IGF055 In Good Faith with Sister Trish Doan, Refugee

Sister Rejane  
This is In Good Faith, a conversation about living faith in everyday life. I'm Sister Rejane of A Nun's Life Ministry. Our guest today is Sister Trish Doan, a Sister of St. Joseph of Orange, who currently lives in Los Angeles, California, and is working on her master's degree in theology. Her life began in Vietnam during a time of war, upheaval and unrest. Trish, her parents, and seven siblings all made the harrowing journey to the United States over the course of 10 years. Sister Trish left Vietnam at the approximate age of 12 as an unaccompanied minor. She arrived in the US three years later. She settled in California with her older sister, and graduated high school and college. Starting her work career in engineering. Trish then worked in her family's restaurant, and in US Immigration Services. Her work with refugees and resettlement at the US Immigration Services brought her full circle. Having arrived in the US as a refugee herself, she was now in a position to offer assistance to people in similar circumstances to hers. Today, we want to talk about the intersections of faith, family, culture, and community in Sister Trish's life. This podcast is part two of two, focusing on her journey from Vietnam to the United States. Sister Trish, how old were you when you left Vietnam?

Sister Trish  
I left Vietnam, I believe, at like 12 or 13 years old. Remember, we don't have a sense of "birthday." Because I did not celebrate my birthday in Vietnam, or we didn't. So I think it's about 12 or 13 years old. I left Vietnam--well, I escaped from Vietnam in a boat. So my parents made the arrangements. I remember my mom would ask me, because a year before that, my two oldest sisters had left Vietnam--escaped also in a small boat, we say to the United States. Because actually they went to Hong Kong. And this was still under British rule at that time. So my mom would ask me if I wanted to go, just to get out. I told her yes. And she'd say, "You know, you could die at sea." And I understood that, because I heard people didn't make it. It's a 50/50 chance. And nobody knew the way to Hong Kong or to Thailand. Because who would want to return if they made it? It was in the Pacific Ocean, you know, in the South China Sea. So I told my mom, yes, I would go. So I went with my older brother. He is two years older than me. So we escaped in a small boat--a fishing boat, actually. It was not made to go into the ocean.

Sister Rejane  
How many of you were on the boat?

Sister Trish  
I believe there were seven of us. I was young at that time. And there was an older female--I think so 19 years old at that time. And we were the only two females. Most of them were male. We went to the sea--not knowing anything. You just saw water and the sky. And that's it. Nothing around. Just I mean, from time to time, we would see ships--now I know they were cargo ships. But they were just tiny spots. I mean, nothing else. Just water and the sky.

Sister Rejane  
What happened next in your journey on this fishing boat?

Sister Trish  
Well, into the second night, there was a storm, a really big storm. And I told my brother, "Let's do the Act of Contrition." Because I had already made my First Communion and Confirmation. "And you know, just prepare." We knew that when we went out to sea, there was chance that we would die. I was like 12 or 13 years old. I told him, "Just do your penance." And then I said to myself, "I want to die when I'm asleep. I don't want to be awake to see what happens." But I mean, the waves were so very strong. Just going UP and down. And UP and down. Like you were on a swing. And then I did my Act of Contrition, I said that prayer, and I did a Hail Mary, and then I just got knocked out. I felt my arm was just hot, like burning hot. And I said, "God, I'm in Hell now. I mean, really in Hell." And it was just so hot. And I learned in my First Communion if you sin you go to Hell, and it's like burning fire. And I said, "I must have been really bad. That's why I'm in Hell. I'm gonna open my eyes and just see what Hell looks like." So when I opened my eyes, the sun was directly hitting my arm. That's why I felt the sensation of burning. And it was just quiet. Quiet. Nobody said anything. Everybody got knocked out because of that storm. And I said, "I'm still alive!"

Sister Rejane  
Wow.

Sister Trish  
So after that, the owner of the fishing boat woke up and then he took us to an island called Hainan, which belonged to China. So we stayed there for two weeks because of the storm. And after that, there was another fishing boat--much bigger. And there were 11 males. So because our boat was so small, we asked if we could go with them. So that took about two weeks from China to Macau. And we stayed in Macau for a night and then went from Macau to Hong Kong. And when we got to Hong Kong, the Coast Guard came and escorted us to a place where they processed us as refugees.

Sister Rejane  
And Hong Kong was run by the British?

Sister Trish  
Yes. They were under the British at that time. So I was really lucky. I made it to land, and I came to a refugee camp they called a "closed camp," which means you cannot go out. It was a former prison, detention center for very violent people. So we stayed there.

