After life of trauma, Vietnamese American woman graduates from U.C. Berkeley
By Margie Mason/AP
Victoria Nguyen sees herself as water in a river. Strong enough to survive a Vietnamese “concentration camp,” a harrowing escape from her homeland, serious illness and divorce. Pure enough to let bad memories go. Patient enough to wait for her destiny.
“I am a water,” she said. “People do things to me, and I filter it. Water is patient and calm but also strong and violent sometimes.”
On Sunday, the 40-year-old single mother of three, who spoke hardly a syllable of English when she arrived in America, will flow across a stage at the University of California, Berkeley to receive her bachelor’s degree in integrative biology — an exceedingly difficult discipline.
It’s a Mother’s Day gift to herself and her three young daughters.
“Sometimes I just think, ‘Why do I have to go through so many things? One thing after another,”’ said Nguyen, who nursed her twin daughters through congenital heart defects, then nursed herself through a life-threatening brain aneurism.
“It’s a test from God,” the devout Buddhist said. “If he was going to end my life, he would have done it a long time ago.”
The aspiring pediatrician, a calm woman with warm brown eyes, has inspired and empowered many while pursuing her degree during the past seven years. But she doesn’t see herself as special. Just lucky.
“She’s a remarkable woman,” said Helen Johnson, director of Berkeley’s Re-entry Students Center for nontraditional students. “I’ve seen her attitude and how she’s coped with all the challenges she’s had, taking on a very difficult major, her illness and keeping her priorities, which are her children.”
While Nguyen values her American life, she also remembers the good life in Saigon before the war. She was a star swimmer at her high school when the communists took the city on April 30, 1975.
It was then, at the end of the war, that her tests began.
Her parents became sick and died. Nguyen was awakened one night and escorted to what she calls a concentration camp, where she and 50 others were squeezed into a tiny cube with insufficient water, rice and medicine.
It was a lesson about patience, and nurturing those weaker than her.
“I was strong at that time. I kept thinking, ‘Maybe this is just a temporary time. Everything in this life is temporary,”’ she recalled, tears filling her eyes. “The first year I cried a lot. After that, they just kept us there. Then the time comes: It was a temporary two and a half years in my life. Lots of terrible things happened. I overcame lots of things because I have patience and altruism.”
Once out of the camp, Nguyen tried six times to flee the country. She got her lucky break in January 1981, when she was 20. A small fishing boat of 37 former South Vietnamese soldiers was leaving that night.
One of the officers learned of her reputation as an athletic swimmer. His wife and 4-year-old daughter couldn’t swim. Nguyen would be their life vest.
For six days they floated toward Thailand. The little girl passed out for lack of food and water. Then they were attacked by Thai pirates and leaped overboard. Nguyen swam with one arm, cradled the unconscious child against her chest while the mother held onto her back.
They watched a large ship crush their tiny vessel, and treaded the calm water while the pirates reached for them.
“They were trying to hook us,” Nguyen said. “I said, ‘God ... you ended my life in the concentration camp already, but if this time you end my life, please don’t end my life like a fish.”’
Minutes later, the blue skies clouded, rain and hail flooded down and huge waves appeared, tossing everyone around, she said. The pirates fled. After hours of clinging to driftwood, Nguyen let go.
“I said, ‘Take the wood and your daughter. I am going to die,”’ she recalled telling the officer’s wife. “I let my body sink slowly.”
Nguyen then felt something slice into her leg. It was a reef, large enough for everyone to stand on. They were later rescued by the Thai coast guard. All 40 refugees survived.
Nguyen went to refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines, then to America — first Alabama, then southern California.
She married and had a daughter while working three jobs to help support her siblings back home. Then she got pregnant again. Another test.
She gave birth to twin daughters with heart problems requiring constant care. Her husband forbade her to quit her job to take care of the babies. When she disobeyed him, he abandoned the family.
“Here when you hear the word divorce it’s OK, but in my country it means there’s something wrong with the woman, not the man,” she said. “He became greedy and put money first. He wanted to make more, more, more, even though his own children have a heart problem.”
Her twins, now 9, overcame their illnesses, but life’s traumas took their toll on Nguyen’s body. They were living in a hotel room when she collapsed in 1997 from a stroke and was diagnosed with the aneurism.
After surgery was postponed three times, her insurer wanted another brain scan. Doctors were baffled. The aneurism had shrunk. She also regained full use of her arms and hands.
Today, she still moves slowly because of back problems and she loses her balance easily. There’s a constant buzzing noise in her head, created by abnormal pressure in her brain.
Her doctors asked her to document her healing routine for others to learn from. She says it’s a simple recipe: Take care of your body as you would your finest silk dresses, meditate, exercise and be kind to others.
Nguyen, will get her degree at her departmental graduation on Sunday. She wants to keep studying, but her advisers say she should take a year off so her body can recover.
“I’m very happy every day,” she said. “That’s my secret. Every day, you wake up and you have 24 brand-new hours. What a precious gift.” |
