Trip changed course of her life
All Cao Lan ever wanted as a teenager was to finish school. But as the oldest girl with three younger siblings in a family that made a hard living in a small village on the coast of South Vietnam, that dream remained impossible. At 13, her parents took her out of school to help support the family. She seemed to be destined for a life of endless daily labors between the fishing boats and her house. She begged her parents to let her finish school, but the parents needed the extra hand at home.
Finally, tired of the futile longing and afraid of the future that seemed to await her, Cao Lan took the most daring leap for anyone from a culture that expects obedience and submission, particularly from a girl.
In July 1981, under the cover of midnight darkness, she boarded a fishing boat with 57 people and headed for the open ocean, leaving home and country. She became one of the boat people, a wave of refugees that escaped Vietnam by sea during the 1980s. Her first choice of destination: America. That is, if fate and luck were kind enough to her to make it alive.
She was 17.
Although this was her first attempt at traveling the sea, the story was not entirely unfamiliar to her. Because of the proximity to the ocean, her village was somewhat of a launching pad for people escaping from the country by way of South China Sea. By Cao Lan’s own estimate, chances of making it alive from the ocean was 50-50. If the capricious weather spared them, the sharks might not. If they survived the navigation of the fishing boat, they might not live to see land again because of potential hunger and dehydration.
The perils of the sea aside, if the boat was intercepted by the government, jail awaited all aboard. Her brother, 15, was in jail for his first attempt. “Five ounces of gold as fare to the passage wasted,” Cao Lan remembers today. But she was determined to try - even if that meant at the expense of her own life - for that one chance to go back to school and ultimately make a better life for herself. She was fearless and did not have a lot to lose. She left without telling anyone, taking with her two changes of clothing and payingthe passage with gold she had saved through her labors.
Alone with 57 strangers, Cao Lan drifted on the open ocean. To keep the weight of the vessel light, they had not brought a lot of food, except some mung bean paste, which they mixed with a little water every morning, and everyone aboard was rationed a spoonful of it for the day, children first. The owner of the boat had brought a large chunk of ice in an ice chest. A small chunk was chipped off every morning for each person. That was the daily allowance.
During the day, all 58 passengers went on the upper deck for fresh air. At night, some went down to the lower deck to sleep. They slept sitting up. There was no room to stretch out. The sun baked, but luck was with them. The sea never rose.
In this fashion the boat drifted toward the general direction of the Philippines. They had heard that there were refugee camps there that would accept the boat people. For five days the group survived mostly on hope and faith.
On the fifth day, weak from hunger and dehydration and delirious from the subtropical sun, they spotted the tip of what looked like another ship. Cao Lan thought it was mirage in the heat. Miraculously the mirage rose steadily from the water in front of disbelieving eyes. It was a U.S. submarine. The fishing boat was floating right above the submarine, which had surfaced to make contact.
Today Cao Lan vividly recalls the moment with a big smile of relief, sitting in her north Spokane home.
“I knew at that moment that somehow life would work out all right in the end.”
Cao Lan spent two days on board the submarine while the commander contacted refugee camps.
In the end she was deposited in Singapore, from where she was transferred to Indonesia for an eight-month crash course on American culture, while awaiting for a sponsor from the states. Her 15-year old brother, who by now had made another attempt at sea, had succeeded and already settled in Spokane. So, on June 28, 1982, sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. William Harms of Spokane Valley, Cao Lan joined her brother. She was 18.
In 1985 Cao Lan graduated from West Valley High School. And while raising a young family and making a living, she attended Spokane Community College and in 1994, pregnant with her third child, she graduated. She intends to go back to school once her youngest child enters college.
Cao Lan marvels at the unbelievable fortune her children enjoy in this country. She delights in seeing them going off to school every day. Her kitchen wall is covered with certificates of all kinds of honors from all three of her children. The fact that they can enjoy a good education is not something that she takes for granted. And if nothing else, she said, just for that simple fact, her journey to was well worth it.