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Core resource

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'The Boat', an interactive graphic novel about escape after the Vietnam War. Based on the story by Nam Le, adapted by Matt Huynh.​

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Photo of boat arrival of Vietnamese refugees in Darwin 1977

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Photo of boat arrival of Vietnamese refugees in Darwin 1977

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Photo of boat arrival of Vietnamese refugees in Darwin 1977

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Example of letter from Vietnamese Refugee, translated into English

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Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

TRANSLATED LETTER FROM A VIETNAMESE REFUGEE. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/powmia/pwmaster_125937/.

APA citation style:

TRANSLATED LETTER FROM A VIETNAMESE REFUGEE. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/powmia/pwmaster_125937/.

MLA citation style:

TRANSLATED LETTER FROM A VIETNAMESE REFUGEE. Manuscript/Mixed Material. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/powmia/pwmaster_125937/>.

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TRANSLATED LETTER FROM A VIETNAMESE REFUGEE

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Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate. TRANSLATED LETTER FROM A VIETNAMESE REFUGEE. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/powmia/pwmaster_125937/. TRANSLATED LETTER FROM A VIETNAMESE REFUGEE. [Manuscript/Mixed Material] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/powmia/pwmaster_125937/. TRANSLATED LETTER FROM A VIETNAMESE REFUGEE. Manuscript/Mixed Material.

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Description and pictures of archive of Vietnamese Refugee application profiles held in Wisconsin (US)

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PYD learned about these letters while interviewing Trung Nguyen (which will be posted at a later date). Wanting to know more about these refugees and their narratives, we have decided to use this summer as a chance to review the letters, many of which tell stories of those who were involved in and affected by the Vietnam War. Moreover, the majority of the content includes pleas to countries including the United States, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, and Australia for asylum due to political and religious persecution back home.

While most of the letters were written in Vietnamese, which the SEASII students have graciously volunteered their time to translate, we do have many that are already in English. We will be uploading some of these letters (with the permission of BPSOS) onto our Art Submission gallery!

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#fromthearchives: Letters from Vietnamese Boat Refugees - Project Yellow Dress

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PYD is currently collaborating with Boat People SOS (BPSOS) Youth Coordinator, Trung Nguyen, and Vietnamese Studies Students at Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute of University of Wisconsin-Madison (SEASII) on a summer project to go through a large archive of letters written between the late 1

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Opportunity for Students to Extend: Nam Le talks at the Wheeler Centre 'Voices from Elsewhere'

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Opportunity for Students to Extend: Nam Le talks at the Wheeler Centre 'Voices from Elsewhere'

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Nam Le talking about the idea of voice in his writing

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At our Gala Night of Storytelling: Voices From Elsewhere, award-winning author Nam Le talks about his search for identity - and finding it with the help of his 'Grandpa Bruce'.

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An example of a resource that could be shown in the lesson prior to this one, that introduces Australia's response to the refugee crisis that emerged following the Vietnam War

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The History of Vietnamese Refugees to Australia - Lòng nhân đạo của chính phủ ÚC

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Modern day Open Letter from Thu-Trang Tran (Vietnamese Refugee resettled in Australia) to Australian public

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For years I was a closet refugee in Australia, and have watched as that word took on a cruel meaning: queue jumper, liar, terrorist. We need a new way to define us refugees, writes Thu-Trang Tran.
This flurry of words has been in the making for two decades. They poured as I read story after story of our Government's ruthlessness.

I am a refugee.

I don't speak of it freely. The word has not sat well with me, except when I was a young girl in Vietnam.

In Vietnam, our family were "nguoi vuot bien", literally, person exceeding boundary. As a seven-year-old, this brought images of adventures to places afar. Hearing whispers of ships, pirates, oceans, islands, America the land of plenty, and Australia full of cuddly and bouncy animals, I dreamt of going on a "trip".

