"We have a small boat where we have to get out to the ocean at night. And in the morning, the next morning, we hit the storm, very bad storm. Later on we was attacked by a pirate, a Thai pirate. And they took everything."

~ Thanh Quach- Vietnamese refugee​​​​​​​

Fleeing Vietnam

     "The last memory when I left Vietnam is our life is terrible. Our children, you know, almost starving. We don't have enough food to eat. And the government controlled everything. So, the school, they controlled all of school. And I see my children starving. And even myself, I don't have enough food to eat. That's why we decided to leave.

     "Most important, most difficult thing to leave is, because everything's under control by the government. You know that?  So we know when we escaped I think we have to escape out of the country by night and by boat. We (had) a small boat, you know. We, well, they (government) controlled everywhere. So we sneaked out onto the ocean, onto the sea from a small village. And the most important is how we can take a boat onto the ocean, onto the sea.

     "I left with all my family. I have four kids. Three kids--my wife, Lieng,  see, she going to have labor maybe a couple weeks away. Tran, she was born. Tran, she now is immediate military now, US military. She was born in Thailand about two weeks after we landed in Thailand. So my family grew. My own family, my five brothers and sisters, and my wife has five brothers and sisters. So we have, my family have about 25 to 30 people in the boat.  (We left behind) my parents, my sister, my wife’s parents and my wife’s sisters and brothers.

     “Because we don't have experience sailing the boat, you know. We have a small boat where we have to get out to the ocean at night. And in the morning, the next morning, we hit the storm, very bad storm. Later on we was attacked by a pirate, a Thai pirate. And they took everything. So my boat was drifting, floating in the ocean for at least one week. And after that we don't have food, we don't have water for almost one week. And finally, we were rescued by another boat, which was a fish boat, a Thai boat, from Songkla, a city in the south of Thailand.”

Challenges of Coming to Iowa

     "I think the first night when we landed in Iowa in Des Moines airport. We saw snow and we wore sandals because we landed in Iowa in January of 1979, which is winter, right, and very cold. We wear sandals, we wear shorts and T shirts, and we don't have anything beside that. So white, only white… snow.  

     "The first few months, we experience a dream life, dreaming a flood of food, you know a lot, a lot of food. Because when we were in Vietnam, we were starving. And over here we have a lot of food and a beautiful house. But after that, we realize that it's not easy. We have to find, we have to learn a language. We have to learn a culture. We have a lot of things to do. I was young, was 30 years old. So we realize American life is not easy. So we forced ourselves to work and come back to school. And I went to Iowa State for an engineering degree. A lot of, a lot of experience good and bad, you know. And we learned from that.

     "(In Vietnam) I had a degree in public business administration. I have a four years degree.  So I worked for the, for the South Vietnamese government for five years from 1970 to 1975.  I was lucky because I was not in what you call a reeducation camp. You know, when the Communists took over, they forced people, all the people that work with the South Vietnamese government into what they called a reeducation camp. But I did not, somehow I did not go.  So I have time to planning my escape plan, get out of the country.

     "I had a degree in public administration (from Vietnam).  When I went back to school, when I went to Iowa State,  I didn't have to take all the elective course classes. I just take my electrical (engineering) classes, but all my elective class, I don't have to take it.  I’m exempt from that. I think they gave me about 40 or 60 credits from my degree in Vietnam.

     "A lot of people are nice people. You know, real nice. But I realize I have to go back to school because when you become a specialist, educated, people respect you. So I was very happy with it when I was in school. But when I was working with the federal government, I think I went through a lot of racism because of the language, my accent, you know, a lot of people treat me like a second-class citizen. But because I have a degree I went through good.   So that's my experience. So later on with my children, I tried to, I try to force all my children to be Americanized. We don't, we don't speak Vietnamese any at all. I, my children, totally Americanized."

Advice

     "One thing I want people to know is that America is still a dreamland for hope for a lot of people. But you have to work hard. You have to work hard. You have to learn from, from bad experience to good experience. But you have to work hard to raise up. And then the second generation, force them to be American. Try to get the children in American mainstream, to get not on the side but in the mainstream. They have to be Americanized.

     "For myself, like my situation, I still keep a lot of Vietnamese culture. Now, you know, most of my friends are Vietnamese. And I come back to Vietnam many times. But I realize my children, well certainly they have a Vietnamese culture too, but they had to be in the American mainstream to be successful and to be doing well in this country. We cannot keep original Vietnamese culture now.  They don't want to do that. They have to be Americanized.

     “Now I have four children. They are all doing well now. The first one, she's a medical doctor. She is specialist in what is called anesthesiologist.  My second one, she’s in the medical field too.  She’s a specialist in the heart specialist, she's not a doctor, but she has a master's degree.  She works in the hospital helping a doctor operate, you know, a surgeon. And my third one she's in the Army. She's a dentist. She's a lieutenant colonel now. The third one was the one born in Thailand. The last one, who was born in Ames, Iowa, the boy, he's a medical doctor too. He's a specialist, an anesthesiologist, too.”