They Are All My Family by John P. Riordan

Author:John P. Riordan [Riordan, John P.; Demery, Monique Brinson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610395045
Publisher: PublicAffairs

The rest of the weekend, waiting at Walker’s, felt interminable. Eckes had nothing to tell me except to keep waiting. Cuc in the personnel department made up a list; Chuyen, Robert, and I went over the numbers again and again.

Of the thirty-four Vietnamese employees at the branch, thirty-two were coming with us. One young woman, a teller on the main banking floor named Nguyen Khoa Thuy Diem, had another way out. Her father worked for an American news organization—I think it was Time or Newsweek—and it was organizing its employees’ evacuation. So that was one person we didn’t have to worry about.

Nguyen Thi Than from the bookkeeping department on the second floor had also told us that she wouldn’t come with us, but in her case, it was because she was forbidden. Chuyen called Than’s father several times over the weekend: “Please, allow your daughter to come with us. She will have a job in the United States; she can send for you.” But Chuyen’s pleas were ignored. Than’s father was immovable. As it turned out, Than would leave the country anyway. She fled as a “boat person,” five years after the fall of Saigon. She was one of the lucky ones: she made it to the United States alive.

“So I’ve got thirty-two Vietnamese employees to adopt, plus their families,” I read from my notes, looking up at Robert and Chuyen for assurance.

Robert shook his head. “You will have thirty-one. I have a Taiwanese passport that I can use to get out.”

“Why are you still here?” I wondered aloud.

“My wife,” Robert answered factually. “She cannot travel on the passport with me. Will you still take her with the others?” he asked. Of course, I assured him. But I had real concerns. Even without the two women and without Robert, our group was still huge. I had only a rough estimate of how many children everyone had and whose husband or wife was coming, but by my reckoning, I had over one hundred people to get out of Saigon—and fast.

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