By Larry Shurilla
“After an hour or two of restless sleep, we were taken to a refugee camp on the northern border of Thailand and Laos, to the outskirts of a city called, Nong Khai. It didn’t take long to realize that we wanted out of that place and fast! The camp was very crowded and dirty. At one point there were over 11,000 refugees in the camp. There were open sewer ditches and scattered garbage that reeked constantly. It was really just a bunch of makeshift jungle huts surrounded by razor-wire and patrolled by Thai soldiers.”
“Do you know what razor-wire is, Justin?”
“Never heard of it, Grandpa.”
“Razor-wire is a lot like gigantic, metal Slinkys laid end to end on their sides. Placed every few inches along the coiled wire were razor blades-nasty stuff. Those razor blades were so sharp they could cut through the soles of boots! Imagine what they would do to your bare skin! The huts we stayed in had uneven dirt floors and the walls and roofs were made of bamboo shoots and rusty corrugated steel. We were fed mostly rice and fish, which after nearly starving for three years was a welcome relief, but with armed guards patrolling the gates and not permitting anyone in or out without permission, we couldn’t help feeling more like Prisoners of War than Laotian refugees. The Thai people tolerated us, Justin, but being tolerated and being wanted are two very different things. They really didn’t want Hmong filling up their crowded cities or draining their economy with our daily needs. So they put all the Hmong refugees into camps. That way they could be sure we weren’t sneaking into their cities and they could find a more permanent home for us.
“Our all-consuming goal was to get out of that camp and if we were lucky enough, make it to America. Tables had been set up for registration and various countries such as France, England, Germany, and the United States were accepting some refugees as new immigrants. Our greatest prayer was to come to America. I had fought alongside the Americans and knew that in the U.S.A. we could live free.
“During this period of endless waiting, testing, and filling out forms, I was lucky enough to get an interview with an American official named Charlie. One of the first questions he asked was whether or not I had served in the Laotian army. I said, ‘Yes,’ and he said, ‘Prove it!’ and handed me a box of automatic weapon parts and asked me to assemble it, fast! Charlie knew if I had really served in the army, I would know how to take apart and assemble that rifle with ease and he was right. What he didn’t know was that the word was out, and non-military Laotian men would give anything they had to a former soldier if he would show them how to handle a rifle’s assembly. For many refugees, Justin, this knowledge made the difference between making it to America or not! I quickly put the rifle back together and Charlie made some notes on his papers and I felt it wouldn’t be long before we would be able to go to America. I was correct that we had been approved for processing to come to the United States, but what I didn’t know was that it would take over a year of waiting in that dismal place and almost losing Paxia before our dream finally came true.”
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“After over a year of getting our hopes up week after week and having promises of our departure broken time after time, we were finally told that we would definitely be leaving for America in two weeks and that our visas had been approved! I had just come home from a work outing where about 50 of us had taken a truck out of camp and helped harvest vegetables on a farm about 15 miles south of Nong Khai. As I walked into our hut, I found three men from the Vang clan waiting for me to arrive. Blia was crying and deep inside I knew this day would eventually come, Justin, I just hoped we could have made it out of Nong Khai before this happened.
“I don’t get it Grandpa. What were those men doing in your hut and what were you so afraid of?”
“I was afraid of losing Paxia. The three men who came to us were attempting to arrange a marriage with a member of their family, the Vangs, and Paxia.”
“But wasn’t Paxia too young to get married, Grandpa? She would have been, like, a seventh grader!”
“Paxia was about 13 years old and in those times, 13 was a suitable age to arrange a marriage. I know it seems strange to you, Justin, but marriages took place at a much younger age back in Laos and Thailand.”
“What did you do, Grandpa? What did you say to them?”
“Well, I told those men to take me back to their home because I wanted to talk to Paxia before this went any further. I decided to bring Blia along with me to help translate if I had any trouble communicating.
“When we arrived at the Vang hut, we found Paxia surrounded by four older women who were fussing over her and laughing and singing songs. I made a general announcement that Blia and I wanted to speak to Paxia alone. So we took her by the hand out of the hut and onto the dirt road. When we were far enough away so we could talk with some privacy, we sat down on the ground and I started talking. I concentrated very hard on Paxia’s face and lips and asked her what was going on? She really began opening up and her feelings came flooding out. Paxia said she was sick of living in the refugee camp and that if she married this young man, she would be able to move out and start her own life in Thailand. She said she wasn’t sure if she could get official papers to leave camp, but that she and the Vang boy were planning to run away and somehow blend into the Thai society. She said that he paid attention to her and that she loved him and could take care of herself. She reminded me of her mother when she glared defiantly at me and shouted, ‘I’m old enough to be out on my own! Let me go!’
“I told her that I loved her and that I knew she had gone through a lot. We all had. I told her I was sorry for not providing enough for her, for constantly moving us around and putting her in danger. I said I knew her life had been a hard one and that her childhood was not what I had hoped it would be, but I also told her that marrying now was a bad decision, that if she ran away and got caught they would either put her in jail or send her back to Laos. I also said that things would be different in America and that we were so close to gaining our freedom! I remember taking both of her hands and kissing them and saying, ‘I will always love you, Paxia. When you were born, I felt like I was a king and that the world could never be better. I was so proud. I have never stopped being proud of you and I never will. You have been so brave, so many times and have always been such a comfort. I will not force you to come to America with us, but I beg you to reconsider. I do not want this family torn apart. If you stay here, we may never see you again and your children will never know their grandparents. Is this what you really want? We need to stay a family, Paxia. We need to trust in God that things will work out and we must stay together!’
“With tears in her eyes, Paxia hugged me, kissed me on the cheek and walked back into the Vang hut. I honestly didn’t know what she would do. I wondered if I would ever see her again. When we arrived back at our hut, Blia, wouldn’t even look at me because she was so angry that I didn’t bring Paxia home with us. It was an awful night of tossing and turning and praying. Just as the sun crept over the horizon, I heard loud sobbing outside our hut. I went out and found Blia, with Paxia in her arms, rocking and crying. Paxia looked up at me and said, ‘Txiv, Nam, (Dad, Mom) I’ll go. I’ll go to America with you.’
“When she said those words, I think my heart leapt out of my chest! After all that we’d been through, the war, the hiding, the night in the river, after all those frightening experiences, I felt losing Paxia would have been the greatest hurt of all. Somehow, after all we’d been through, we were still together and, now, we were ready to come to America, as a family.”
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