Kim Vo ~ A Survivor's Story ~ Part One

“My neighbor, next to my parents, went to work in Saigon and would come back to see her parents and then go back to Saigon. I was a little kid, about eight or nine years old, and I begged her to take me with her,” Kim said. The neighbor was reluctant to take on the responsibility of a young child, but Kim eventually wore her down saying she could find her a job as a babysitter, and she would stay with the people she worked for. “I went home and I lied to my dad and my mom,” confessed Kim. “I told them, tomorrow morning I was going to go with the lady to the supermarket and buy some groceries. I’m going to go with her and then I’ll be back. My dad didn’t have any reason not to believe a little kid and I remember, he gave me fifteen hundred dollars, their money, which is not even a dime or something like that here. I remember he got up in the morning and got me warm clothes on. I couldn’t pack nothing, ‘cause I didn’t want him to know I was going to go away from home. So, I just left with what he gave me and I took off with the lady and we went to the airport. She bought a ticket to fly to Saigon and I didn’t have enough money. I had earrings my momma gave me and I told her, ‘take them off and sell them and get the money and buy me a ticket. So, she bought me a ticket, I don’t know how much money it was, and she took me to Saigon with her.”

Kim stayed with the lady for a week until she found her a North Korean family to babysit for. The man was a dentist, and his wife stayed home with their five children. “Two years I work for her and I never get paid. As a little kid, I didn’t have any money or anything, as long as I get something to eat, that’s all I need. Back then I never think it will affect me,” said Kim with a trembling voice, struggling for composure as she continued, “I never had enough to eat or anything like that, whatever they left me I would eat that, that’s it,” she said softly. She was not allowed to sit with them at the table or anywhere else they were unless she was serving them. She said she was considered their slave, she had to do whatever they said. “They had a black and white TV, I want to see it, but I can’t see it,” Kim stated sadly. “I tried to sneak to look at it, uh uh, I get yelled at. They gave me a little place in the corner of the kitchen and a chair for me to eat on. I would have to clean up the table and everything before I ever sit down to eat. They gave me a separate plate and a bowl and chopsticks. That’s all they gave me. I cannot touch anything that they eat . . . If they left me something I would eat it bone dry, that’s all I eat. The fish is all bone with sauce on it, that’s it, no meat. I didn’t even think about it, as long as I get something to eat, I’m good,” Kim stated. 

Kim would be sent to the grocery store to purchase what the lady of the house wanted, she did all this without being able to read or write. “I never been to school in Vietnam because I didn’t have an opportunity to do it,” stated Kim. “I don’t (didn’t) know how to read, or to write, I didn’t even know what the numbers looked like, what the ‘a’ looked like, I don’t know. She just tell me to go buy a pound of meat or whatever and I did it. I would take it home and wash and clean it and get everything ready for her to cook, then she cooked it. One day her kids ate the Ramen Noodles, she told me to cook it for them. I’m sitting there, literally looking at them eat and I’m just hoping they leave me some kind of juice so I can drink it, I want it that bad,” she said recalling the rumblings of her little tummy. She remembered being outside sweeping the sidewalk and stopping to stare at their children eating sandwiches hoping they would give her only a piece of bread, but there was no compassion or kindness shown. The father, walking out and seeing her staring at his children eating, sent her in the house without a thought for her hunger. Not only did she spend her years with them hungry she also was given very little time to sleep. She rose every morning at 6:00 a.m. and worked until midnight each night. 

Following the fall of Saigon in 1975, many Vietnamese fled Vietnam fearing persecution from the new communist regime. Many traveled by boat to the Philippines and Guam where they were processed and then transported to one of four refugee camps in the United States, one being Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. 

“The war was going on and the lady said, ‘I’m leaving, but I’m not taking you with me.’ I said okay, but I got scared, ‘cause I thought, what am I going to do. If I stay in that house the communist come over and kill me. But she changed her mind and said, ‘You can go with me.’ We take off for the boat and I lost her ‘cause there’s so many people. God helped me, he bring me over and make sure I’m safe,” said Kim with certainty. I was on the boat for one month and I had no idea where we were going. It was a big boat, a huge one, it’s three stories. There were a lot of people on the boat. I saw a soldier trying to guide us and someone shot him and he fell off overboard. The captain took off and we were in the middle of the ocean. I asked where we going and he said we go and then we come back in a couple days. We didn’t come back in a couple days, he kept going. People were sick and dying and they throw [them] overboard. They just wrap them in blankets and throw them over, there’s no place to bury them. I’m not scared, I had a little seasick, but not much. We out of food, we ate rice with bug in it, we had no water, we drank the sea water. We had to,” exclaimed Kim, “we had no water. One day the captain told everybody, I don’t care how many people in the family, 10, 20, one or two, he want two bar of gold. He didn’t want money, he said giving him money was useless. I don’t have no gold. A lady said if we have no gold you have to take the money. What you do with the people who have no gold. He said I put you overboard. That got me scared,” said Kim excitedly. “I don’t want to die that way. I sit on the side of the boat and I cry, I worried they would throw me overboard. A lady with long hair came and she said, ‘what’s wrong?’ I told her I got scared, I don’t got no gold, I came by myself and I don’t want to die that way. She said, ‘Don’t worry, if anyone asks you who you go with you say you go with me.’ And I didn’t know who she was. She left and after that, no one came [and] ask me, no one came and ask me nothing, they brought me some food and water,” said Kim softly. “The next day I said I’m going to go find that lady and thank her. I went from top to bottom, each person I see, a long-haired lady, it[s] not her, she disappear. That’s my angel,” Kim told us with the utmost confidence the mysterious lady was sent by God. 

