Mong Hoa Tongle and Sam Le

00:00 Can we go?

00:04 My name is your mom hot dog.

00:08 I am a 74 year old.

00:12 Today is March 7th 1915 and we are in a phone shows, Virginia Studio.

00:26 And I am interview with my son Sam Lee.

00:34 I'm Sam Lee.

00:36 I'm 34 years old.

00:39 It's March 7th 2015.

00:42 We are in Falls Church, Virginia. I'm here with my mother and my man.

00:48 And we're here to talk about.

00:51 The

00:53 Journey from Vietnam to the United States that she took 40 years ago this year 2015 is the 40th anniversary of

01:04 The fall of the Republic of Vietnam

01:07 And the fight of all the refugees from Vietnam teeth out at States mail. Would you tell me about how your journey from Vietnam to America came about

01:22 Yes, my son.

01:24 Before the second day of my life April 13th 1975. I was high school t-shirt.

01:35 After graduating from Maya

01:39 Donna in Yuba City. I came back to my hometown and talked to the same high school where my father still tissue.

01:53 I got married in 1969 and began teaching at the high school for police officer shooting in Saigon.

02:05 Because my husband was a professor of Vietnamese Military College in Saigon in 1970. And my daughter Lena yellow half-sister was born but, later her father was killed in an accident.

02:29 Why he was on a short business trip from Saigon to gain home just about 20 mi. I was totally a device stated by his dad. I lost or hope energy and decide for life.

02:50 I was unable to sleep for Carlos night.

02:55 At the high school and where I was stationed whenever I touched a lesson related to family happiness or love I could hold.

03:08 I could not hold my tear. I cry and my student laugh.

03:14 To keep my mind off my troubles. I try to keep myself as busy as possible during the day. I thought I was at a public high school is the afternoon at us at a private high school and at night. I went to college to complete a master degree in Vietnamese literary. I work 16 hours a day to earn enough money to race my shy and support my brother and sister living with me. So they might attend college in Saigon then go see a terrible collapse of South Vietnam.

04:00 My parents wanted me to flee oversee because I was a rumor that Isabel Communists were going to force. We do like me to marry them.

04:14 Otherwise, I would be sent to re-education Camp because I was Edition.

04:21 OH police officer children. So on April 28th 1975 My Baby Lena and I had a chance to escape with my sister-in-law family to Porsche feed a cancer.

04:41 When the airplane took off from Saigon everybody onboard cry at the same woman we on toes that we could never see tag on again.

04:56 Is Katniss a losing my homeland MacArthur?

05:02 And my family overwhelming even as if we duck is a state and I began a new life here with my chart.

05:14 What an amazing story?

05:17 Can you tell me about what your first few weeks in the United States were like?

05:22 Pusha T. I belong to you to be The Interpreter for Vietnamese Refugee who has just arrived to the camp. So as a new Refugee good to speak English. They did not understand how to text a physical exam and nutrition classes that they were required to take for chapped feet.

05:49 One morning I run into your daddy.

05:59 I had Know Who You Are.

06:01 From when he was an active shooter at the same high school where I had 30 Instagram to see me again and try to my daughter Lena. I still remember thinking as I watch him and Lena together that he would be a good father for my child indeed. He is a wonderful father.

06:31 After two men are leaving at 4 Chef Pee my daughter Lena and I was born so by a American couple they wanted me to be their housekeeper and babysitter. I told them that I would do everything for free if they agreed to let me go back to college at 9, so I could go with my last later.

07:01 They accepted my condition after school babysitting and house kit push up in that ass.

07:11 They move to California their house was far away from the college so I could not continue my studies and poop in my dream.

07:28 And you still wanted to go and get an education had added you.

07:34 Find work in find education after that happened.

07:43 Sorry.

07:45 At 3 months later. I moved to Baton Rouge Louisiana week one of my family friends and work as a waitress at the IHOP restaurant International House of Pancakes in Baton Rouge and went to Louisiana State University at night.

08:12 3M had kept in touch with me from the time I left for Sheffield why I was in Baton Rouge, he wrote to tell me that he get a job in Virginia. He wanted my daughter and me to come to live with him. We got married in November 1976.

08:37 The first two year was very rough. I did not want to be a burden for him. So I did not go back to college instead. I took a one-year couching course at a business school.

08:53 Hoping that I could find a job after its completion.

09:00 But the fact of life was different no accounting Experian no job.

09:08 I went too many interview, but could not find.