Home » Departments » Chancellor » Allyship Collaborative » The Fall of Saigon
On Tuesday April 29, the Coast Community College District will host a commemorative event marking the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. This anniversary offers an opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices and the journeys that many of our employees, students, and community had and their impact on Coast District.
To honor this significant milestone, we would like to share their family stories of war, immigration, and resettlement. These stories are a testament to strength and resilience of the Vietnamese refugees community, and we are honored to help share them during this commemoration.
Kay Nguyen - District Director, Institutional Research, Planing & Institutional Effectiveness
My family immigrated to the United States in 1994 and settled in the northern part of San Diego because my mom’s aunt settled in San Diego in the late 1980s. Our flight from Vietnam to Taiwan and then to San Diego was my family’s (with the exception of my dad) first experience being on a plane. I remember when I was younger, I always thought that the United States was a place in heaven because we had relatives visiting from the United States and they would arrive by plane, and the planes were up in the sky.
The first year in America was the hardest. I remember the unbearable sadness of missing family, friends, and even the familiar road that I used to get to school every day. The bakery where I would get my banh mi before school and the shared space where all the neighborhood kids would play while keeping an ear out for the sound of their parents’ mopeds, as a signal to run home for dinner.
We first settled into a two-bedroom apartment for all seven of us, while surviving on government’s assistance as my dad was the sole provider, working two jobs as an assembler during the day and a pizza deliveryman at night. My mom stayed home and us kids were in school. On the weekend we would go to the local library to borrow books and practice our English. Life was hard, but my parents made sure that we had our basic needs met and more importantly that we would never waste any educational opportunities. I still remember at my graduation, my mom beaming with pride in her Ao Dai running towards me in my doctoral regalia. She called me her “doctor.”
It is not very often that I reflect on the conditions that got my family to the United States. My dad was an officer in the South Vietnamese Army and served until 1975. After the Fall of Saigon, my dad was rounded up with other former military officers and government workers to a re-education camp. My dad served in prison for five and half years, where he endured hard labor and malnutrition. By the time my dad came home, he weighed less than 80lbs and was unrecognizable. Because of his sacrifices, we were able to immigrate to the United States under the Humanitarian Operation (HO) program. I want to take this opportunity to thank my Dad for his sacrifices, his fighting spirit and love for freedom and democracy, that afforded me and my family our new life here in the United States. Con cảm ơn Bố.
Martha Tran-Nguyen - Administrative Assistant to the Vice President, Coastline
“A journey into Death, to seek Life.”
The Fall of Saigon in 1975 turned our world upside down. My parents, once CEOs of large banks in Saigon, lost everything to the new communist regime - including all their life savings. After five difficult years under oppressive rule, they made the desperate decision to escape, borrowing money to secure a passage for our family on a small, overcrowded fishing boat.
At dawn, we began our journey to freedom with 189 others crammed onto a very small fishing boat. We left behind everything we knew, not knowing where we would end up. For seven harrowing days and nights, we endured huge crashing waves, freezing seawater, hunger, thirst, and even pirate attacks. We experienced and witnessed trauma that we could never forget.
Eventually, our boat washed ashore in Malaysia, capsizing as we reached land. Exhausted and traumatized, the Malaysian officials placed my family in a refugee camp, uncertain how long we would remain there. Stories of families being stuck for over a decade in these refugee camps haunted us. We hoped for sponsorship to France through distant relatives, but the wait was indefinite and uncertain.
Three months later, a miracle came. An Australian church group selected just two families from 10,000 refugees in the camp - and we were one of the selected. My parents had to choose between an uncertain indefinite wait for relatives in France to sponsor us or a fresh start in a foreign land with no connections. They ultimately chose Australia where my family would begin our new life enriched in freedom.
On May 1, 1980, we arrived in our new home in Australia. The church group who sponsored us helped us settle in. Thanks to their support and my parents' ability to speak English and French, they found employment within a month as Accountants for small businesses. My younger siblings and I entered school, later graduating from college and building successful careers as working professionals.
My family is deeply thankful for the opportunity to rebuild our lives and flourish in Australia. Our journey - from the hardship of war and loss to the uncertainty of refugee camps, risking life and death in search of freedom – has taught us resilience and perseverance. We carry our Vietnamese heritage with pride and always remember the harrowing journey that took us into death, to seek LIFE!
