HOF021: Micheal DO Duy Tien

Life at the end of the war in Vietnam was difficult for the teenaged Michael Tien Do, his four siblings and their parents. His father barely scraped by as he tried to recover from a flying bullet injury, and the family was always on the brink of being sent to the New Economic Zone.

Facing the prospects of being drafted into the war with Cambodia, Michael was urged by his parents to find ways to leave the country. His journey in 1981 would take Michael to Indonesia’s Kuku Island, where he spent his first night on land literally sleeping among the dead.

A distant cousin, a refugee himself who had teamed up with local community members to form a sponsorship group, sponsored Michael in the remote logging town of Kapuskasing, Ontario.