It’s taken over two decades, but the first wave of the last remaining Vietnamese boat people set foot last week on Canadian soil — their new and final home.

Down a dirt road at the end of Royal Oak Street, Huynh Thi Bai and his wife Nguyen Van Be, as well as Huynh Dat Ngoc and his wife Huynh Thi Be, are quietly growing accustomed to their new lives at Vancouver’s Hoa Nghiem Buddhist Temple.

Through a project known as Freedom at Last, the Vietnamese Canadian Federation was able to secure a “special arrangement” with Ottawa granting the last of the boat people, 161 people in total, entry to Canada based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

For the past 10 years these forgotten refugees have lived in The Philippines, where they were deemed stateless and denied the right to work, go to school, or own property. But because they weren’t considered to be under immediate threat of harm or death, these red-tape refugees were forbidden from seeking a new and better life as refugees in countries like Canada or the U.S.

Looking back, it is hard to imagine how they survived all these years, eking out a living on the edge of the developing world. Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, they have been sent to prison, been forced to work as slave labour, detained in “re-education” camps and have consistently been denied a place to call their own.

Sitting on embroidered pillows among colourful flowers and bowls of fruit in the Temple’s receiving hall, the two couples recount how they arrived half way around the world to find themselves on a small hill overlooking the Fraser Valley.

During the formal reunification of Vietnam under Communist rule in 1976, Thi Be, 55, and Dat Ngoc, 59, lived in South Vietnam on a rubber tree plantation with their children. They were considered wealthy capitalists — a threat to the nascent Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

In 1982, the Amerasian Immigration Act (AIA) offered top priority U.S. immigration to Amerasian children in Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. In an effort to escape the hard clutches of communism, the young couple adopted an Amerasian — a child born in Asia to a U.S. military father and an Asian mother.

Thi Be and Dat Ngoc believed that if they had an Amerasian child, they would be granted access to America. In 1992, they were finally allowed to leave for a refugee camp in the Philippine province of Bataan, a transit stop to the U.S. It was there that they met Thi Bai, now 57, and Van Be, 67, who had also gained access to Bataan by adopting an Amerasian child.

Thi Bai was a South Vietnamese soldier when the U.S. left Vietnam. Forced to surrender, he was sent to a re-education camp with several hundred thousand other former military officers.

During this time, Thi Bai says he was forced to learn about Leninism. The Communists tried to “brainwash” him with “intensive political indoctrination” and he was sentenced to hard labour, including sweeping mine fields.

After three months, Thi Bai was released and joined his wife and children in a New Economic Zone where they toiled daily in the fields. To meet its economic target, the Communist regime moved large numbers of people from the cities to the abandoned countryside, forcing people to work for free growing vegetables on hard and unforgiving land. Nothing was provided, Thi Bai said.

When their desperate friend offered the couple one of their two Amerasian children, they had new hope for escape. And in 1991, they too were sent to the Bataan refugee camp in The Philippines.

In Bataan, both couples adjusted to their new home. They quickly grew close. “We became like siblings to one another because we shared the same plight,” said Dat Ngoc.
Life was easier than in Vietnam because the camp was still funded by the U.S., which provided food, water and medical aid to the refugees.

But the aid would not last. While the Amerasian children were allowed to leave for the U.S., the couples were told that the Amerasian Immigration Act did not include adoptive parents and that they were to be transferred to nearby Palawan—and an unknown fate.

And so, in 1995, the two couples, along with hundreds of other rejected refugees, were imprisoned in The Philippine First Asylum Camp on Palawan – a tropical island province located in the Western Visayas.

But for the two displaced couples, the detainment camp was no slice of heaven. “Conditions were terrible,” said Dat Ngoc.

He had to build a shack, which he and his wife shared with another family. They sold soy milk and yogurt, scraping out a living on $2 a day. The camp was surrounded by barb wire. Refugees were only allowed to leave for two hours at a time. It was like a jail and with no real future in sight, said Dat Ngoc, “everyone felt very depressed.”