Derek Bui - Director Business Services, Coastline
When my mom was just 18, her life changed overnight. She and her family were forced to flee Vũng Tàu, Vietnam, squeezed onto a small, overcrowded fishing boat with nothing but the clothes they wore. The war had ended, and with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, a dark cloud of uncertainty loomed over their future. Fearing political persecution, the loss of freedom, and the harsh realities of life under the new communist regime, they made the heartbreaking decision to leave everything behind. They abandoned their home, their language, their community—the entire life they had known.
For weeks, they drifted across the open sea, traveling over 500 nautical miles without GPS or modern technology. The ocean was merciless, storms battered their tiny boat, pirates loomed, food was scarce, and the fear of disappearing without a trace hung constantly in the air.
Somewhere during their journey, their fishing boat crossed paths with a larger cargo vessel carrying other Vietnamese refugees. That’s where my mom met my dad, who was fleeing from Saigon as well. He was 21 and had served in the South Vietnamese military that had lost the war.
Together, they continued drifting until they reached the coast of Singapore. But safety remained out of reach. After just a few weeks near the coast, Singapore denied them asylum and towed their boat back to sea. Once again adrift, they endured more weeks on the water until they finally arrived at the refugee camp in Subic Bay—a U.S. military base in the Philippines that had become a temporary refuge for thousands like them.
They spent several months in the Philippines before being transferred to Guam and eventually landed at Fort Chaffee in Arkansas—a place meant to help them start over, though they arrived with nothing: no language, no money, no country.
But eventually, kindness found them. A couple from Wisconsin, Gary and Chris Petterson, chose to sponsor their resettlement. And with that single act of generosity, my parents’ new life in America began.
Growing up, I heard their stories—fragments shared over dinner, during long car rides, or in quiet, unguarded moments. I listened, but I didn’t truly understand. Not until I was older did I grasp the weight of what they endured—the depth of their courage, the dreams they let go, the pain they carried—just to survive, just to give us a future
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for everything you gave up so I could have more. You crossed oceans so I could walk freely across school hallways. You lost a country so I could find a home.
Julie Uyen Nguyen - Educational Tech Associate, Golden West College
If it weren’t for my mom, I wouldn’t have the life that I have now.
It all started because of the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, when my father, a South Vietnamese government soldier, got separated from the family and disappeared after.
My mother, who was a full-time stay-at-home mom, was thrown into a dire situation: how to care and raise her six children, ages ranging from 8-years to 6-months old.
She knew she needed to escape to America.
The first attempt was unsuccessful and landed her in jail. The second attempt was a success, but the horrors from the trip will forever stay with her.
Here’s how her journey went.
In January 1983, a friend let her know there would be an opportunity to escape and asked if she was interested. She said yes.
She left Saigon and took multiple bus trips to get to Soc Trang precinct. From Soc Trang, her group was transported to U Minh (Ca Mau precinct) and started traveling by foot through the muddy U Minh forest. They hid in the middle of U Minh forest for twelve days, surviving on a cup of water and a couple of dried fish a day. On the 13th day, they walked through U Minh forest and got to the meetup location near the ocean where a fishing boat was awaiting for them.
At night time, a total of thirty-eight people were loaded on a small fishing boat and started departing. Just after a few minutes, the boat got stuck in the mud because of the low tide. The group had to stay still and waited for the tide to come back to start sailing away again.
They were heading for Thai territory. Right before sunrise, they saw a group of Thai fishing boats and were extremely happy and thought their escape was over. They approached one of the boats and asked the fishmen for help towing their boat to the shore. The fishmen agreed. But, instead of towing them to shore, these men dragged the boat further back out to the sea. They then entered their boat, robbed them and kidnapped three young females, one 13 years old, one 18 years old, and one 20 years old. (My mom recalled that the father of the 20 year-old girl later suffered a severe mental breakdown and never recovered.)
After the first robbery, her boat endured 4 more, and at the end, everyone was completely stripped off from all of their belongings. In the last robbery, having nothing else to take, the men stole the boat engine. My mom knew that they were left to die at sea.
It was a miracle that, after 3 days floating in the vastly open water, they got to Songkla (a province in southern Thailand) where Thai soldiers helped to get them to the shore.
My mom lived in one of the camps in Thailand for 14 months before being accepted and allowed to move to and settled down in the U.S. Her six children later reunited with her in November 1992.