Sister Rejane  
And how many people were there with you?

Sister Trish  
I had a number. So everything they called, they would call us by number. They would not call us by name. So we were a number. It was just like we were prisoners. So I was the 1118th person at that time in that refugee camp. Other people came after me, but there were 1000 people before me. I still remember the number, my own number.

Sister Rejane  
How long were you there in the camp?

Sister Trish  
I was there about two years, a little bit more than two years, waiting for a process. I didn't have my birth certificate. They knew that my dad was in the military for the South Vietnam government. And I did not have anything. So I had to write to my father in Vietnam, asking him to send my birth certificate and my brother's birth certificate so that they could verify who we were. And, you know, some kind of identification.

Sister Rejane  
And did your parents get the letter and were able to send it?

Sister Trish  
Yeah, there was a priest, Salesian priest. He used to be a missionary in Vietnam. So when the wave of the Vietnamese escaped from Vietnam and went to Hong Kong, he was asked by his superior to minister to the refugees, and he came, and it happened that he was a pastor at my parish. So when my sister came, he knew who we were, and his brother priest was doing work with the refugees. So my parents would send the priest our documents, and then he would bring that into the refugee camp for us when he came in to say Mass.

Sister Rejane  
Wow. So through the priest, that's how you were able to communicate with your family?

Sister Trish  
Yes. And I remember I got out with nothing with me except one outfit. So there was nothing, nothing. So I came to the refugee camp with just that one outfit. So my sister wrote to him, because my parents wrote to my sister in the States, and said that your little brother and sister escaped, so please contact the police in Hong Kong, and go in to check if they made it alive or not. So one day I was sitting in my cell. And people came in and said, "Hey Trish, there's a priest asking for you and your brother." I just couldn't believe it. So I ran out. And they said, "Oh, this is her." And he said, "What's your name?" So I told him my name. He said, "Yes, your two sisters in the United States wrote to me and asked me to go and look for you. So I will write to them and tell them that you made it to land, and you are safe in a refugee camp." So that's how we communicated.

Sister Rejane  
I bet that was a big relief for you to hear your sisters were alive, huh?

Sister Trish  
Yes. And also the next time he came, he said, "What do you need?" And I said, "I need clothes and I need shoes because I don't have shoes." So he brought not only shoes and clothes but cookies and sweet stuff--you know, kids love sweet stuff. So I have fond memories of the kindness--not to me only, but to all the refugees too.

Sister Rejane  
Did you receive any schooling while you were in this former prison?

Sister Trish  
No, in the refugee camp there was no schooling, nothing. We just sat around and waited for our papers to be processed. And so what happened was--people had relatives still in Hong Kong, but they were outside. So they would bring in a dictionary. So the female--I called her sister, because she was older than me. Her name was Kim. She would say, "Okay, let's study like five vocabulary words a day. And just take the dictionary and memorize the definition. And just each day, just add five more vocabulary words." But I mean, when I came to the US, those were useless. [laughter] I mean, we didn’t know better. But for more than two years, I had no schooling, just sitting around. And after we had been processed and okayed to come to the US, they had us fly to Philippines. Okay, so I stayed in Philippines for nine months to study the way of life in the US. They taught us that you cannot come to people's house before you make a phone call. You cannot just go and wait around outside in the street, because they're going to call the cops--because that's how we did it in Vietnam. My relatives I knew from the village or countryside would come and see my dad, and my dad wasn't home, and then they would just wait around until my dad came home for lunch. So they taught us like not to ask people for their age, how old they are, how much they make, don't burp. Call people before you come to the house.

Sister Rejane  
Very practical.

Sister Trish  
Practical, yes. To help us to integrate. So in total, I was in refugee camps about three years.

Sister Rejane  
We will pause for a brief break. This is In Good Faith, a program of A Nun's Life Ministry. We want to thank our sponsors and individual donors like you, whose support makes the In Good Faith program possible. We love to hear from you, our listeners, and your input helps us create the podcasts that you enjoy. If you could take a few minutes after the podcast to fill out a brief survey, we would be very grateful. You will find the link to the survey in the Episode Notes at the end of the podcast. We will be right back.

Welcome back. I am Sister Rejane of A Nun's Life Ministry and my guest is Sister Trish Doan. You can find past episodes of In Good Faith, and all our podcasts, at anunslife.org and on all the major platforms where you get your podcasts. Once you left the Philippines, where did you go in the States?

Sister Trish  
I came to California, and I landed at Los Angeles International Airport. And that was in 1985 or so. And I have been here ever since. I have never left or moved to any other state except California. So I'm a Californian. [laughter]

Sister Rejane  
Yes, you are.

