Where the Wind Leads
A Refugee Family's Miraculous Story of Loss, Rescue, and Redemption
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From the harrowing experiences of their journey across the South China Sea in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to the heartwarming account of their successful restaurant venture in America, the refugee story of Vinh Chung and his family is riveting. In a time where the current topics are immigration and human rights, this first-hand account reminds us to view events and people with a lens of compassion.
Just eight months after South Vietnam fell to the communists in 1975 Vinh Chung was born. His family was wealthy, controlling a rice-milling empire worth millions; but within months of the communist takeover, the Chungs lost everything and were reduced to abject poverty. Knowing that their children would have no future under the new government, the Chungs decided to flee the country. In 1979, they joined the legendary “boat people” and sailed into the South China Sea, despite knowing that an estimated two hundred thousand of their countrymen had already perished at the hands of brutal pirates and violent seas.
Narrating a multigenerational memoir, Vinh illustrates the compassionate side of humanitarian efforts and the life-changing moments that brought him to America as a child. With a sharp sense of humor he unravels ethnic hostility faced when they arrived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the challenges and struggles of his family as they strove to achieve the American dream, and how he and his siblings went on to earn master degrees and doctorates from prestigious universities – all because his parents took a leap of faith and held on to the courage of building a new life.
Some of stories Vinh shares are:
The family’s perilous journey through pirate attacks on a lawless seaThe grueling life of being in a refugee camp in Malaysia before their rescue by World VisionTheir miraculous rescue and a new home in the unlikely town of Fort Smith, ArkansasVinh’s struggles against poverty, discrimination, and a bewildering language barrierHis graduation from Harvard Medical School
Where the Wind Leads is Vinh’s tribute to the courage and sacrifice of his parents, a testimony to his family’s faith, and a reminder to people everywhere that the American dream, while still possible, carries with it a greater responsibility.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Memories of Communist Vietnam are often limited to the American side of the tension, and particularly the harrowing experiences that soldiers faced during the war. Chung, a dermatologist, offers a tripartite portrait: his family's everyday life under the Communist regime, agonizing escape as refugees, and assimilation and integration into American society. Readers are given a glimpse into the dynamics that define the Chinese-Vietnamese family and how these intricate relationships and their elements, such as elder authority, influence interactions more broadly, within the community and, ultimately, American society. After his family's near-death encounters in Vietnam and the South China Sea, Chung is given a life his parents could not have. He offers a conversational, unpretentious narrative of the young immigrant/refugee experience, with its unconscious social faux pas; growing awareness of American class, race, and gender relations; and ambition to not only attain the American Dream but to take back what was taken away from his parents' generation: opportunity. This may remind those with immigrant/refugee experiences of their own lives; for others, Chung provides a humble story about coping with uprootedness, adversity, and assimilation into new social landscapes.
