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- [00:00]
Kevin Allison
Hey folks, this is Kevin. On this week's episode of risk, you'll hear L.P. nguyen I remember like two.
- [00:07]
L.P. Nguyen
Times I got sick and that did the two times I eat eggs. That's 15 years. And that's how I'm so small. Like this.
- [00:19]
Kevin Allison
That and more. But first, Risk is touring again. There is nothing like seeing Risk live on stage. To be in the room right there sharing the experience with other Risk fans. And you never know what'll happen live on stage. We're in Atlanta at Aisle 5 on May 8th. We're in D.C. at the Miracle Theater on June 7th, and we're in Philly on June 19th at Fringe Arts. Tickets and more information, as always, is at risk-show.com/live.
- [01:00]
L.P. Nguyen
We'll be right back.
- [01:03]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [01:22]
Unknown
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- [01:49]
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- [02:18]
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- [02:48]
Kevin Allison
Now here's the hello folks. This is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison and this is Quang Vu behind me. Now, all of the music on today's episode is by Vietnamese artists, and we're calling this week's episode immigrant stories number three. I'm recording this hosting on April 7th of 2025, we now know that just a few weeks ago the United States sent 238 Venezuelan migrants to a torturous El Salvador megaprison. The Trump administration says these people are gang members, but journalists have been unable to find criminal records for 75% of them. Just about as awful an action as a government can take. It's absurd for the administration to try to pretend they can't bring the victims back. As always, with this regime, destroying lives is the point. With this Immigrant Stories series, we hope to remind people what is worth standing for, that behind all these statistics are human lives. And today we're featuring one immigrant story, and it's a stunning one at that. When L.P. nguyen was a child, her father was very high up in the chain of command for the military of South Vietnam during the civil war there from 1955 to 1975. Her family was large, prosperous, and deeply connected to the local community, especially the refugees from the north who had fled south during the war. But in 1975, when the north won, her family was devastated as her father was taken away as a political prisoner and LPs mother and four siblings fell into poverty and despair when their mother had a mental breakdown. The children were left to fend for themselves to keep from starving, with L.P. and her older sister raising the younger ones. Now the recording we're featuring here was of LP sharing at Capital Storytelling in Sacramento who do extraordinary shows and workshops. You can learn more@capitalstorytelling.com we're also making a transcript of LP's story available in the show Notes. If you just look at the show notes for this episode, you can find your way to the transcript. Some folks might have an easier time following along by reading along. I feel like the details of the story are so striking, I soaked them in more completely, completely by reading along while listening. And here in April of 2025, I have to say it's stories like these about holding dear to what you believe in, about finding the resilience and resourcefulness to persevere through hardship and injustice, about finding what is meaningful in your life, even when life seems hopeless. I am so grateful to people like LP for sharing this with us. So without further ado, here is LP Nguyen with a story we call Hope under the Sky.
- [07:50]
L.P. Nguyen
Hello everyone. My story will bring you back to Vietnam. In 1975, Vietnam went to a 20 year civil war. The Northern became a communist regime and the south want to be a democratic regime. And the north want to capture the south and unite the country under the communist regime. And they did. They invaded south and successfully overcome the south and that ended the war. On April 30, 1975, a couple days after the end of the war, my father was taken to the political prison. He was 31 years old. Six weeks before that, he was a captain in the South Vietnam Army. My family at that time lived a rivulet and well respected life. Every day my dad have a rival who came to pick him up to go to work and drive him home. And sometimes the driver would ride my older sister and I and the whole neighborhood kids to our school would eat only two blocks away. And we piled into his jeep and we banged and laugh. We had a wonderful time. My dad often took me to his work where I saw him in his uniform and I was like 5 years old walking along with him and I felt proud cause I saw his troop stand straight, saluted him. He was my word. Our house were always filled with guests, his relatives, his friends who came to ask him for favors. Because at that time he was like the second highest commander in the city. In the military and during the, you know, war times, a lot of people want to escape, you know, they don't want the children to got enlisted. So they should come and ask my dad to put the children under his wing. So that's why our house always filled with guests. And my grandmother, his mom also often visited