Inspired Magazine

eunited with their brother and sister who’d
escaped before them, Carina remembers their
struggle with the language barrier and culture
shock. “I felt destitute, inferior, I had no confidence,”
she remembers. “I was struggling with all the usual
stuff of being a teenager as well as this massive
culture shock. I missed my mum and dad very
much and worried about them a lot. But survival is
an amazing thing. When you have to do it you do
– I knew I had to do well so I could help my family.
I had to see them again. I didn’t want my parents’
sacrifice to be in vain.”
A FAMILY LEFT BEHIND
Carina threw herself into her studies and excelled.
She earned a scholarship to university. She found
work. Yet images of the family left behind haunted
her. By this stage she knew her dad was alive, but
in prison, and her mother had been imprisoned
for helping her children escape. Her grandma had
cancer – if she died, what would happen to her two
youngest siblings left behind?
“I worked really hard, saved my money and sent
it home for my sisters,” she says. “And my brothers
and sisters did the same.”
REUNITED
Eventually both Carina’s mother and father
were released from prison and Carina flew back to
Vietnam to sponsor their move to America. It was
12 years since Carina had fled – yet now the entire
family was reunited. “It was so overwhelming to be
together again,” Carina says. “We were so happy,
so relieved. I don’t think any words can describe it.
We finally felt safe.”
As Carina forged a career for herself, she was
invited to return to Vietnam for a research project
– a trip during which she’d meet her Italian-born
husband, who had grown up in Australia. The duo
married and returned to the US before moving to
Australia.
Here Carina published her award-winning book
Boat People: Personal stories from the Vietnamese
Exodus 1975 –1996, published books for others,
won a scholarship to study a PhD at Curtin
University on the history of refugees in Hong Kong
and was inducted into the WA Women’s Hall of
Fame as one of the state’s most inspiring women.
And it was from here that she has made her return
trips to the desolate isles that haunted her dreams,
to search for Vietnamese refugees’ graves.
THE RETURN
Together with her brother and cousin, Carina
began planning her return to Indonesia to find her
dead cousin. She knew he had died on an island
called Terampa. But in a country with around
18,000 islands, only a third of them named, it
seemed impossible they’d locate this one. It
didn’t appear on maps, no-one they questioned
had heard of it. No matter, they’d make the trip
regardless.
In Carina’s
words ...
Who inspires me
My mother, she is the
most courageous person
I’ve ever known.
Best advice
Don’t ever give up. We
all have incredible inner
strength: until you are
tested, you will never
know how strong you
can be.
Left Carina has written a
book about her incredible
journey and tales of other
Vietnamese boat people.
CARINA HOANG
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