Name: Thu
Birth Date: March 1965

I was born in March of 1965, in Dong Nai. I know nothing of my parents. According to my foster parents, my mother gave me to them right after I was born when they were quite old. My foster father was 60 and my mother 57.

They were too poor to buy milk for me, so they fed me with diluted rice soup. For some months my mother would come and see me and give some money to my foster parents who were very poor and childless. Then she just disappeared.

When I was 3 years old, an unknown woman came to the house and kidnapped me and took me to Bien Hoa Market to sell me to another woman for 20,000 VND (Money of the regime before 1975). The neighbors alerted my foster parents and they went to the market just in time to get me. Later my foster parents learned that the lady who took me was my own mother.

At the age of 7, I started going to school using the name of a neighbor's dead child, as I had no birth certificate, even no name, I was called Luom (it means pick up, gather, or collect). My foster parents were illiterate, so they never thought of establishing a birth certificate for me.

A neighbor gave me the birth certificate so I could go to school. From that time on I used the name Le Thi Kim Thu, which was on the birth certificate. I was actually born in 1966, not in 1965 as on the firth certificate. I still use this birth certificate.

My classmates always kept a distance from me and teased and mocked me. They even threw stones at me. I had one friend that was crippled, that I played with, as no one wanted to play with her either. I liked to study at any cost, so I endured all their ill treatments. My teachers were satisfied with my work at school. Some classmates said that their parents forbid them to play with AmerAsians like me.

At the age of 10, I could perform many tasks, such as, cut grass around the fruit trees, collect the cows waste and other manual work. When I got a little older I went to the market and bought sweet potatoes, cooked them, and then sold them in the neighborhood. Later on I sold rice soup with pig's blood. Where ever I went or what ever I did, I always came home at noon to cook lunch for my foster father, because he was so old.

Before leaving Tam Hiep and coming to Bien Hoa City, my foster parents sold their house and land to pay all of their debts. They bought this little hut, which I am, still living in today with my husband and children.

While I was in grade nine, when I was 15 or 16 my foster mother died and I quit school to take care of my foster father, and in 1987 he died. After my foster mother died I became a hired servant. I would cut grass, carry water from a distant well to private houses and things like this. During the time I lived with them I was often hungry. At times I had no rice so I would eat the leaves from sweet potatoes as a substitute.

Two years after the death of my foster father, I met a kind and gentle man, who was all alone, like me. We got married and he came to live with me, as he had no where to go. Now I would go to Bien Hoa Market to sell food stuffs, like noodle soup, "Pho". I also went around the neighborhood to sell my food dishes and I established a number of faithful customers.

When I started doing this I carried everything in two baskets on a pole over my shoulder. After two years I had saved enough money to buy a 3 wheeled cart to push around and sell my food stuffs. I sold my food stuffs in the morning and in the afternoon. My husband had two tasks to do. They were to look after our baby and then to prepare the meat and wash the vegetables that I used.

My eldest child is a good girl and helps me sell the food stuffs, in her free time. She assumed the task of bringing the bowls of noodles to the customer's house or shop and then retrieves them later and gets paid.
Today my day starts at 3 AM. I go to the market and buy meat, vegetables and other things I need to make my noodle soup. When I get back home I do the cooking. By 7 or 8 AM everything is ready and I push my cart around the neighborhood to sell my delicious soups to workers and other people. By noon I go home and have lunch with my husband and my children.

After lunch I return to the market to buy the necessary items for the evening meal. By 3 PM everything is ready and I return selling my food stuffs to the same place I was at in the morning. The days I do not have many customers I have to stay out much longer and I can only go home after 10 PM. My daily income varies from 20,000 to 40,000 VND. Thanks to this trade however, my children are no longer malnourished.

I have 3 children, 2 girls and an adopted boy. My eldest daughter is in the 9th grade. She is a good girl and gets good grades at school.

I am eager to go to America and find my father, but how can I find him. I would be very happy for my children so they could have a better future and they could go to a university.

I applied for a visa for the first time in 1990 or 1991. In 1993 I was interviewed and the American Official asked me if I knew something about my father and mother. I know very little about my mother and nothing about my father and had to say no. Then I got the rejection letter and the interviewer added this sentence, "Keep it carefully for future use". I have made several applications for reconsideration, but I have heard nothing from the Consulate.

As an AmerAsian I have suffered a great deal. When I was in school, my classmates didn't like me and kept a distance from me and threw rocks at me. In my everyday life, nobody cared for me except my foster parents. When my foster parents died I felt completely isolated and miserable.

I have never applied with a fake name and I've never applied with a fake husband either. Once I met a lady named, Mary Nguyen, and she promised to do the paperwork for me, but asked me to be patient. I also met a Western lady called Mrs. Ford, and I gave her my file and she gave me her address in America, but when I sent her a letter it was returned to me.

Interview of Thi Hoa: Taken by Jon Tinquist and Do Bao Chau
My name is Thi Hoa and I was born 26 June 1963. I live in Bien Hoa, Dong Nai Province. I was a neighbor of Thu when they lived in Tam Hiep. I was 2 years older than her. As I was crippled and the children did not want to play with me, Thu would always play with me. Every night Thu would carry me to another house to watch TV.

My parents told me that Thu's real mother brought her to her foster parents and asked them to take care of her and she would pay them every month. When Thu was about 3, her real mother didn't have money to pay her foster parents, so she took her and went to the market to sell her to someone else. Her foster father was alerted and caught her at the market and took back Thu.

When I was young the other children would call Thu "Lai Den", (a Black AmerAsian). I didn't understand what this meant and my mother explained to me that Thu's father was a Black American Soldier, and that is why her skin is so dark. She looked so different than me. When Thu was old enough to go to school, she didn't have a birth certificate.

There was another neighbor who had a daughter about the same age and they couldn't afford to send her to school so they gave Thu her birth certificate so she could go to school. A short time later this girl died. Later this family moved to a New Economic Zone, so we don't see them anymore. I cannot remember the year that Thu and her family moved to Bien Hoa City area. Thu's family was very poor and they sold their house and property and went to live with other relatives in Bien Hoa City.