caring people. One of them, Claudia Smith who lives in Bulli with her wonderful husband Don Smith, this year received an OAM for all of her charitable work in helping to resettle many of the early arrivals of Vietnamese refugees.

When we first landed here, I remember making the decision that I would embrace everything “Australian” and that I myself would become an “Australian”.

With the help of Uncle Don and Aunty Claudia, I couldn’t wait to be accepted as Australian, like them. For me, that meant I had to learn the English language and adapt to this new home and new way of life as quickly as I could. I had to study hard, to be diligent, and to make myself part of this society. I even decided it was no point learning the Vietnamese language, at language schools, because I didn’t think there was a need to know that in order to survive here and to fit in.

Australia, at the time, had just opened its door to Vietnamese refugees. The primary school I attended in Fairy Meadow had five Vietnamese refugee students, including my two younger sisters and me. The rest of the students were, in my eyes, pretty much the same – white. There were a few European-background students whose parents were from Italy, Macedonia, Malta and Greece.

I do not recall that our background – i.e. being a Vietnamese refugee, Italian migrant and so forth – was ever a subject of discussion or was an issue. Yes, we shared our life story and experiences, but I wasn’t made to feel, nor needed to prove the point that I was a refugee. I was a refugee, but I became an Australian with a refugee background. I felt that in the playground, and with my friends, I was a new kid on the block and soon became an ordinary Australian girl whose best friends were Jodi and Susan – Jodi’s parents were of Scottish background, while Susan’s parents were Italian Australians, her mother being a second generation Italian.

What is an Australian?

So what is BEING an Australian today? One way we could look at it is to say we are Australian by declaration. And, as a nation underpinned to a large extent by migration, we as a nation and as individuals within this nation have enjoyed a rich cultural heritage. A small sense of this was evident from a recent ABS survey which showed the top five languages other than English spoken in Australian homes are: Chinese (which includes Mandarin and Cantonese), Italian, Greek, Arabic (which includes Lebanese) and Vietnamese. The two largest overseas-born groups continued to be those born in England and New Zealand with China overtaking Italy as the third largest birthplace group.

Skilled migration from China and India, not counting those from the UK and New Zealand, are the third and fourth largest groups coming to Australia with Mainland China comprising 45 per cent in the past five years. Many of these Chinese migrants arrived during the Howard years, and those from India have more than doubled to 54 per cent since 2001. Skilled migration from other Asian destinations came fifth on the list. These figures clearly highlight the amazing cultural melting pot that Australia is today.

For me, the operative word is the BEING an Australian. Imagine, how you’d be experiencing life, at the moment, if you were planning for your holiday destination after a year of hard work? You’d be experiencing excitement, a sense of relief, looking forward and happy, no doubt. It is the moment you’ve been waiting for. That is how I feel BEING an Australian.

So BEING an Australian for me is being appreciative of what I have here in this country that I came to call home when I was 11 years old. It is about BEING respectful and courteous to people you come into contact with, meet and associate with; it’s about BEING passionate and compassionate; it’s BEING hard working and striving for the best; it’s BEING responsible for your own actions and words; it’s about BEING true to your word and BEING willing to contribute to the society and community in which you live.

However, I would also like to acknowledge that there are still pockets within our society where people have not been lucky enough in their day-to-day living to experience the depths, the layers and opportunities that a culturally diverse community can offer. I believe it is the role of our educated, informed and visionary leaders within the political, educational and business arenas to engage and connect the people they represent with the wider Australian society.

I believe where multicultural Australia has failed in the past is in the lack of vision from our leaders to communicate and create a future where everyone can share in celebrating its richness. Instead, the “M” word has been used, sadly, for political gain. The Labor Party has successfully tapped into this area, and has somehow claimed “multiculturalism” for their own, leaving the Liberal Party to be perceived as a party that doesn’t embrace diversity and one that doesn’t accept a multicultural Australia, especially during the Howard years. And yet, it was under the Liberal Government of Malcolm Fraser, who I believe has not been fully acknowledged for his humanitarian stance, that the Vietnamese refugees were resettled and given a new start in life – a second chance.

