"In quest of hope they will go courting death, dreaming that one day freedom shall be theirs." --Ha Huyen Chi

They were prepared to risk all. And they did. "They" were the "boat people" who took to the ocean in over-stuffed boats, squeezed together in lost privacy, attacking the turbulent seas.

Life on the South China Sea was hardly an improvement from the wretchedness of Saigon in 1975 when overtaken by the Viet Cong..

They faced a barrage of perils: massive and uncontrolled seas, leaky boats, starvation, dehydration, sickness, rape, murder, brutal pirates. An estimated ½ million + died their final death on these voyages. The rest endured the "smaller" deaths-moment to moment-- of fears, indignities, savagery and shame.

Some countries refused to let the boats land and would tow them out back to the sea. They gave them some food and supplies. This was "enough" they said. "If you come back, we will shoot," said another.

For Huong, this was a split second choice. With the war chasing her from behind and uncertainty before her, she jumped into one of the last boats to leave the dock clutching her infant son. She was waiting for her family that never came. She asks herself, "How did I make this decision? Somehow, from somewhere, I knew I need to take the chance and jump-into the boat and into the unknown."

"People were stacked, crushed together. I looked down and I had one tennis shoe on. My baby had one diaper. Soon he had none. I would crawl across sleeping people at night so I could wash up in privacy over the side of the boat. They would cry out 'Thief, thief,' as if there were something to steal. One night, worn away by grief and exhaustion, I thought about the dark future and I just wanted to let go. At that moment, my son cried out for me. I knew then I had to live. I became stronger spiritually. His cry turned my life around and I chose hope."

Each day they saw small boats headed for death one by one. They saw them sinking and the people drowning, their faces coming up for air. The bodies sometimes would rise up again and knock against our boat as if to say "Let me in."

There was no dying with dignity, no living with dignity. They sailed on the currents of hope and despair. Huong would count the moons at night during those weeks at sea to record the time of this life of near-misses.

She asks, "How can any country turn these people away? My story is not yesterday's story. It's about today and tomorrow and the choices countries make.

How many graveyards are at the bottom of the sea with the bodies of the hopeful, with their rotted dreams? Who will weep for them?

We are all human beings. No more, no less. Our world depends on interdependence. We human beings do not exist in isolation. Because we name our boundaries does not make us more than or less than human.

We are "all in the same boat"-struggling to survive. Our lives belong to each other and to those who need us.

"I was one lucky duck. I got in, " says Huong.

"Good night, Vietnam
Hello, America"

Text By, Sandi Wicina, Curator of Arts
©2004. Art, War, and Peace Museum.