From Vietnam to Toledo
by Dr. Hang Tran
My parents left Vietnam in the summer of 1979. My mother was nine months pregnant with me. My parents had paid the required amount of money several months prior to secure their position on board a tiny vessel leaving Rach Gia, their hometown, on the southern coast of Vietnam. They were given three days notice of their departure date.
With only days to bid farewell to friends and family, they packed what belongings were absolutely necessary to start a new life in a new country. My father was twenty-six and my mother twenty-three when they left all that they had ever known. They had little knowledge of what might lie ahead. Their reason for leaving: so that their children may have a better future.
My father comes from a family of nine siblings and my mother, from a family of eight. Both come from backgrounds that were typical of Vietnamese families at the time: very poor - making barely enough money to survive from day to day. My father was a fisherman combing the sea, in at times perilous conditions, to put food on the table. My mother repaired fishing nets for the equivalent of pennies a day. Neither of my parents had a formal education beyond the grade school level; education is a luxury that not very many could afford. They knew that their children would continue to live in similar poverty if they remained in Vietnam.
Their journey was riddled with perils aboard the tiny, barely sea worthy vessel. The craft was cramped with too many people, definitely exceeding its safety capacity. Food and fresh water were limited and sharks seemed to circle the boat incessantly. Thai pirates roamed the seas unchecked taking advantage of the frequent emigration of people leaving the country after the war. Off the coast of Malaysia pirates boarded the little ship and took what few valuables and personal effects the passengers possessed. Luckily their lives were spared. All that my parents had after the raid was a single gold chain that my grandmother had the foresight to stitch into my mother’s waistband.
My mother had become violently seasick and was unable to eat aboard the boat, vomiting constantly. After many days at sea our boat finally docked at Air Raya in Indonesia. And there, I was born in a hut, on a plank of wood, in a refugee camp. My father waited for hours in a line for medication and supplies while my mother was alone in labor. When he reached the head of the line, they had nothing left to give him. My mother was in labor for three days and had a seizure during childbirth. My father remembers prying her mouth open and having her bite down on a piece of bark to prevent her from biting her tongue.
After I was born, my mother was bed-ridden for a month. She was so weak from the journey, malnutrition, labor and delivery that she was unable to provide milk. My father took care of me during this very difficult time by feeding me canned condensed milk mixed with water. He had to wash my cloth diapers daily and for my one-month birthday, he had managed to barter for a can of beer to bathe me; “it keeps the skin soft,” he says. After a month at the refugee camp we had to leave again; this time, aboard the boat as a family of three.
We continued to sail across the Indian Ocean to Australia. Many of the early Vietnamese emigrants were able to settle there, but by 1979, the Australian government no longer accepted foreigners so my parents continued onward. After sailing over 7,000 miles through the North Pacific Ocean we finally arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii. We stayed there for two years, where my sister was born. She is the lucky one, because there my mother received appropriate prenatal care and was able to deliver in a hospital. Without a formal education my parents took on various odd jobs: collecting kelp, seaweed, clams and crabs and other forms of manual labor to make ends meet. My family had an American friend with an acquaintance in Texas, who was able to arrange a job for my father. So after a stay of two years in Honolulu, next to Waikiki beach, our family moved to Odessa, Texas.
Odessa is a small city in West Texas with an Asian population of next to nothing. Very dry, very flat, and very boring, Odessa is where I have spent the majority of my life. My father secured a job at a company, which manufactured valves, pistons and other parts for large machinery. His starting salary was $4.25 an hour. We lived in a mobile home for a few years before sharing a house with another family. I was six years old when we were finally able to purchase a home of our own. My mother was in charge of the finances, every paycheck was deposited and she accounted for every penny spent.
Extravagances could not be afforded; we lived on the bare necessities. In order to save on the electric bill, I remember many sweltering, sleepless nights, when the nighttime temperature reached 90 degrees during the typical Texas summer. All the plants and grass in our yard were perpetually parched to cut water costs. We ate free lunches at school and our clothes came from charities and goodwill. I did not have books, toys or even candy when I was little. Books were borrowed from the library, and candy was a rare treat when our teachers gave it to us at school. At this time my parents were dutifully sending money back home to my grandparents in Viet Nam. In order to supplement his meager pay, my father would fix and rebuild cars in his spare time. He had never had any training in mechanics, but his experience with boat engines from the days at sea combined with a natural tendency to learn from taking apart machines and putting them back together was something he had a knack for.
My mother stayed at home and cooked every meal for us; eating out was never an option. After we were older, my mother began babysitting for extra money to save. Eventually, due to frugal living and my mother’s tight hold on the finances, my parents were able to buy a house as a rental property. Thus, with continued savings they were able to purchase additional houses and currently, they have four rental properties. It is with this supplemental income that my sibling and I have attended college with minimal debt.
At age eighteen, I was to leave the family. Not at all on an adventurous journey like my parents, I did not navigate halfway around the world. I merely left Odessa to go to the University of Texas at Austin. Continuing to live economically, obtaining scholarships, grants and supplementing with money, which my parents had saved, I graduated with a degree in Biochemistry without any undergraduate debt. After seventeen years of schooling, I decided to take a break from formal education and worked as an emergency technician at Brackenridge Hospital for two years before enrolling in medical school. I attended the University of North Texas Health Science Center, Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine in the city of Fort Worth, Texas and graduated this past May.
During my final year in medical school, I interviewed at St. Vincent’s Emergency Medicine Residency program in Toledo, Ohio, and absolutely loved the down to earth, approachable residents, staff, and attending physicians. I was equally impressed with the solid, well-rounded program in the academic and clinical aspects of emergency medicine. I moved to Toledo at the end of May 2008 and have begun to settle into the program, hospital, and city; each brings joy to my life.
I serendipitously stumbled upon the D.O.V.E. Fund from Dr. Paul de Saint Victor, who is the chief of staff at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center and a D.O.V.E. honorary trustee. He and his wife Cindy invited me to attend the August charity event, where they purchased a 50/50 raffle ticket for me as a gift. As the announcer was reading the numbers, I was surprised that all the numbers matched the numbers on the ticket in my hand. I was ecstatic; I have never won such a prize before. Surrounded by so many compassionate and generous people, it was only natural that I donate the money to the D.O.V.E. Fund.
I am delighted to have discovered the D.O.V.E. Fund and was thrilled to be able to make a contribution. I plan to volunteer my services to D.O.V.E. If the need of another eager soul arises, I am available. In addition, as an elective during the third year of my residency, I plan on doing a one-month emergency medicine rotation in Vietnam, so I may take back what I have learned to personally make a difference in the lives of people who will always be my countrymen in a land for which I feel an everlasting connection