Sister Trish  
Yeah, I've lived here longer than I lived in Vietnam.

Sister Rejane  
There you go.

Sister Trish  
Yeah.

Sister Rejane  
Were your sisters there at the airport to welcome you? I assume that's where you and your brother went, when you landed.

Sister Trish  
Yes, my oldest sister and her husband came to pick us up at LAX.

Sister Rejane  
Do you remember what your first thoughts were stepping off the plane? Or was it just kind of overwhelming?

Sister Trish  
I was overwhelmed. I was happy. I was happy that I was finally here. I could not believe it. Because after almost three years of waiting to come to the US. So when I got to the US, I had a sense of peacefulness, very peaceful. And it's very quiet--it's not like chaotic. I thought that America is like high-rise building, like New York, of course, or, you know, downtown LA or Chicago. But when my sister took us back to their home, it was so quiet. Like, nobody outside on the street--except cars. There were a lot of cars, but there were no people walking around. So that was my impression: everything is big and it just quiet.

Sister Rejane  
So you were used to having more people in Vietnam, in your space?

Sister Trish  
Yes. And it's crowded.

Sister Rejane  
Crowded space.

Sister Trish  
Here is more spacious. Now if I go back East, and go back to California, then it's like, okay, California is kind of crowded. At that time, I really liked it. Because this was real now. I could settle. And I could just begin my new life here. Instead of in limbo, in a refugee camp. The feeling of uncertainty. I didn't know where I would go. I didn't know if anybody could take us in. And the feeling of rejection, you know, because people would not take you in.

Sister Rejane  
And they were using a number instead of a name. That's very dehumanizing.

Sister Trish  
Yeah, so it's like in a prison system, where they call you by number. I wish that I had kept the card, I had my name and also the number. But they would not use your name. If I had letters from my sister, they would call, "Come to the front gate to get your letter. Here are the numbers." Then they would just go through the numbers from one to 1000. So we just paid attention to our numbers. Any visitor is also by number, but I never had a visitor because I didn't have any relatives in Hong Kong--except the Priest,

Sister Rejane  
So now that you're in the US, we're looking at 1985--were you in school? I mean, how did that transition go?

Sister Trish  
Oh, gosh. First thing we had to go and get all the shots and then fill out the papers, the immigration papers, so that I could get my green card, and get the Social Security Number, and also get processed for school. But I was lucky because all the people who came before me knew the process. So at that time, our Vietnamese community here in Orange was really tight. Because it has been only 10 years. You know. So people were really tight. We're just like family, even though we are not family.

Sister Rejane  
So when you say 10 years, so starting in 1975, when Saigon fell, those 10 years, Vietnamese people were coming into the United States. And so you were a tight-knit community, assisting each other for the new ones coming after them.

Sister Trish  
Yes, definitely. And then we just looked out, like for work, employment, assembly or anything--if there was any hiring, then the people who were already employed would ask the supervisor, "My friend just came. If we are going to hire, can you accept or hire her?" And that time was not like now. You could just go in and interview and the supervisor could just hire you. So it's the same thing that when I came, my sister and her friends picked me up. I didn't have to pay or anything, they knew where to go. They knew what needed to be done. These are like regular people. My aunt also was here, because she left Vietnam in 1975. So her friend, I would come to her. I called her auntie, also. We stayed for a week or so, so that I could do all the paperwork. And they were okay. My brother slept on the couch, or on the floor and all that. And we were okay with that. And then after all that was done, I could go to school. So luckily, I lived close by school, not too close, but I would walk every morning, about 45 minutes or so to school, and then walk home.

Sister Rejane  
And what grade did you end up being put in?

Sister Trish  
10th grade. So I came in 85. So I was like almost 16 years old or 17 years old. So they looked at my age and just put me in 10th grade. And I didn't speak any English at all.

Sister Rejane  
Wow.

Sister Trish  
The only the only thing that I knew was numbers. I did well in my math class. And at that time at the school that I was in, there was no ESL.

Sister Rejane
Really! I was just gonna ask. So there was no English Second Language. Nothing.

Sister Trish
No, there were only five of us. Because the population where my brother-in-law and my sister lived, there were not a lot of refugees or immigrants. So the school was really good. They have like two periods, two classes. One was for reading, the other one for grammar. And there were only five of us. But the rest of the other periods I had to study with the regular students. But they put me in classes that did not require a lot of reading. So I would do typing. I would do home economics with sewing, and easy science classes. So that's how it went.

