Vietnamese refugee Kim Thúy's second chance in Granby
C'est la vie series profiles Vietnamese immigrants, 40 years after the fall of Saigon
When 10-year-old Kim Thúy Lý Thành stepped off the bus in Granby, Que. on a March day nearly 40 years ago, she had never felt more beautiful in her life.
She and her fellow Vietnamese refugees hadn't been able to wash properly for months. They had skin infections and lice in their hair.
But the people of Granby rushed to embrace them.
"There was not one moment of hesitation to say, 'Who are these people?' or 'Should we touch them or not?'," said Kim Thúy, as she has come to be known in her adopted homeland.
"And their eyes, the way they looked at us. I had never been that beautiful in my life. And I have never been as beautiful again."
Kim Thúy says that moment was like being born again, here in Canada.
Between 1971 and 1980 close to 40,000 Vietnamese people immigrated to Canada, 8,000 to Quebec. In the 2011 census, 42,480 people in Quebec said they had Vietnamese origins.
C'est la vie produced this special series on the Vietnamese community in Quebec to mark the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
Kim Thúy and her family left Saigon in 1978, three years after the Americans pulled out and the communists took over. They made the hazardous journey by boat to Malaysia, where they landed in a refugee camp.
Their choice of Canada as their new home came by chance.
One day, Kim Thúy's father was acting as an interpreter for the Canadian delegation at the refugee camp because he spoke French and English.
The family was not eligible to immigrate to Canada because they did not have a sponsor.
But at the end of the day, one of the representatives stood up, and said they should make an exception for the interpreter.
"And that's how my father called all of us down, met with the delegation, and then we got accepted by Canada," said Kim Thúy.
Kim Thúy is now a celebrated novelist. Her debut French-language novel, Ru, won the Governor General's Literary Award in 2010. It was translated into English by Sheila Fischman, and is in contention for this year's Canada Reads.
The novel was inspired by Kim Thúy's own story as a Vietnamese boat person.
On the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, Kim Thúy wants people to remember that Canada gave her community a second chance. And she hopes it reminds Canadians what they are capable of.
"It is the proof of the Canadian kindness and the Canadian generosity," she said.
"I hope this is the meaning of this 40th anniversary."
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