Two Amerasian Refugees Arrive in Their Father’s Land
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

At 34, Duoe Toran will receive his first Christmas present this year.
Mr. Toran is part of the lingering trickle of Amerasian refugees, who are children of soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War. He arrived in America with his family last week. His entire life, he said, he has been ridiculed and picked on for being Amerasian.
“Before they teased me, but I don’t care anymore,” Mr. Toran said in Vietnamese through a translator. “If they call me American, then I’ll show them I am an American soldier.” Yesterday he was wearing a U.S. Army hat.
Since Congress enacted the Amerasian Homecoming Act in 1987, more than 89,700 Amerasian children and accompanying family members have been admitted to America. In New York, the International Rescue Committee, which is resettling Mr. Toran and his family, resettled nearly 800 Amerasian refugees between 1988 and 1999. Since then, there have been only 24 individuals, with just two families so far this year.
It’s not for lack of trying that Mr. Toran has waited nearly two decades to move to America. After the act was passed, “Everyone said, ‘You have a chance to go to your father’s land. Why don’t you go?'” Mr. Toran said.
But Mr. Toran, a tall man with a broad forehead, was rejected the first time. He said he was told he did not have enough proof. But Mr. Toran had no evidence beyond his face that his father is American. All his mother could tell him was that his father’s name is Bob.
Tueyet Pham, 32, who arrived with her family two months ago, also was rejected on her first attempt. With a larger bone structure than a typical Vietnamese woman, brown hair, and round eyes, Ms. Pham has strong Amerasian features.
“Growing up, I always knew I looked different,” she said. An orphan abandoned at the flea market, the vendors took turns caring for her as a baby before a taxi driver adopted her. “I was teased that I was mixed with American.”
When her son, who she said looks like her, reached adolescence, she did not want to risk submitting him to the ridicule she had gone through for her American roots while growing up.
“I thought if I go to the father’s land it would be easier to survive,” she said.
The two refugees were helped by the American Asian Hope Foundation, which works to help identify Amerasians who have not received refugee status to get visas.
Now that they have reached New York, Mr. Toran and Ms. Pham have a new set of challenges ahead. At 9 years old, Mr. Toran started farming and herding and worked odd jobs as an adult. While he is excited that his children will have a chance for more education than he did, he has new concerns, such as how to pay New York City rent. Ms. Pham has more education than Mr. Toran, having completed the 11th grade, and is trained as a seamstress, but not speaking any English is a challenge.
For now, however, they are overjoyed with the used clothes provided to them by the International Rescue Committee – their first real gifts, they said. Tomorrow night they will join refugees from about a dozen other countries around the world to celebrate Christmas for the first time.
“As long as there’s a gift, I don’t care what it is,” Mr. Toran said.