HOF156: Bui Van Hai

Bui Van Hai joined the navy as soon as he turned 18, building and repairing ships at the naval shipyard in Saigon until April 1975. When news broke that the South Vietnam government had surrendered, he didn’t know where to go. No officers were around to discharge the few low-ranking personnel still at the base. At a friend’s suggestion, he and the friend boarded an officer’s recreational pontoon and headed out to sea. Steering a vessel not built for the ocean and lacking food or water, they counted themselves lucky to be picked up by a naval fleet that was headed for the Philippines. After a six-week stay in the U.S. base in Guam, Bui was flown to a camp in Pennsylvania. There, he tried to pass a welding exam to better his chances of being allowed to settle, but that effort failed.

He then heard that Canada was looking for trade workers, and three days after filing the paperwork, he was his way to London, Ont. There, he lived with 17 other young former servicemen in three adjacent apartments. Even though a refugee sponsorship program was still years away from being created, locals who heard about the refugees’ arrival went out of their way to befriend and guide the young men through their settlement period. Bui and the others took pride in learning new trades, working hard and staying out of trouble. He now thinks his group’s integration experience might have served as a model of success that helped convince the Canadian government to create a refugee sponsorship program.