Stormy Escape

Ha Pham Kim Nhung, her husband and six children fled their Saigon home destined for the United States to join Ha’s mother. After a harrowing, two-week overland trek through Vietnam and Cambodia, the family finally made their way to the refugee camps in Thailand only to find the conditions in the camp nearly intolerable.
This is the powerful and poignant story of their six months’ struggle to escape the Communists in Vietnam. The family traveled through the killing fields of Cambodia only to find themselves in the Para refugee camps in Thailand, with their dehumanizing conditions. But all the while the family maintained their strength and love for one another and ultimately joined Ms. Ha’s mother in the United States.

Kim Ha lives in Garden Grove, California.

Kim Ha
Format: softcover (5.5 x 8.5)
Pages: 256
Bibliographic Info: 17 photos, 2 maps, index
Copyright Date: 2014 [1997]
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7750-0
eISBN: 978-1-4766-2827-1
Imprint: McFarland

Acknowledgments vii
Two Forewords to the Vietnamese-Language Edition (Sister Christine Truong My Hanh; Truy Ngoc Tran) 1
Foreword to the English-Language Edition (Anne Frank) 3
Preface to the Vietnamese-Language Edition 5
Preface to the English-Language Edition 11

1. The First Escape Attempt 13
2. Preparation for the Second Attempt 43
3. Out of Vietnam and Through Cambodia 57
4. The Living Hell of Para Post 137
5. The Painful Experiences of the Land Refugees 145
6. Non Chan Refugee Camp, First and Second Locations 157
7. Non Chan Refugee Camp, Third Location 171
8. Camp Northwest 9 177
9. Panatnikhom Holding Center 221
10. Rangsit Transit Center 233
11. From Bangkok to Los Angeles 237

Index 245

• “Rarely does a book give such insight into the trauma of flight for refugees…sheds light on the experiences that resettlement countries can only begin to understand”—Journal of Refugee Studies
• “A detailed personal account”—Reference & Research Book News.