Name: Hien
Birth date: 8 March 1964

Hien's story:
Everyone calls me "Hien Lai", (Hien the AmerAsian). I was born in Ho Nai, Bien Hoa, Dong Nai Province. My mother is Vietnamese and my father is an American serviceman. She met him while working in Long Binh military base.

At that time all AmerAsians were mocked and ill-treated by Vietnamese, old and young. Any woman having a child of a mixed race was despised and rejected by her family, her relatives, and her friends. The majority of my classmates didn't want to play with me and my teachers didn't love me at all. Because of this, after grade 3 I left school. With my mom I tried hard to make a living. I got my first job in a restaurant as a helper. I had to bus the tables and do all of the cleaning up.

When I was about 15 I went to work in an ice factory. A couple of years later I got a job in a brick factory and I worked there for 4 years. It gave me some money, but it was to hard of work for a young boy, so I went to the patty fields and got the job of a manual worker. I was assigned to carry on my back heavy bags of rice and take them to the storehouses. I used to devote myself to my work and that is why all of my bosses like me and called for me.

I got married in 1982 to a Vietnamese woman who was divorced with one child. I feel fortunate my wife loved me and took me to her home. Her parents loved me also and gave us a little house to live in and we are still living in that house.

My mother-in-law is still alive and lives in Ben Go. My son, Lanh, was born in 1988. Since I got married we earn a living selling sandwiches. I use my motorbike to go to factories inside the industrial parks to sell sandwiches to the workers. I have to avoid the police as we are not allowed in these areas to sell things. My wife also sells bread in the local market. We can earn 30,000 to 60,000 VND a day by selling these items.

When I was ten years old my mom married a Vietnamese man, but the marriage end in a few months as he was an alcoholic and mean. I have a step brother named Phuoc, from this marriage. Like me he had to work from his childhood to help us earn a living. He used to live far away and I didn't see him much. I do not know where he is living today.

My son Lanh is a very big boy like me. He is 17 years old and is about six foot three inches tall and weighs about 230 pounds, about the same size as me. Because of his size and looks like AmerAsian, he cannot have good relations with other students and children in the neighborhood. After grade 7 my son left school because of the way he was treated.

In 1991 I submitted my application, to the US Consulate, for immigration to America and pre-interviewed ín1992. During my interview, one consulate official said to me "You are not a child of any native American". One week after my interview I was told I was rejected because I didn't pay $1,000 USD. How can I get so much money to pay for the visa? At that time I decided to stop thinking about trying to go to America.

Since my first meeting with Papa Jon, in 2004, I have changed my mind. I started hoping that Papa Jon will help me with the paperwork and someday I will be able to go to America to live, to have a better life.

If my father recognizes me as his son, I will truly be happy. In any case, I do want to immigrate to America because I feel I belong to my father's country. Here in Vietnam I am a nobody, an alien who cannot have a decent life because of the racial discriminations.