After the camp closed in 1997, the two husbands, Dat Ngoc and Thi Bai, trekked to Manila to find jobs.

Eventually, both were able to start their own underground businesses. They sent for their families and carved out a black-market living selling perfume, flip-flops and clothes — work they could not legally as they were not recognized as citizens.

Almost 10 years later, the couples’ adult children were allowed to emigrate to the U.S. as independent refugees. But their parents were forbidden to follow because they were “still being punished for adopting Amerasian children,” said Thi Bai, who added the break up of the families was heart wrenching, but ultimately the best decision for the children.
Neither parents nor children knew when they would next see each other.

Then, a few years later, word spread through the refugee community that the Vietnamese community in Canada was lobbying the Canadian government to accept the remaining 161 refugees trapped in The Philippines.

The aging couples decided their luck was long overdue, and filed dual applications based on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Rejected so many times before, they did not hold high hopes of finally escaping the hard scrabble of their displaced lives. . . .

Streams of sunlight pour through the temple’s front room window, casting reflections and shadows on a white statute of Buddha. After many years of struggling, the two couples look forward to finally settling down.

They take solace in meeting other Vietnamese who have successfully readjusted to life in Vancouver and believe as long as they find a job and work hard, they too can create a happy future.

“The Canadian government and the local community have blessed us,” said Thi Bai, through a translator.

Even though the lifelong friends have already found a place to move in together in East Vancouver, the two couples plan to stay at the temple for at least a few more weeks in order to stay close to the Vietnamese community that is assisting them in their adjustment to life in Canada.

 As soon as they receive their resident cards, they will be able to apply for social security numbers, start looking for work and become self-sufficient Canadians.

And they will also be free to visit their children in California. It’s been three years since they saw them last and now on the doorstep of America, they are besides themselves with anticipation.

2006 (latest available date): 32,494 total refugees in Canada

These are broken into four groups:

Government assisted refugees: 7, 316
Private sponsored refugees: 3, 316
Refugees who land in Canada and then apply: 15, 892
Refugee dependents (like children of refugees): 5, 947

There are so many in need? How does Canada’s government choose who to help and who to leave behind?

The U.N. High Commissioner for refugees will approach countries when it determines that persecuted peoples must be relocated. Once, a country agrees to take a certain number, arrangements are made.

Currently, Canada has agreed to take thousands from various oppressed groups:

Karen Burmese
This year, Canada will become home to 1,000 refugees.

Over the last two years, Canada has brought 2,622 refugees from the Mae La Oon and Mae Ra Ma Luang camps in Thailand. More than 140,000 have been living in camps for 20 years, where they face prosecution by the Thai government if they leave.

Bhutanese
In 2006, Canada agreed to resettle 5,000 refugees. It is still unclear how many will be referred specifically to Canada by the U.N. Over 134,000 Bhutanese continue to live in camps in Nepal and India.

Vietnamese
So far, Ottawa has approved 89 humanitarian and compassionate applications out of 161 in The Philippines. The remaining 71 have yet to be approved.

Between 1975 and 1985, about 111,000 came to Canada, 14,000 of those to B.C.
30,000 were sponsored by individual Canadians, religious organizations and other non-profit groups, marking the beginning of the country’s private refugee sponsorship program.

The remaining boat people stranded in The Philippines are not refugees, technically speaking. Under the Immigration Refugee and Protection Act (IRPA), a refugee is someone who is under immediate threat—something that does not apply to those in The Philippines, according to the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees.

However, they are in a bad way socially and economically so they are able to file under humanitarian and compassionate grounds, a discretionary provision under the IRPA. These applicants must prove that their circumstances are indeed exceptional. Moreover, they must prove that these circumstances are beyond their control.

Anyone can apply as this type for this legal status, but what is different about the Vietnamese is the “special treatment” they received. An envoy met with these people and explained what they had to do and how to apply.”

In other words, they were guided through the complicated and time consuming application process.

Once in Canada, they are granted permanent residence with all its benefits.