By Carolyn Bick
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
“Oh goodness,” Rep. My-Linh Thai said, blinking back tears. “Please give me a moment to just look at the room.”
She looked up, eyes glassy, and then continued to address the room full of Asian American and Pacific Islander community members, legislators, and supporters who had come to celebrate the launch of the book, “New Land,” on May 20 in Olympia. The book commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first 34 Southeast Asian refugees to arrive in Washington state on May 20, 1975, following the Fall of Sài Gòn.
Without Thai, state archivist Heather Hirataka said, the book may not have happened. It was Thai—a Vietnamese refugee herself, and the state’s first refugee legislator—who noted in conversation with Hirataka 15 months prior that the 50th anniversary was approaching.
“She told me about this dream that she had,” Hirataka said. “And I said, ‘Well, let me see what we can do.’ And I talked to Secretary (Steve) Hobbs, and got his blessing, and I talked with (Washington’s Chief Historian) John Hughes and Ed Eckley, and off we went to produce … this beautiful book.”
Thai told of her inward and outward journey as a refugee, in a speech titled, “I Am a Dreamer.” Thai came to Washington in 1983—“behind many of you,” she said, specifically addressing fellow refugees who came before her.
“You create paths, put together shoulders, so I get to step on,” Thai said, emotion heavy in her voice. “You carry me.”
Thai spoke of her evolution in what she desired to do for her community, all the way from when she was a child of 6.
“I dreamed of becoming a geriatric physician to cure all illnesses so that no kids will ever lose their grandparents”—through her current profession as a legislator, “changing policies and funding education so that each and every child gets to achieve their dreams in this land, called the land of opportunities.”
And, she said, speaking directly to the current rhetoric at the federal level, “When I was 50, I dreamt of being louder than the president of the United States, screaming from the top of my lungs that we, the refugees, are not thieves nor thugs.”
One of the children of the state’s first refugee families, Evans Nguyen spoke of his family’s difficult choice to leave Vietnam.
“My dad worked in intelligence, and we were leaving there in the dead of night,” Nguyen said. “I remember him telling me stories about the situation, and it literally was, ‘We leave or we get captured and go to a concentration camp or die. It’s pretty much as simple as that.’”
Nguyen was born shortly after his parents’ arrival in Washington, and was named after late Washington Republican politician Dan Evans, who, as Washington’s governor in 1975, helped to bring the 34 families over.
“I’ve had many, many Christmases with Dan Evans, and we always talked about this, and that was really what it boiled down to. He just believed it was the right thing to do,” Nguyen said. “I hope we haven’t seen the last of good people like them in the government.”
But not everything has changed so drastically. There are still some enduring themes, even 50 years on, Nguyen said, particularly “immigrants wanting to escape desperate situations to come to America and work hard to earn a better living.”
“I hope that that doesn’t ever stop,” Nguyen said. “I hope we still see people come to a better land to escape danger.”
Like Thai, Kayla Somvilay, the Lao Community Service Center’s founder and executive director, also came to Washington state in the early 1980s as a war refugee. Somvilay’s family arrived in 1981, when Somvilay was 5 years old.
“As a child holding tightly to my family as we left behind our homeland, seeking refuge from the war and hope of a better life, like so many Lao and Southeast Asian families, we arrived with almost nothing except the will to survive and the dream of a future,” Somvilay said. “We built that future here in Washington over five decades.”
Somvilay also acknowledged those Lao community members in the audience who have helped to build and strengthen Washington’s Lao community. These included Washington State Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs Commissioner Ekkarath Sisavatdy, leaders from Lao Senior Outreach, the Lao Women Association of Washington, the Fong Foundation, and organizations representing the Khamu, Hmong, and Mien Lao ethnic groups.
Khmer Language Arts & Culture Academy’s founder and vice president, Savong Lam, is a Khmer Rouge genocide survivor and first-generation refugee.
Lam first shared some words on behalf of Many Uch, a Cambodian American community organizer who co-founded Khmer Anti-Deportation Advocacy Group and Formerly Incarcerated Group Healing Together, who could not be at the book launch.
“As someone directly impacted by both the criminal, legal, and immigration systems who once had a final deportation order to Cambodia, only to be saved by a governor’s pardon, and eventually became a U.S. citizen, I carry a deep understanding of both the pain and the power that live within our communities,” Lam said, reading from Uch’s speech. “The same community that lifted me up, that fought for me, that refused to let me be forgotten, is the same one still fighting to protect our people from ICE, from detention, from separation.”
Yes, Lam said, continuing to read from Uch’s speech, the community continues to hold great pride in its victories, milestones, and survival—but the community is still fighting for justice, to be treated as fully human, and “for the right to stay rooted with our family.”
“My father once lived through the trauma of being torn from his loved ones during wartime. I’ve carried that history with me. No one, no family, should have to live through that pain again,” Uch’s speech read. “And yet today, our Southeast Asian community continues to live under the daily threat of separation, of deportation, of disappearance. That is not just policy, it’s personal. And if we don’t fight for each other, if we don’t take this crisis seriously, we risk losing the very fabric of our community.”
Unbeknownst to attendees at the time, at least two Filipino men, both legal green card holders, were being held in federal custody at SeaTac Airport for convictions that had long been resolved.
Before beginning her own speech, Lam spoke directly to her 98-year-old grandmother, her mother, and her aunt, all of whom were sitting in the audience.
“[My grandmother] stepped on the landmine. It took her almost a month just to crawl her way up to the Thai border,” Lam said. “My mom is here, as well. We lost my oldest sister during the Khmer Rouge. And so I just can’t imagine how it feels to lose your daughter, during such a hard time.”
“My auntie is the one that actually carried me. I was 3 years old, and she carried me all the way to the Thai border,” Lam continued. “I just want to recognize them. I ask that we pause for a moment. Listen to the whispers of the past, the echoes of our journey.”
Fifty years ago, Lam said, “Seeds were scattered upon this new land. Seeds of Khmer heritage, dreams, and traditions. Seeds carried with them the rich soil of our ancient culture, watered by tears of loss and nurtured by sunlight of hope.”
Since then, she said, those seeds have flourished into “vibrant colors” that contribute to the landscape of Washington state—“We are artists, entrepreneurs, teachers, doctors, community leaders, and more. We are keepers of our languages, dancers of our traditions, chefs sharing our flavors from our homeland. We have enriched the state in countless ways, contributing our skills, our perspectives, our commitment to strengthening our communities and building a better future for all Washingtonians.”
“But our journey is not over,” Lam continued. “The stories in ‘New Land’ are not just echoes of our journey. They are also blueprints for the future.”