I sensed the fear and danger in those hushed adult conversations. But as a tomboy, I imagined danger as made up of thrilling, scary (of the monster kind), eventful quests heroes take to discover foreign lands. I did hear the losing life and limb stories, but as a child I could not have truly comprehended death when I have not seen it.

Yes, some neighbours did not return. I only understood that they left to go somewhere, and that somewhere - "nuoc ngoai" (foreign country) - was better, freer. My chats with my grandma were all about the things I would eat and do over there. "Snickers" were a rare chocolate treat from my uncles in Australia. I wanted to eat Snickers often.

Then I learnt what being a refugee meant.

In the Malaysian detention centre we were all in the same boat, we were waiting to be "processed". "Refugee" was a bureaucratic label that would determine our destiny, and that would give meaning to my parents' sacrifice.

Our destiny determined, in Australia the Lucky Country, I learnt that a refugee was grateful, "disadvantaged NESB" (non English speaking background), and "Fresh Of the Boat". Being a FOB was ego crushing for a young girl - I was daggy, with bad-accented English, and sartorially backwards. (In the 1990s, St Vinnies carried second-hands, not trendy vintage).

A few years later, with good intentions, my celebrators remarked on my "very good English", and I was bestowed the sense of being a model integrated refugee.

I returned to Vietnam for a trip. To the Vietnamese authorities we were still officially "illegal emigrants", a check box item on visa forms to enter Vietnam. In the eyes of my compatriots, however, I transformed to being a "viet kieu" (expatriate). I was in the illustrious class of "viet kieu" that earned it the hard way: a stint in prison with our whole family serving time (and months of hard labour for my parents), being done over by smugglers, and "succeeding" on the 13th attempt to flee by boat. Still, I was deemed "lucky" and needed to share the good fortune.

I grew up, studied law and human rights, and became a public policy advisor. I carried a chip on my shoulder, shying from refugee work for fear that I would be biased and thought of as biased. I did not want to face the silent "of course you would say that" rebuttal to my pro-refugee proposals.

I was a closet refugee.

Then "refugee" took on crueller and demeaning confections: queue jumper, cheat, liar ("anything to stay in Australia"), violent ingrate troublemaker, terrorist, criminal, illegal, and it just goes on. These spawned from the political, bureaucratic mire that I belong to.

How awfully foolish of me to have gotten so carried away with my professional aspiration for impartiality.

I had censored myself for all the wrong reasons.

I am a refugee.

My family are of refugee pedigree. My grandma fled the communists from North Vietnam to South Vietnam as a young widow with two little boys.

My parents don't speak freely of their many attempts to "vuot bien". They are not natural storytellers. What they do say, they say it briefly and matter-of-factly. Over dinner with my mum and dad, I asked them, "why did you do it?" They looked at me and smiled, amused by this question from me after 25 years in Australia.

"We had to."

"But why did you think we had to?"

"It was the only way. There was no other choice. We had to."

My parents are the most risk averse people I have ever known. (I was not allowed out after dark until the age of 18, for fear of bogeymen that preyed on teenage girls).

It didn't add up. I probed.

They pondered, and repeated the mantra.

Desperation and hope beyond reason all at once, that is the courage needed to embark on frightening journeys. Let that define us refugees.
Inspired by my young nephew who writes to change our world for the better. For my parents, who dared, risked and sacrificed beyond comprehension. Thu-Trang Tran holds a senior strategy manager role in the Victorian Government. Her family came to Australia in 1988. View her full profile here.

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For years I was a closet refugee in Australia, and have watched as that word took on a cruel meaning: queue jumper, liar, terrorist. We need a new way to define us refugees, writes Thu-Trang Tran. This flurry of words has been in the making for two decades.

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Opportunity for Students to Extend: Interview with Matt Huynh

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Opportunity for Students to Extend: Interview with Matt Huynh

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Matt Huynh talks about his intentions in making the graphic novel, especially the issue of perspective

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An interactive graphic novel Coming April 29