My Home and Native Land: Huy Lam

In the years following the Vietnam War, over one million refugees fled Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Vietnamese who took to the ocean in tiny, overcrowded ships were known as “boat people.” “My Home & Native Land” tells the story of the Lam family — refugees from Vietnam who have lived in Canada for 28 years.

  My Home and Native Land: Huy Lam

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Transcript for “My Home and Native Land: Huy Lam” video

Video length: 2:11 minutes

NARRATOR: My home and native land: Personal stories of coming to Canada.

HUY LAM: If things go bad in Canada and you’ve got to run out of Canada, there’s nowhere else you can go because this is the end of the line.

NARRATOR: Huy Lam, photographer, emigrated from Vietnam in 1979 at age 9.

HUY LAM: Do you mind if I photograph you?

NARRATOR: In April 1975, the war in Vietnam came to an end. More than one million people left Indochina. Half of these refugees were Vietnamese.

HUY LAM: Anybody that wanted to get out tried to get out and the most common way was through boats as refugees. We got on the boat and we left. And as we left, there was a government boat chasing us. And it was pretty rough waters because, you know, you’re on the run and stuff like that and everybody got seasick. And then by early morning, they had stopped chasing us and we were basically out in the open waters.

NARRATOR: After several days at sea, they arrived on a refugee island off the coast of Malaysia.

HUY LAM: There were a lot of people that got robbed from pirates and drownings and ... you name it, it happened.

NARRATOR: The Lams were fortunate to be sponsored by a Canadian family. They arrived in Canada in November 1979 where they were greeted by their sponsors.

HUY LAM: After they picked us up from Hamilton, they drove us to St. Catharines where they had a house basically prepared for us. And it was a little townhouse and it was furnished and, you know, it was all prepared for us and there was food in the fridge.

Life is good here. The living standard is very very good.

The best part about living in Canada is, you know, if you want something bad enough, you can have it. Basically, I grew up poor, let’s just say, when we arrived in Canada. And yet, every opportunity was given to me and I took every opportunity to have a quite successful life and a happy life.

NARRATOR: My home and native land: Personal stories of coming to Canada. Citizenship and Immigration Canada.