us. And I knew that she very proud of him. And every time she came, she brought a lot of gifts from her farm, all kind of farm produce. And then my parents was asked the whole neighborhood came to cook and then serve the whole neighborhood. Like sometimes we had a hundred people come. At that time I learned that the people in my blocks or in that city where my dad work, they were actually the refugees from the north. Like after 1956, the north became the communist and people afraid, so they fled to the South. So at least like a million people from the north fled to the south. And many of them live in that city that my dad work and the kids in my neighborhood, I saw that many of them didn't have nice clothes or like they went to school without shoes. So that's why I asked my dad, you know, why the kids, they don't have shoes. And I had my nice clothes and you know, I have bodyguard sometime at school for us. My dad often told me and my older sister that he saved money for us. So when we grow up, he would send us to the US to go to school. Because that's what his dad and his mom done for him. And his three older brothers, they all went to colleges in Vietnam and went to the U.S. to, you know, professional school here and came back to work in the South Vietnam government. Two of them are actually working very high position in the South Vietnam government. However, my daddy ended and my family at that time ended when the war ended, the day my dad was let out to go to the political prison, I was seven years old then. He touched my hair, he looked into my eyes and he told me this. From now on you will help your mom taking care of your younger siblings. I didn't say anything, but I knew I need to roll up very fast. I looked at him walking out of the gate and I felt that moment that probably ducky the last time I saw him. Million people in the South Vietnam at that time experience what we went through. Their husband, their fathers, their brothers were taken away to the political prison. If they worked in the high position in the South Vietnam government, their family were thrown out into the street. Their houses were taken, their bank accounts were taken by the government. Whatever possession that the government can land on, they will take it away from them. Three of his brothers also were sent to the political prison. And four of my mom, brother in law also was sent to the political prison. So overnight, many of my uncle and aunts and my cousins became homeless and fatherless. And we didn't have any mean to live. We were like stripped completely bare. Everyone was so scared. Some of my auntie, they tried to escape Vietnam. Like many Vietnamese in South Vietnam, they used boat to escape Vietnam. But because my mom didn't have any money left, so we couldn't escape Vietnam. Luckily, my grandmother, my dad, mom took us to her farm. She built us a little hut, very tiny one, just enough for two queen beds and that all we have. We didn't have chair or table or anything. Because the day that we evacuated from where my dad worked, we left in the middle of the night. We walked out of that house with only our sleeping clothes and I left without even my shoes. So that's the first time I experienced how people didn't have shoes. And for the next 10 years, I only had one pair of shoes. The government allow the political prisoner family to send them food and essential stuff or visit them. At this time. 1976, my mom made two trips to see my dad. And now he already was sent to the northern border between Vietnam and China. So it's like thousand miles away. And it took my mom like two months back and forth. And after two trips, she ran out of the money and she got terribly sick because the Nordic vehicle and she didn't have, you know, money to buy clothes when she got there. And she almost like died when she got too Hanoi. Eventually she had a nervous breakdown because she ran out of money. So for a long time she forgot about us. I was eight years old then. My older sister was nine. My two younger sister five years, three years old. And my youngest brother at that time was one year old. So the five of us, we huddled in that little hut. My grandmother gave us a little piece of land so we can grow rice. But at nine years old and eight years old, you couldn't do much. But we work. We work on a field every single day by bare hands. We didn't have money to buy tool. And my grandmother, she tried to show us how to do stuff. And so we just follow her. We repaired a few, we weed, we scattered the seed. The season usually last six months. So in that six months, we didn't have anything to eat. So every single day we had to go to the riverbed and try to cut a little clams on the riverbed or go to the field and cut a little field crops. You know, first I was so scared because, you know, you really had to go into the hole and pull out the grafts. And sometimes the graft, you know, just get into your finger and when you pull it out, it's all bloody. But my older sister, she was very brave because, you know, if she doesn't do that, then we didn't have anything to eat. So eventually I learned how to endure the pan and put my hand in and try to get the crabs down. And we did that every single day. And that all we had to eat for that 15 years, we didn't eat egg. I remember like two times