Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Muoi Van Nguyen, 1983

Interviewer: Ah, what was life like in the refugee camp in Thailand where you were filmed by Drew? Muoi Van Nguyen: I was in Thailand for almost a year and the life is there depend on people. If you are rich, you get money with you that you can live a little bit more comfortable than others. Interviewer: Sorry. Muoi Van Nguyen: I was the camp in the, refugee’s camp in Thailand for almost a year and life... Muoi Van Nguyen: ...there is better if you have money. That’s means that if you have money you can buy the things you can live with. And besides you, we are, you receive food twice a week from the United Nations and a lot of rice, enough rice to feed the whole family. Interviewer: We should cut.

Interviewer: We should. Okay, cut. Muoi Van Nguyen: There in the refugee camp would receive food from the United Nations twice a week; uh fresh vegetables, meat, fish, some time chicken and we receive a lot of rice too. Talking about security in the camp because sometimes we have a little problem with the villagers who live nearby. Muoi Van Nguyen: And sometime they went in the camp to steal things from us and some of them get drunk and try to pursue the women and to try to do bad things like rapings, something like that. So that we... Interviewer: Sorry, cut.

Muoi Van Nguyen: Talking... Interviewer: Hold it, step out... Muoi Van Nguyen: Uh, talking about security in the camp. We still get some trouble from the villagers who live nearby and sometimes from the police who took the guard around camp too. Muoi Van Nguyen: Sometimes during the night some of the villagers try to invade the camp to rob, to steal or to pursuit after the women to do the bad things like, such as like rapings and things like that and therefore, we try to organize a small defensive force. Was the young people in the camp just go around the camp. Muoi Van Nguyen: If some strangers come into the camp we just try to make as much noise as possible in order to let people awake of the invasion and in order to let the police who guard the camp know about it so they cannot say that they don’t know anything.

Muoi Van Nguyen: And it’s very useful and it keeps the villagers out of our camp. And later on the authorities put a fence around the camp. But the fence does nothing, it doesn’t mean anything because it just goes by the fence anyway. Interviewer: After you found a sponsor and you were told that you were going to be able to come to America, how did you feel and what happened then after you got that news? Muoi Van Nguyen: I got the news sometime in August that I, my family was accepted to go to the states. We were very happy because I think that I can manage to be there, to give my children opportunity to grow and in December, ’78 , four months later I got the news that I got a sponsor, so I know I am ready to go. I am...something will happen, but I think that it’s a good thing, not a bad thing anymore. Interviewer: What did you think America would be like before you came and what surprised you most when you arrived?

Muoi Van Nguyen: Really it doesn’t surprise me too much when I arrived in this country because I was here once in 1974 for four months military training in Richmond, Virginia . So it’s, the life in America is like a machine. It goes by like the clock. At this time you do this, at that time you do that and so forth so I am not surprised at all. Muoi Van Nguyen: But my wife and my children are very surprised. When they first see the snow when they get off the plane and that the first surprise and for a...it’s a very hard shock for them to see some things cold and sticking in your skin, something like that, and besides, after a while, they get a little problem or communication. Muoi Van Nguyen: My children at school and my wife going to buy groceries. Something like. But I always be, I always behind her to help here with so she get along quite well.

Interviewer: Have you encountered any discrimination or hostility from Americans since you came here? Muoi Van Nguyen: Since I came here for my family, I didn’t see any hostilities, any discrimination so far. Interviewer: Uh, what kind of work have you found to do in this country and how do you feel about it compared to your career as an army officer in Vietnam. Muoi Van Nguyen: As an army officer in Vietnam and I was specialized in petroleum, but in my area as a [incomprehensible] petroleum installation, I know it and I know that I have to drop it and find some job to do in order to survive and the first job I took was a labor job in the small factory in my town. Two weeks, uh three weeks after I arrive in this country. Muoi Van Nguyen: The second job I took six months later was a case worker for the Catholic Social Services in Lancaster . And the third job and what was my actual job is right now is in the laboratory of the Hamilton Technology, Inc.

Interviewer: Under what circumstances if any would you go back to Vietnam? Muoi Van Nguyen: It’s my hope that my, the regime in my country will change. That’s mean that my country is not communist anymore. It is in my heart that that day will happen so that I can return to my country because our people, the Asiatic in general are and the Vietnamese we were very tied to where we were born. We’re very, we say to ourself all the time, we want us to be buried where we were born. Interviewer: Do you see any prospects at all for any kind of reconciliation between anti-communist Vietnamese and the regime?

Muoi Van Nguyen: I don’t follow too much, too close, too clolesly about what happened in my country. I just know something happened through the television, through the Vietnamese magazines... Interviewer: Okay, hold on just a minute, we have to change magazines. Muoi Van Nguyen: I don’t know exactly what happened in my country right now between the communist regime and what they call the resistance because it’s very hard to know what happened behind the communist countries, but I do know something happened through the television, through the Vietnamese press that there is, there are some persons who fought against the Communists in order to install another regime. That’s all that I know about it. Interviewer: Do you believe this is something going on know or something that happened in the recent past or what?

Muoi Van Nguyen: I, in the recent past I saw one series...one television show lately about last year, and recently I read there in the Vietnamese magazine talking about it. About fight back to get the freedom for our country. Interviewer: What do you feel about that? Do you think that that’s the only possible way to go, that there has to be another war in Vietnam? Muoi Van Nguyen: I think that it should be...it will be another war because I think that to talk with communism you have to be at least on the same level. On different point of views, I mean, strong, you have to be strong enough in order to talk to them and to talk to them if you are not strong, you will fail always. Muoi Van Nguyen: And the last thing I’d like to add in this interview is that I am here today as a person, as an individual. I mean by that that I don’t represent any organization of the Vietnamese or Indochinese communities in this country. Thank you.

Interviewer: Ok. Cut.