Escaping from Laos

By Yeng Xiong

When I came to the United States I felt happy but I missed my old life in Laos so much . I came to the United States by airplane with my family. The trip took 2 days and one night to came to the United States and It was an interesting tirp when I came here. In 1967 my father was a soldier of C I A. he was a soldier of C I A in Laos until 1975.

My parents got married in 1975 in Laos. At the same time the communist took over Laos already. Almost all Hmong people started to come to Thai Land; but my parents and the other people said that they wanted to fight against the Vietnamese soldiers. They did not want to come to Thai Land. At that time we had no houses; food; clothes and We could not live in the cities or the villages. We had to live in the mountain far from the cities; because we were not communist. My parents took me to live in the Jungle, so I was born in the Jungle.

We lived in the Jungle for 12 years and We knew that we had no good food . We only ate bamboo, tree, leaf and some time we came to buy food from the Hmong people who lived in the Village near the Jungle, but It was not enough for us. We lived in the jungle at the same time as there was fighting against the vietnamese soldiers. We had many problems, because many vietnamese soldiers came to shoot us many times and We went to shoot at them too. So they killed my grandmother, aunt and my uncle died in the Jungle.

Finally, we could not fight against the Vietnamese soldiers, because we did not have many people, food, clothes, guns or airplanes. So,almost all of us decided to escape to Thai Land. We lived in the refugee Banvinai Camp for 2 years and then the Camp commander sent us to live in the refugee Napho Camp. In the Camp I studied Thai, Lao, Hmong and a little Enghish. We lived there for 6 years.

We thought the United States was a rich country, but this was not the reason for coming here. I came here , because the Government of Laos was bad. We really did not want to come here, but we could not go back to Laos. We did not like the Communist, so we decided to come to the United States to save our lives. On September 14th 1996 we applied to come to the United States. Every day, we waited for the permission to come to the United States. On December 4th 1996 we arrived at Fresno Airport. Then we lived with our cousin for 2 days. After that we moved to live in an apartment near my cousin. In the past, my life was very miserable, but right now my life is good more than before and I think it will be good forever.If you like my story, please write to me.