Sister Rejane  
Sure. Well, and like you said, you were very good with numbers. So it makes sense that when you made your choice in college to become an engineer--am I right? Maybe I'm wrong.

Sister Trish  
Yeah, I mean--actually, I don't like math.

Sister Rejane  
Oh, you don't?

Sister Trish  
No, I don't! I mean, I don't speak English well, I don't write well, and I could not be an English teacher or, you know, a doctor or lawyer. That would be too difficult. So I thought, I'll just go for engineer. [laughter] Because it's easy. Which is what I thought!

Sister Rejane  
Right! Yes!

Sister Trish  
No, it's not easy.

Sister Rejane  
But you did it.

Sister Trish  
Yeah, I did. Yeah.

Sister Rejane  
Did you use your engineering degree a little bit?

Sister Trish  
Yes. Before I graduated, I worked in Silicon Valley for an analog, which is the integrated circuit. So all the chipsets in you cell phone, in our earphones and all that, I worked for that company for a summer. So I did an internship there to design chipsets. And then after that was September 11. So the Wall Street crash, and Silicon Valley was just like, wiped out, you know. And I did my internship in Silicon Valley, and I didn't like it there. I want to live down in Orange and maybe work in Irvine, or down in San Diego. And then September 11 came, so I went back to school to draw those chipsets, and I enjoyed it a lot. And after that, I got a job with a research startup company in Torrance. So I took that job and I worked there for a year. And then my mom asked me if I can help my little sister to start a business. So I quit that job and then we started our family business, a restaurant.

Sister Rejane  
We are going to take a moment for a brief break. This is In Good Faith, a program of A Nun's Life Ministry. We want to thank our sponsors and individual donors like you, whose support makes the In Good Faith program possible. Please visit anunslife.org to make a donation or to become a sponsor of the ministry. We will be right back.

Welcome back, you are here with Sister Rejane of A Nun's Life Ministry and my guest, Sister Trish Doan. Sister Trish is a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange in California. If you missed the first episode with Sister Trish, you don't want to miss it. Find out how a conversation with Vietnamese sisters led her to the CSJs of Orange. You can listen to this podcast, and all the episodes of In Good Faith podcast on all the major podcast platforms. So this is in 85. Your two older sisters and your brother and yourself are in the States. But there are both your parents and four more children, correct, that are still in Vietnam and how did that unfold for them to come to California?

Sister Trish  
They escaped in the same manner, which is by boat. We have such a large family, which is 10 of us. My mom tried before to have all of us escape at once but it's so difficult, and other people have been arrested also. So now both my mom and my dad had to make a fateful decision to divide us up. So they came up with going by pairs. So the oldest went first. So my two older sisters went first. And then my older brother, my older sister--the one next to me--she said, "No, I'm gonna stay with you." So I'm a braver sister than my older one. So my mom said, "You can go with your brother if you want." And I said, yeah, I would go. So my father and my older sister and my younger brother escaped the same way.

Sister Rejane  
So they were the third round.

Sister Trish  
The third round. The fourth round, my mom and my two youngest sisters--my mom was captured and put into a prison because she couldn't make it. They came and they took my mom and put her in jail or in prison.

Sister Rejane  
In Vietnam, right?

Sister Trish  
In Vietnam. Because she didn't make it. They asked her, "You're a traitor. Why do you want to go to the States? Because they are our enemies." My mom said, "I don't know about enemies or what. I want to go and be united with my husband and my children. That's my reason. There's no other reason." So my dad had to send money back to Vietnam so that they could bribe the official, which they did. And then they let my mom out. And then a year later, my mom tried to escape again with my two younger sisters, and then she made it to Hong Kong. So all of us went the route of Hong Kong. A lot of people did the other route, because it's less dangerous. But my parents didn't want us to take that route, which is Thailand, to Malaysia, to Indonesia, to Philippines, because there's a chance of us being raped by Thai pirates. There's a lot of people that that happened to. So my mom finally got to Hong Kong in 1991.

Sister Rejane  
And when did she arrive in the United States with your two younger sisters?

Sister Trish  
I believe in 1992.

Sister Rejane  
Okay, so the 10 of you were finally reunited,

Sister Trish  
After 10 years, yeah. So all of us made it. We were very, very, very fortunate because all of us made it four separate times. My neighbor--there's only three people left. And the rest of the family died at sea. Because two of them stayed back and one of them left before. And her two brothers and sister and niece and nephew left in between and then they just went missing, vanished. And when we didn't receive news, we knew that they did not make it. So there's a lot of people died from 1975 to 1998.

Sister Rejane  
Wow. So there's a lot of grief and loss, grief and loss. And danger.