Australia – the generous country

My story is not unique. Mr Luu and many other Vietnamese-Australians share a similar background. Political refugees are by definition forced out of their native countries, while migrants choose to leave. However, refugees like myself would like to acknowledge that Australia has a generous history of accepting people who needed sanctuary. That my new life was possible and I’m able to stand here before you today, to retell my story, was due to the support of the then Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Fraser. As I mentioned earlier, it was under the Liberal Party that many Vietnamese refugees, like myself, were given a chance to start our new life.

While Australia was still dismantling elements of its White Australia policy, I have to acknowledge that Malcolm Fraser’s decision at the time was courageous and caring. No doubt, it was a difficult step to take for the leader of the Liberal Party – of which I’m now a member.

I would like to say that the journey from the beginning has not been easy. It has been a traumatic experience especially on someone so impressionable and so young. Not one boat journey but two, hunger, illness, death of loved ones, kindness and cruelty. I saw it all with my young eyes. There has been a struggle with language and adapting to another culture – learning to eat vegemite sandwiches (which my five-and-a-half year old son now loves), lamb chops and pumpkin scones for one.

Australia is now made up of many cultures. It is a fact we all have to acknowledge. We don’t have to travel far to experience Asia, the Middle East, Europe, England, and our Indigenous culture these days. We all live side by side, relatively harmoniously in one unique multicultural country. Our differences should be celebrated and not be feared. Our differences should be acknowledged and shared – and out of this learning can come understanding and knowledge. Knowledge dispels fears as Charlie Lynn MLC has reminded me.

My request to many Australians, migrants and refugees like myself, is for us to step up and embrace the greatness that Australia and her society has given us; to find a way to create a bridge that will connect and engage with those who’ve been here before us. What matters now is what we make of ourselves, of the democracy that we found here, and how we contribute to it.

I acknowledge there are not always equal opportunities for all Australians to participate. I recently visited a Vietnamese family, whose 15-year-old son had tragically died in what the media termed a “fight club”, with fellow school students. Here was a family whose participation in today’s Australia was minimal. They were housed in appalling housing commission facilities, they possessed poor English skills and their academic qualifications were limited. Until I spoke with them, they hadn’t been able to find out what actually happened. Parts of the media might say these people do not want to integrate, but I also ask does Australia offer, to those disposed, the opportunities to participate, share and prosper?

On the other hand, the Vietnamese-Australian community has many high achievers. For a community that has set foot here for just over 30 years ago, they have now produced the highest number of medical graduates among the various minorities, including in the UK and New Zealand. And they now proudly call themselves Australians. This is not to detract from the contribution of other minorities. It is just that the stereotype of Vietnamese-Australians is tainted with images of drugs, crime, and violence. It is time to correct that wrong image.

For political and ethnic leaders it is time to de-politicise our approach with ethnic communities. I have the same needs as you when it comes to my child’s education, or how to access the health system, or how regular the train gets to my station. Those days of block voting, and block campaigning, should disappear. It does BEING multicultural Australia no justice. My son calls himself an Australian, but he has German and Vietnamese roots. I have enrolled him into learning Vietnamese. He’s eloquent in English. When he reaches voting age, in 13 years time, he’ll be voting not based on his ‘ethnicity’ but I know he would vote based on qualities of the leadership, vision, policies and humanity of the political party. And I hope it will be the Liberal Party.

My vision is that our leaders will recognise the vast talent of young people of non-English speaking background and the richness of the cultures underpinning their families. Otherwise we will be vulnerable to exploitation by those small groups of people in our society, who do not believe in the greater goodness of humanity and use ethnicity as a dividing force. This election of Obama in the US, shows that racial background should not be an obstacle to participation in society.

The world wide web has broken down many cultural and communication barriers. Its growth and phenomenon, is no accident. For too long, people have been confined and defined by the colour of skin, shape of their eyes, their ability to speak English and so forth to be able to be part of a society. The world wide web has eliminated many of these barriers.

Australia is indeed a very unique country. We are unique. I am unique. You are unique. This uniqueness is our identity and should be celebrated and shared.

Let me finish with a quote from Machiavelli’s The Prince: “There is nothing more difficult to plan, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new order of things.”