HOF034: NGUYEN Hong Nhung

Life after the war was difficult for her family in the Mekong Delta town of Vinh Long, but for Nguyen Hong Nhung, a university student about to enter the teaching profession, performing music helped bring in some income.

Later, after Nguyen made the sea voyage on her own to a refugee camp in Indonesia, her songs and music would provide comfort and relief, both to herself and to others. The songs that spoke of the love for the Vietnamese culture especially moved her. The songs were particularly poignant to her and the other refugees, as they were now considered stateless.

When Nguyen resettled in Ottawa, music was one of the things that helped her connect with the refugee community and feel at home. Nguyen, who now works as a Vietnamese heritage language teacher with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, has performed at hundreds of social and cultural events within the Vietnamese community. 

 
Tags: ,

Note to Researchers

A consent form was signed by each of the interviewees whose videos are posted here on the website. They have each consented to making the video available to the public and they have consented to the use of the contents of their videos by the Hearts of Freedom project researchers. Consent is not available to external researchers to quote or publish from it. Researchers interested in the subject have the opportunity to view a documentary film, Passage to Freedom which has been completed and is available through a distributor https://www.mcintyre.ca/ Researchers from the project are in the process of completing a full length book based on the interviews. Once this book is available researchers will have the opportunity to review it and to refer to it for research purposes.