Arriving at Subic Bay, Tâm discovered she and the other passengers were at the tail end of the U.S. military’s rescue operation. Most of the refugees who’d passed through the refugee camp had already been resettled. As a result, her first interview with the American official and a Vietnamese translator seemed perfunctory and not particularly welcoming, as if both men were weary. Either that, or was there something problematic about the passengers from the trawler? Tâm worried she would say the wrong thing and they would send her back to Vietnam. She sat across a table from them, coiled and rigid.
“Where are you from?” the official opened the conversation, detached. Bored.
“The Mekong Delta,” she answered cautiously.
“How did you get here?”
“I was aboard a trawler that left Saigon six days ago.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.”
“What did you do in Vietnam?”
“I studied botany. Then I worked in a restaurant for several years, and two years on a farm. I was trying to make enough money to go to university.”
He looked up from his notes, as if he was more interested. “I see.”
She didn’t. What was he thinking? She straightened up.
The American scribbled something on his paper, after which the translator and interviewer made eye contact. Tâm felt like she had come uninvited to a party, but they were too polite to say so.
“Where would you like us to send you?”
“America.”
“What would be your second choice?”
She shrugged. She hadn’t thought about that. “Canada, I suppose.”
“And your third?”
She frowned. Were there too many refugees in the U.S.? Were they going to send her someplace else? After a moment, she said, “France.”
The American nodded. A second Vietnamese translator joined them. The first translator shook his head and tapped a pencil on the table at which they sat. “Half the Vietnamese we wanted to get out didn’t, and half who did get out shouldn’t have.”
Now she understood. The refugees on the trawler were not wanted. They were not important people. They had not been invited, like the South Vietnamese officials who preceded them. But she was here now. A buzz skimmed her nerves. What if they sent her back? What would she do?
“So you worked on a farm?”
She took that as a good sign, took a breath, and nodded. “In the field and the greenhouse. I raised seedlings. Helped grow fruits and vegetables. Harvested them when they were ready.”
“And you have restaurant experience?”
“In the kitchen and waiting tables.”
The American made more notes, but there was a satisfied look on his face.
It took another three months but by December she was sent via Guam to Southern California, where she was hired to work on a farm in Orange County.