I got sick. And that is two times I eat eggs. That 15 years, that's how I'm so small like this. And also because most of the time I skip meal because my younger brother at that time, he didn't have anything to eat. So my older sister and I, we skipped meal for him and my grandmother she wanted to help us, but she didn't have money to help us. At that time she was already in her late 70s. She lived with my aunt. But my aunt, for some reason she doesn't want to help us. So she make it very difficult for my grandmother to help us. So sometime my grandmother had to skip meal that served for her by my aunt. And she put in her pocket and put into her pan and hide it from my auntie family. And she would brought it over to give it to my. My younger brother. And sometimes she even had to steal rice bran and bring it to us. Just, you know, one or two handful. And she had to sneak out at night and run over to us. Thanks to that, we survived. Every day was a struggle. We didn't have any means, you know, we were so little. And my mom, sometimes she came home to visit us. And then, you know, for months she forgot about us. So my older sister and I took care of my three younger siblings. But beside all of that difficulty, my grandmother always insist that all of us need to go to school and do well. So every day she Woke me up 4:00 in the morning and told me that, you know, I had to study very well. Because in case that my dad come back or in case that she died, I will help my sister to take care of my younger siblings. Because that's what happened to her when her husband was taken away by the communists and they buried him alive. They took away all the land that they had. And my grandmother was the one who took care of her kids, raised my father and sent him to school. So I knew what she meant, that my dad might not come back home. We didn't have money to buy books or pencil. So most of the time I had to do my homework on the mud or just study by heart. But I studied very well. I was an A student all the time. And every year I got scholarship. And I learned that my academic achievement really scared a lot of people. They couldn't believe that, you know, we so poor, but how can we study so well? And I can see that my grandma, she's very proud of me. I can see that in her eyes. Every year I brought scholarship back. You know, just like Migos stuff, some books, some pencil. And she touched it the way she touched it. I still remember her eyes right up. So years came by very slowly, every day like eternity for us. But school kept us alive and focused. We lived across the river from school and we didn't have boat to go to the school. So most of the time we had to ask people to give us a ride to school. And some days when we couldn't ask anyone to give us a ride to school, we had to swim over. But, you know, we cannot let swim the way we swim here. We swim with one hand like this to hold the books and pencil and just swim straight like that, you know, sit one hand and swim across. But my older sister and I never missed a class. We understood that how much education mean for us because that kept us away from our life, our, you know, miserable life. And school opened us to places that we cannot go. We couldn't see. We didn't have tv, we didn't have electricity at night. We couldn't study. We had to. There's some seed that, you know, you ride on the sun and you brow it and that's how you burn it and that we use that light. And one time I was helping my sister to do her homework and my hair got cut in that. And it's just like in no minutes it burned half of my face. And I end up in a hospital for a month. But I still study and I stay a student all the time. I miss my father very much. So every night I told my sisters and brothers about my dad, how he used to play with us after work every day she'd play hide and seek or like train ride. And he tuck us in every night. He have four daughters, but he treats us the same as my brother because in Vietnam, you know, people usually treat boys better than girls. But my dad, he treats us the same. We'll be right back.
- [24:51]
Unknown
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- [25:20]
Courtney Harrell
Imagine if you could ask someone anything you wanted about their finances. How much do you make? Who paid for that fancy dinner? What did your house actually cost? On every episode of what we Spend, a different guest opens up their wallets, opens up their lives, really, and tells us all about their finances. For one week, they tell us everything they spend their money on.
- [25:43]
Kevin Allison
My son slammed like $6 with the blueberries in five minutes.
- [25:47]
Courtney Harrell
This is a podcast about all the ways money comes into our lives and then leaves again, which, of course, we all have a lot of feelings about.
- [25:56]
Unknown
I really want these things. I want to own a house, I want to have a child. But this morning I really wanted a.
- [26:00]
Courtney Harrell
Coffee because whatever you are buying or not buying or saving or spending, at the end of the day, money is always about more than your balance. I'm Courtney Harrell and this is what We Spend, Listen to and follow what We Spend and Odyssey Original Podcast available now. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [26:21]
Ryan Reynolds
We'Re back.
