Nguyen Thi My Hung
I was born in Da Nang where I now live. In the past, I was a vendor and I sold food to eat. At the time of my birth, I was given away to a woman who was my adoptive mother. I have no idea where my birth mother is.
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My adoptive mother raised me until I was an adult. As a child, my adoptive mother told me that I was an adoptive Amerasian child. She accepted me and she really loved me but whenever I went out of the house, everyone treated me poorly and discriminated against me. My adoptive mother wasn’t racist against me. She loved me and the neighbors loved me, but others outside our home, students at my school, called me an Amerasian, “Mỹ Lai,” and they were racist against me. I went to school all the way to the sixth grade then I stopped attending school.
I live with my husband. We have four kids. My life has had so many hardships that I don’t have any passions. I do like movies. I have no fond memories of my childhood.
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In 1991, my adoptive mother told me that they were allowing Amerasians to go to America. I was very sad that I didn’t know who my father was. I told my family of my intentions to apply for the Amerasian Homecoming Act. I told my family that I wanted to return to my roots in the United States. I submitted my application in 1991. At the time of my interview, I had no evidence of my Amerasian status and my US father. They said I wasn’t really American.
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In December of 2019, I saw Jimmy’s article in the newspaper about his program, Amerasians Without Borders, and their work to help Amerasians. I contacted him and Jimmy encouraged me to renew my application. His words reminded me to retry my application to go to America as a result of my heritage. I followed his instructions and applied.
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Anh Tung told me to give my saliva test to a lawyer to do a DNA test. They sent it to America. I was very excited to wait for my DNA results. It took one year from the time I gave my sample to get my DNA results. In February of 2021, I received my DNA results which showed a match with my biological father, an American veteran! It verified that I was an Amerasian. After I received my results, Jimmy helped me understand how to check my ancestry DNA.
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I was very happy and pleased when I received the test results. I finally had information about my father! Finding my family made me feel very important and very happy. I told my husband and family and they are very happy. My kids love me and they had been encouraging me to find my father - they wanted to know their American roots and their grandfather as well. They are very proud and very happy about the news.
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When I received information about father, it was very precious to me. Just like how precious my adoptive family is me. I loved my adoptive mother and father because they took care of me since I was young. My adoptive family was very loving to me and helped make sure that I went to school. They had a lot of hardships so I stopped going to school so that I could help them. I lost my adoptive mother and father a long time ago. I have an adoptive sister. When I told her about this, she was also very happy for me as well.
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Jimmy gave me pictures of my father and his family - my half siblings. I finally had all of the documentation and evidence that I needed to finish my paperwork and my application. My application was finally accepted and I was given a case number. But Jimmy told me that my father passed away. He died in 2018, so I was unable to meet my father. I’ve only been able to see his picture and the picture of my half-siblings.
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When I found my family, I went to talk to another Amerasian named Minh Tam to help advise me on how to finish my paperwork for the Amerasian Homecoming program. For Amerasians, we are very tight-knit, we really love and cherish each other. For those that are not like me, I’m not really close to them. I just hope that other Amerasians like me can also be as fortunate as I have been to be able to finish their paperwork.
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I really want to go the US with my family to reunify with my American family. I’m so happy and I’m so anxious - I’ve been waiting for so long. I’d been trying since 1991; I’ve been trying to go to the US since 1991. After I was refused, my case went stale and I wasn’t able to do anything until I met Jimmy Miller. Jimmy and Chi Minh Tam instructed me on how to complete my application.
Jimmy has a lot of love and compassion for Amerasians like me. Jimmy is very kind and he even paid people to help prepare documents for me.
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I am very excited and pleased to share my story. I really owe it to Jimmy for helping me with everything. I would like to ask my father’s birth family to help me come over to the United States. I want to tell the policymakers that make the law about Amerasians that I am an Amerasian and I want them to consider my case. I want to go to America to be with my father’s family. I want my children’s life to be better.