Vietnam war refugees show the power of immigrants

By Jack Lessenberry, The Blade

DETROIT — State Rep. Harvey Santana made a pitch last week to make Michigan as immigrant-friendly a state as possible. “Our goal is that the brightest people move here, work here, create jobs and products here, and pay taxes here,” the Detroit Democrat said.

Vietnamese boat people

Immigrants, he told his colleagues, were far more likely to be successful and start businesses than almost anyone else.

The week before, I had a poignant reminder of just how true that is. Thirty-one years ago, I met a family of Hmong immigrants who had just arrived in Toledo after suffering in exile for years, mainly because they supported America.

Supported America, that is, in the first war this country ever lost. The Hmong, a tribal people and an ethnic minority in Laos, did what they could to help Americans during what we think of as the Vietnam war. When the war ended, we basically abandoned them.

Say Yang Lee, who was sort of the head man of his village, was forced to flee with his wife and children. Two babies died in Laos before they could get out. Seventeen-year-old Chong died in exile in Thailand, as did a year-old son, Xa.

Finally, the parents and their six surviving children made it to Toledo, thanks to the sponsorship of an amazing couple, Denis and Carol Eble, and their local Roman Catholic parish.

I met the Lees then and wrote about them for a magazine article I was doing about two refugee families from Indochina.

None of the family spoke much English then. They had no money and few skills that I thought would be marketable in modern society. I thought their prospects were dim.

I was wrong. I didn’t keep in touch with the Lees, but last month I suddenly heard from Mr. Eble. Say Yang, now in his 70s and retired, was recovering from a serious liver operation.

His children had scattered to the four winds, but their father’s illness had stirred up old memories, and they wanted to meet me. The Blade’s Sunday magazine had put their family’s photo on the cover. A framed copy hung in the family home all these years.

Read the full article by Jack Lessenberry of the Blade.