- [26:34]
Kevin Allison
This is Risk. This is Dan Nguyen behind me now, and we'll be hearing the second half of L.P. nguyen's story in just a bit. Folks, I I feel like for my mental health teaching storytelling workshops this spring and summer is going to be a lifesaver. Being in a storytelling workshop has so many benefits. You spend quality time checking in with yourself about your memories and what your life means to you. You become more mindful of what you have to be grateful for, what you truly value, how you've grown, how you look at the path you are on. You do a lot of deep listening and connecting with other students on the world they're living in, the backgrounds they come from, and you help them see patterns or look under rocks they might benefit from examining. You build your sense of self expression, your sense of yourself and your own personal charisma. You, you develop tidbits that you can share when you're socializing or on job interviews. You exercise creative muscles and feel the joy of crafting stories that move people and light them up, help them to understand where you're coming from. You have new things to share with friends and family and therapists and mentors. And in challenging times, you have a community, a little community to come back to each week to share about our lives, to testify, to laugh and to cry. I'm teaching three eight week long storytelling workshops this spring and summer. The first starts on April 24th. Its Thursdays from 6:30pm to 9:00pm Eastern time. The second starts on May 14th. It's Wednesdays from 6:30pmot. To 9:00pmt. Eastern time and the third starts on June 1st and it will be Sundays in the morning from 10:00am to 12:30pm Eastern time. Email me right away to reserve your spot at Kevin@risk-show.com and I hope to see you soon and to hear your stories and if you're LGBTQ and you can make it to Rhinebeck, New York from June 13 to June 15. I'll be teaching a workshop in person at the Omega Institute called Storytelling for LGBTQ Pride. Look that up@eomega.org let's get back to this stunning Story again. You can follow along with the transcript of the story if you check the show notes for this episode. When we return to LP's story, where she and her four siblings waited year after year after year for their father to return from political prison in Vietnam in the late 70s and 1980s. Here she is now, L.P. nguyen, with the conclusion of a story we call Hope under the Sky.
- [30:14]
L.P. Nguyen
The first year came, the second year came. The third year came. The fourth year came. By the fifth year we lost hope because two of his older brothers already passed away in the prison. They share the same political prison, but they weren't allowed to see each other. But my dad knew that. He sent us letters twice a year. So we start to lose hope that he might not make it home. The sixth year came. The seventh year came my brother at that time, already seven years old. When my dad left for the political reason, he was only six months old. He never saw how my dad looked. Like we didn't have any, you know, picture. Because the night we left evacuation my house, we didn't take anything with us. One afternoon my sister and I came back home from school and we were on a high bridge and I heard somebody shouting, your dad is home. At first I didn't recognize what it mean. But when I look over across the river, I saw my dad. And I was almost jumped into the river to swim over to see him. That's what I felt at that moment, like I was reborn. I never felt happier in that moment because for seven years I prayed, I dreamed of that day, I cried at night, you know, for him to return. And now he did. But when I saw him, I knew that my family still have a long way to go. Because now he was reduced to bones and skin. The only thing that I could recognize from him is his eyes. So he was sick for a long time, physically and mentally. And later on I learned that he tried to survive because of us. Because he knew that my mom was really useless. She was little brain said in her family. So she didn't know how to even cook. So he tried to survive just to come back because of me and my sibling. And he can do everything in the political reason. We were happy that my dad went home. But our life didn't get any much better. Well, by now I was already 14, 15 years old. Now I'm 4ft 6. So by then I probably 4ft tall at 14 years old. But I became main worker in my family and my older sister because my dad is still really sick. He helped us to work in a Farm. But when he was little, his father was the richest person in that town. They had all kind of helper, you know, attendants. He was sent to school when he was 4 or 5 years old. So my dad didn't know anything, you know, about farming or even fishing. And he didn't even know, you know, how to go and cut the clam or the grass. So we had to tell him how to do it. And actually I really, you know, show him how to do farming because in that seven years I really learned how to do it. One night we just came back from the field that night. My dad was sick that day. We just scattered some new seeds for the new season. By midnight it started raining and it start pouring down. So I afraid that the water might flood our new seeds. So I went out with my younger sister to check to see how the water got in her yard. By the time we got to the field, the water was already up to my thigh and part of the barrier already broken and the water rushing in, plus some part of the field it was pouring down and it like maybe one or two o'clock in the morning, very quiet, very cold. And I knew that if we don't do anything fast, the water will, you know, flood the whole field. So at that moment I make a really quick decision that I need to lie down on that broken barrier and use my body to prevent the water to brush it in. And that's what I did. I lied down on that broken