Sister Trish  
Yeah, I remember when I was in the refugee camp. And you asked if we studied or if we had any schooling or anything like that in the refugee camp. We didn't. So what did we do with all that time? We sat around we told our stories. Like oh, how did you escape? How many people in your boat? There's other people that were supposed to go to Philippines or to Malaysia, but they ended up in Hong Kong. That's because they got lost. And a lot of people in that boat died. There were about 200 people but this only 10 or 11 people left. So people just died. And so we sat around and we told our stories about how we escaped and what happened during the journey.

Sister Rejane  
So I want to kind of fast forward to connect your time in that refugee camp with one of your jobs. You did engineering, and then working in the restaurant, but then I know you worked within the United States immigration system. Kind of like almost coming full circle. Can you talk about that a bit?

Sister Trish  
Yes. When I was in a refugee camp, people came in to volunteer, like Salvation Army, and there were missionaries from different denominations of Christians that would come in and see people and help people in the refugee camp. And refugee officers from the US and also from UN that would come and interview us. When I looked at them, I said, "You know, one of these days, I would love to be one of them, just to go and help the people at the refugee camp." When I got to the United States, I would have liked to do that, however, I needed to get my life going. So, you know, I just dove in and learned the language and then started to think about my life and how am I going to make my new life here. So after a long, long time, my friends got a job at -- they called it INS at the time: Immigration and Naturalization Service. And they worked there, and they said, "Trish, why don't you apply to work here?" And I said, "No, I don't want to, because I want to go back to Vietnam and volunteer in Vietnam. If I work for the government, I cannot do that." So it's the same thing that after I graduated, I interviewed down in Point Mugu.

Sister Rejane  
Where is that?

Sister Trish  
That's Point Mugu, which is I think is north of Los Angeles a little bit. And those are the naval air space, and they design all the circuits and all the warheads for the weapons. And I said, you know, first of all, I want to go back to Vietnam. And if I work there, there's a lot of restrictions. So I can't do that. So I didn't accept the position.

Sister Rejane  
And that was for engineering, right?

Sister Trish  
For engineering. And remember, this is 2002. In my head, I said, "I still want to go back to Vietnam and do some work there with the sisters in Vietnam. So if I do that, there's going to be a problem." But I applied for the immigration position, because I didn't want my friend to be sad. So I applied and then guess what? I got accepted. So when I came in and worked, I loved the work. I had the opportunity to help the people who were trying to reunite with their loved ones. And it's a full circle, you know? I understood the process and I understood a person waiting for their loved ones. But I didn't know who I was when I was in the refugee camp until 2015, when I got my job in LA. I worked in a field office, which is you interview people for green cards. And my supervisor approached me and said, "Trish, I would like you to consider this job, which is you either work with battered woman or unaccompanied minors." And I said, "Okay, I'd like to work with the children. I'll work with the unaccompanied minors," just to process their applications so that they can get a green card. During that time that I worked in this particular form, I realized that I was an unaccompanied minor.

Sister Rejane  
Yourself, with your brother.

Sister Trish  
Myself, yes.

Sister Rejane  
When you made the journey.

Sister Trish  
When I made the journey. I said, "Oh, my God, I was an unaccompanied minor." So the kids came in with their aunt, an uncle or cousin, or even with a pro bono attorney, or the agency, which is the family welfare, children protective agency. They did not have the parents with them. They don't have their parents there with them because they came to the US by themselves. So I mean, like, I told them about my story. I said, "You know, I was like you before. I came here with my brother. So please stay in school. Stay in school, and then someday you can sit where I'm sitting, and help other people. And you can make it better, even better." So who knows? You know?

Sister Rejane  
That is such a powerful. Probably it almost was like, "Oh, my gosh, I did that." Because when you're in it, you probably don't recognize the courage and the danger as much.

Sister Trish  
No. And I mean, I asked them about their journey because that's part of the interview. Just to verify that, you know, everything is there. And one day I just dawned on me: I was an unaccompanied minor, and my brother also. You know, you never know how God leads a person’s life. Sometimes I think it's amazing. Just, it's just incredible. It is amazing.

Sister Rejane  
That God's providence to just watch out for you. In Good Faith is a production of A Nun's Life Ministry, helping people discover and grow in their vocation by engaging questions about God, faith, and religious life. This program is made possible through the grace of God and the support of our sponsors of A Nun's Life Ministry, and you, our listeners. Don't forget to call and leave a message. Tell us what you like, ask a question or just say hi. Call 913-214-6087 and visit us at anunslife.org. God bless.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.