Fleeing Vietnam for Hamilton, local author lost a loved one and gained a new home

It's 1984. Jolie Phuong Hoang and her siblingshave spent 14 months in a refugee camp in Indonesia.They landon Canadian soil in Hamilton, where Hoangsays shelater embracedthe "feeling of home."

When she opened her eyes thatmorning, she says she rememberedthinking: "I'm in Canada. I'm in a complete sense of freedom.

"I breathed that inside my lungs and I knew that if I work hard, if I grasp opportunities, I'd be able to achieve them," she recalls.

Hoang and her family they were 11 in total had beenpart of those referred to as"boat people," therefugees who escaped the communist regime following the end of the Vietnam War.

TeenagedHoang arrived safely in Canada along with some of her siblings,thanks to her father's efforts to plan a new life for them.

In 1985, another boatwhich carried her father, her mother and threeother siblingshadcapsized escaping Vietnam.Hoang's mother and twosiblings survived at sea.

Her fatherand youngest sister drowned.

Years later,Hoangcurrently lives a comfortable life in Fonthill, Ont., near Welland, where sheteaches mathematics at nearby Niagara College. Andeven though her father didn't make it to Canada, it's evident, all these years later,thatheis still very much with her.

Hoang'snew book, Three Funerals For My Father, hit shelves earlierthis fall andtellsher family's tale of survival and hardship.

In it, she outlines the threephysicalfunerals held for her father, but also othermoments where the family felt a sense of loss: the time they spent at the refugee camp, her father's unsuccessful escape, and theirlives as landed immigrants.

Fond memories

In Vietnam, Hoang's father was a successful businessman whose thinking, she says, was "ahead of his time."

Hoang regards her father as someone who essentially built their entire hometown ofQuang Duc.

Runninga flourishing construction company, he designed military barracks, schools, and other essentials there.Before the communists took over, their family prospered considerably.

The memories she has of him are fond, recalling that he was a "very contemporary man," and someone who valued love above all else.

"He often lived thinking of others first, and thought of himself last. For me, my father sacrificed a lot for us."

In particular, Hoang recounts the controversial old culture of Vietnamese families, where men were permitted to marry more than one wife.

In relation, she said the devotion he hadfor her mother was unparalleled."I was always so proud that I'm the daughter of my father's only one wife," she said.

"He valued love and he sacrificed his life to save my mom, because my mom couldn't swim. He was trying to save my younger sister."

"But," she said, "I think he failed. He couldn't save my younger sister."

Journey to Hamilton

At its height,Judy Smith and her husband Johnhad been watching media coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Vietnam from their home in Hamilton.

Some of the images they saw were haunting.

"I remember we watched a baby fall into the water," Smithsaid. "It just killed me."

Since her husbandheld a political career in Hamilton at one point, she said, they believed enough people knew of him to help support a fund set up to help Vietnamese refugees.

Within only one week of pleading for support on cable television, the Smiths had enough money to start their fund, which they called The Mountain Fund to Help the Boat People. (It would continuefor 10years.)

Around the time, the three delegationsofCanada, Australia and the United States turned down Hoang and family. No country wanted to take in a family with that many siblingson their own, according to Smith.

Her father wrote to a pastor in Indonesia inquiring about a private sponsorship for the group of children.

Thatpastorthen sent a letter to John,and when he presented the opportunity to the fund members in Canada, there were "no questions asked," saidSmith.

"I had a two-year-old and a newborn baby and I just thought 'we've got to do this because what if my own children need refuge someday?" She said.

"I want there to be good people who take them in. Because you just never know.'"

As a result,Hoangand fivesiblings were able to come to Canada.Hoang's mother and two younger brothers eventually joined them. Her father and sister never made it.

A Hamiltonian at heart

When Hoangnowreflects on her early days in Hamilton compared to the city as she knows it now, she says that "everything is still the same."

A McMaster University graduate, she says that common features like the university's Hamilton Hall and the mountain terrain of the city are still exactly as she remembers it.

"Hamilton is like home," she said.

And she'll forever be shaped by her father's legacy and the goodwillof those in the city.

"Their kindness was always in me, I always found the kindness. It made a mark inside my heart, and I always remember that," she said.

"I realized that in tragedy there are elements of success. I feel that I had to set aside my grievances to be able to find those possible elements in tragedy."