barrier and my younger sister, we both lie down and use our body to prevent the water to come in the field. It was cold, dark, and the water like almost up to my nose. And that's. But the moment I broke down to cry because for so many years I tried to hold into, you know, try to be strong. But that moment, it broke me. I was angry at God. I looked up at the sky and asked God like, why, why he throw so much difficulty into my life and my family life. We should lie there for hours until the water stopped. The rain stopped. After that night, my family decided that we couldn't live in Vietnam anymore. So we tried to escape into Cambodia many, many Times. That was 1987. But we couldn't go all the way to Thailand because in order to go to Vietnam, Cambodia, to Thailand, then the US have an embassy there. After several tries, two times we almost got caught by the border control. Luckily, in 1989, my parents got paper from the US government to allow us, my parents, my siblings and I to go to the US for good. Today, 49 years from that fateful day that drove my life, my family life upside down. But luckily, you know, my family still intact. Today we just celebrate my father 80 birthday two weeks ago. Like many, many refugees who came here, I think a lot of people in America or in the world, they don't understand the difference between immigrants and refugees. Refugees like us, who were stripped to our bones, we were thrilled out of our house. We were persecuted by the government. I remember that one time I walked into the library of my high school. I want to check out a book. And the librarian told me that I wasn't allowed to check out any book because my father was a political prisoner. And I was shocked. I understood then that what freedom mean. Not only that you imprison inside, but for that 15 years we live in Vietnam. We imprisoned under the sky. We couldn't go anywhere because we didn't have money to go, but because the government constantly barred us from real life. So my dream at that time that I want to read all the books in the world. And I want to read under the light, not under the seat light. And so I did, when I came to America, my purpose, you know, my own goal was to go back to school. And so we did. And so all of my younger sister and brother, my dad very proud of us. Because now my younger brother, who was like six months old when he left, he a doctor now and he own his own practice in Stockton. And my younger sister, who was three years old when my dad left, now she a dentist and she owned her own practice in Menlo Park. And my other sister was a pharmacist. And my older sister, she owned her own beauty salon. But I choose different route. I choose politics because I understood that politics affect our life. So when I came here, I knew right away that, you know, I want to involve with politics. And so I was in student body government and I was elected several times as student body president. And I was also involved in my Asian community in the last 30 years. And currently I try to help organize all kind of political event and try to get the Asian community to go to vote. Because we never know who we vote or we're not voting that will make laws that affect our life. Not in America, but in other countries. So I hope my story today will inspire you to learn more about the Vietnam War. Because a lot of people think that it a forgotten war, but that war affect million people in itself. And that's how million of us came to call the US home. And I also hope that, you know, you reach out and learn more about the Asian community because many of us came here not because of our choice, but we are forced to leave our own country. If Vietnam is a democratic country, I would love to go back there. But even right now when I go back there, I don't feel safe. And I also hope my story will inspire you to go to vote because the person that you vote for really affect our life. So please go to vote. Thank you.
- [41:29]
Thuy
Tell me that you keep me safe and never let this fade away I'm hiding ourself they don't see this hottest.
- [41:42]
L.P. Nguyen
Me.
- [41:46]
Thuy
Girls like me don't cry Girls like me pretend we don't cry Girls like me don't cry Girls like me pretend we don't cry.
- [42:03]
Kevin Allison
This is Risk. This is the Vietnamese American singer songwriter Thuy behind me now. And we just heard from LP Nguyen who recommends you look up the Asian Pacific American Public Affairs Association. That's@apapa.org and you can find LP at the Apapa San Joaquin Chapter on Facebook. Thanks again to Lisa Cantrell and and Capital Storytelling for the recording of LP's story. Folks, if you would like to support Risk in our ongoing efforts to bring stories like LPs out into the world, we are at patreon.com risk there's check ins, bonus stories, an ad free feed of the podcast that you can plug right into your podcast app, access to video recordings of tons of Risk live shows. All of it is at patreon.com risk and like I said up top, we are touring again. We're in Atlanta at Aisle 5 on May 8th. We're in D.C. at the Miracle Theater on June 7th. And we're in Philly on June 19th at Fringe Arts. Tickets are at risk-show.com live okay, so hang in there everyone. Remember, we keep us safe and we'll never stop sharing our stories. Folks, today's the day. Take a risk.
- [44:15]
Thuy
Like me Pretend that we don't cry.
- [44:43]
Nicole Byer
We interrupt this program to bring you an important Wayfair message. Wayfair's got style tips for every home. This is Nicole Byer helping you make those rooms flyer. Today's style tip when it comes to making a statement, treat bold patterns like neutrals. Go wild like an untamed animal print area rug under a rustic farmhouse table from wayfair.com Ooh, fierce. This has been your Wayfair style tip to keep those interiors superior.
- [45:09]
Thuy
Wayfair Every Style, Every home.