After leaving Saigon, the boat Kim was on traveled first to Thailand. “They brought us some food and water, they gave us bunches of apples and oranges and I thought, oh, boy, great food, I’ve never seen that. I say, I’m going to eat all of them, I’m so happy.” They gave Kim an apple, an orange, grapes and some rice lifting the spirits of one hungry little girl. “They let us stay there three days and said we got to go and we go to Singapore,” continued Kim, “They had lists of people, who gets off the boat and I just sneak in and go with people, no one ask me . . . no one ask me. I see them in line to get food and I just got in line. I see people have plates of food with all kinds of stuff and I thought, man, I want some of that!” she exclaimed wide-eyed. “I got in line and they gave me an orange and they gave me an apple, I couldn’t say no, I wanted to tell her, give me one more, I’m greedy, ‘cause I want to eat. I remember the food I eat was baked beans and ketchup and rice, oh, it was good!” said Kim recalling the satisfying meal. Once Kim’s belly was filled, probably beyond capacity, she found a spot under a tree and fell asleep, unfortunately, near a pile of ants. She awoke to biting ants all over her and was frantically trying to get them off. A young serviceman came to her aid telling her to go to the restroom to shower, but once again the language barrier presented a problem. He finally took her hand and led her to a lady who helped her while he found her some clothes to change into. “I go in there and take a shower and he went and found me some clothes. They were too big ‘cause I was a little bitty kid, just bones was all I was. The clothes don’t fit me, but I don’t care, I put them on and wear them. He took me up to the office, he spoke to a lady that was a translator and asked me who I came here with. I said nobody, just me. He said I’ll get somebody to adopt you. I told him I want to go back to Vietnam, ‘cause I can’t speak the language, I can’t understand, I don’t know anybody, I want to go back. He told the lady to tell me not to go back, he said if she goes back she will die, the communists will kill her. I said but I want to go back to my momma and daddy where my family is, I don’t want it here. He told the lady I would be fine. The lady asked me where the lady was I came with. I told her I don’t know she somewhere, maybe she here and she asked me what her name was. The man said I’ll find her. He found her and she came up there and said, ‘I going to adopt you.’ When she said she was going to adopt me I thought to myself, oh no! I don’t want to go through this. But I have no choice, I can’t speak I don’t know anything so I said I would go with her. She took me to the refugee camp with her family and they gave everybody a folded bed, a blanket and a pillow to sleep. She take the pillow away from me, she said that one my son needs, so she take it. I couldn’t take a nap, it was so hot and she wanted me to sit there when her kids take a nap, she gave me a hand fan to fan her kids so they could sleep and I fall asleep and get cussed out for that. Every day seven days a week I do that,” declared Kim. The lady would make Kim go stand in line to get food for her kids, even though they were grown and could do it themselves. Washing their clothes, was another of her jobs and she washed clothes until her hands bled. “I started thinking, my mom and daddy never make me do this, why I do for you, you don’t pay me, you are not taking care of me.” Kim continued to turn over in her mind why she was staying and working for nothing for this woman and began to weigh her options. She realized she didn’t have many, if she didn’t continue with the lady she would be left on her own again. They stayed there for two weeks, then the woman told her they were going to go to the United States. Kim had no idea where the United States was, but she got up the next morning and packed everything for the next leg of their journey. 

Their next stop was Guam where they were housed in a military camp. “Guam is hot,” noted Kim, “There were no trees or nothing, it was hot. She made me do the same old things, wash their clothes, go get lunch, same old same, and fan her kids while they sleep. I fall asleep that day and she cussed me out and I got so mad. She called my momma and daddy names that day saying your mom and dad don’t know how to teach you, you don’t have no manners, blah blah blah. I got mad and I just take off and run, I ran to bathroom or somewhere, I just want to get away. Then I ran to other military camp and nobody there. They had the beds all set up and all that and I lay on that bed and I sleep, I sleep, oh and I sleep good. I don’t remember nothing, I sleep all day just about. The soldiers came back and they try to wake me up and I just sleep. He finally pull my leg so I get up. I got up and saw him and thought, Oh, my God and I ran to the bathroom to wash my face.” Kim was recognized by a lady, who relayed the information back to the family she ran away from, and they came to get her. “She said, ‘Tomorrow we go to the United States and if you don’t come back I’m going to leave you here and people here are bad, they’ll do something bad to you.’ So, I got scared and I come back and go [with her.], Kim said. Despite her resignation, a faint glimmer of hope flickered within her young heart.