'A very distant dream': Refugee reunited with Ottawa sponsors
Former Vietnamese 'boat person' Thong Trang arrived with his family in 1980
They had waited nearly three decades, but it was the final few minutes that dragged on the longest for Joel and Sharon Edelson.
There was a missed connection and a seven-hour delay, and now, despite the monitor signalling their friend's flight had landed, Thong Trang wasn't among the passengers descending the escalators at the Ottawa International Airport.
Joel's Bristol board welcome sign seemed suddenly cumbersome, and Sharon's bouquet of pink carnations was beginning to wilt.
Then their cellphone rang. Trang had taken a different escalator and was already outside the terminal looking for them.
The Edelsons, now both in their 70s, raced to the exit, spreading their arms when they finally spotted the man with the shock of white hair and laughing eyes. Trang whooped as he embraced the couple, then began to cry.
A young woman stood nearby.
She was Trang's daughter, and he had brought her to Ottawa to show her where his future began.
Project 4000
In 1979, the Edelsons were among the hundreds of Ottawa residents moved by then mayor Marion Dewar's call to take in 4,000 Vietnamese refugees fleeing their war-torn homeland.
Our ancestors were in the same boat.- Joel Edelson
As a descendent of Jewish immigrants, Joel said he couldn't just stand by and watch.
"Our ancestors were in the same boat, and they came here with virtually nothing in the early 1900s," he said. "But there was no Project 4000 for them."
The Edelsons appealed to friends for donations, and Sharon went door-to-door in her Craig Henry neighborhood. The couple eventually raised $10,000, enough to sponsor a refugee family for one year.
On Jan. 26, 1980, Thong Trang, his mother, sister and a cousin arrived in Canada. The family of four fled Vietnam after the Communist takeover, and were among the hundreds of thousands of "boat people" who crossed the South China Sea aboard rickety fishing vessels.
"You don't have a future. [You] never know when they're going to put you in jail, when they're going to kill you," said Trang, describing Vietnam before they fled.
"People starving, bloody, a lot of bad things. We don't want to pick that bad memory up. We have a new life after."
A new life
It was the Edelsons who gave Trang that new life.
Trang was 30 years old and didn't speak a word of English when he arrived in Ottawa. The Edelsons rented the family an apartment and registered them in ESL courses. Sharon visited the family every night to help with homework.
Once Trang's English improved, Joel, who owned a chain of stereo stores, gave him a job in the warehouse, where the newcomer operated a truck and filled inventory orders.
A few years later the Edelsons agreed to sponsor a fifth family member, Trang's 14-year-old cousin Tay, who had been stranded in a Malaysian refugee camp.
The Edelsons, who had two children of their own, raised the teenager like another son.
Once, when an immigration official worried that Tay might have been brought over as a child labourer visited the Edelsons' home, he found the teenager relaxing in the family's pool.
The Edelsons never officially adopted Tay, but he lived with them until he got married, and still calls them mom and dad.
Reunited
After 10 years in Ottawa, Trang's family decided to move to California to be closer to relatives. For reasons neither family can really explain, they lost touch.
A few years ago the Edelsons began receiving Christmas cards from Trang. That's how they learned he'd gotten married and had children. But there was never a return address, so they couldn't reply.
Then, last December, a card arrived that was labelled with a return address in San Gabriel, Calif. Sharon immediately wrote back.
The reply came in the form of a Facebook message from Trang's 24-year-old daughter, who revealed her name was Sharon.
"It gave me goosebumps up and down my arm," Sharon Edelson said. "She said she always wanted to meet me and that they named her Sharon after me. It is such an honour."
When the two Sharons first met at the airport, there were no awkward handshakes; they immediately embraced like old friends.
Trang's son couldn't make the reunion, but Trang had brought along a photo of the 26-year-old, resplendent in a U.S. Air Force uniform.
"His name is Edelson," Trang told the couple.
Lasting influence
Decades later, Trang remains grateful for the Edelsons' kindness and generosity.
"I was a guy with nothing. I didn't know they were big shots, a big boss, didn't know they would treat me nice, or my family," Trang said as he wiped away more tears. "They have warm hearts."
Meeting her namesake has allowed Sharon Trang to piece together the puzzle of her father's life. Trang said her dad rarely talked about Vietnam or their struggles when they first moved to Canada.
Nothing would have been possible without them.- Sharon Trang
"It's hard to talk about generational trauma and to pass these stories on, but they're important. We have a lot to learn about what Ottawa did for Vietnamese refugees," she said.
Sharon Trang said she's been surprised by how emotional this journey has been for her father.
Growing up, she didn't hear much about the Edelsons, other than that they "lived in a big house and were very nice."
Meeting them, she's coming to understand their influence on her father.
"He just wanted a better life for us," she said. "Seeing his sponsors be able to do that — to give him what was a very distant dream — is amazing. Because nothing would have been possible without them."
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