Boat People

Why do we feel a need to know where we came from?

Yesterday I finally visited my birthplace in the Galang Islands of Indonesia.

But the story starts 3 decades ago when my family fled Vietnam on a boat, landing at a refugee camp in the Galang Islands. My parents, aunts, and uncles stayed at the camp for a year before getting sponsorship and documents to become American citizens. During this year, I was conceived and born.

And yesterday, I stood back in the place where I arrived on this Earth. A place where nearly a hundred thousand refugees waited for a golden passport to an unknown but more promising life than the dark future they left behind.

After taking a ferry from Singapore to the more populated Batam Islands in Indonesia, my friends and I were driven over 4 bridges before making our way to Galang. We only had to tell our driver, "Galang" and "Vietnam", and he knew where to take us. Surprisingly, there were many Indonesian tourists at the former camp.

Upon arriving at the temple (dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy) at the entrance gate, a monk came out to greet me. His first words to me were, “Vietnam”, as he pointed to me. He knew I was a baby of the camp and that I was back to reclaim a piece of my past. He then guided me through an incense prayer, and led me to a wall filled with photos, where he showed me part of my family’s history. This monk played an important role in the Galang refugee camp, and continues to oversee it until this day. Today, it is a site where tourists, former refugees, and their families come to visit.

I can not thank him enough for his kindness that day, and for being a connection to the past I came to see.

That day, I saw the boats that the refugees fled their homeland in to reach the shores of the camps. I saw the remnants of the units that housed them, and remembered that my parents, grandpa, and 8 aunts and uncles fit in one unit. I stood in each place and imagined what life was like 30 years ago. How did the people/my family feel on the boat as they crossed a vast ocean of darkness and unknown? What did they do if there wasn’t enough food to eat? I looked at a hill nearby, and recalled my aunt telling me her memory of hiking to the top to get the freshest supply of drinking water for the family. Somewhere in my being, I probably felt what my mother felt while I was in her womb, but yesterday, I could only imagine.

The original Red Cross Hospital building I was born in no longer exists. But the monk rebuilt a second one at the same site. As I stood there, I scanned the crumbling replacement building, and searched for where exactly I may have been born. I pondered why my soul decided to be reborn on this island and under these circumstances. I didn’t care about answers, I was just happy to wonder and felt blessed to be alive.

There were some that did not make the journey. At the cemetery, there was a quote in honor of them:

"Dedicated to the lives of those who died in the sea on the way to freedom"

I cried.

Why do we feel a need to know where we came from? Coming to Galang, I was in search of understanding my family’s history. I learned that I come from a place where my parents hoped and dreamed for a better future for their children. I was born from the hopes, dreams, and love of my parents, and all the other refugees who risked their lives for freedom.