From Refugee Camp to White House: A Personal Journey Through US-Vietnam Relations

Elizabeth Phu

US-Vietnam Review: This speech by Madam Elizabeth Phu, Chancellor of the College of Information and Cyberspace (CIC) at the National Defense University (NDU), prepared for delivery on September 19, 2025 at the University of California, Berkeley at the Symposium entitled “The Challenges of Peace: US-Vietnam Relations Since 1975,” hosted by the University of Oregon’s US-Vietnam Research Center and the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Southeast Asia Studies. The views expressed in this paper (and the resulting speech) are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense or the U. S. Government. 

From Refugee Camp to White House: A Personal Journey Through US-Vietnam Relations

Opening 

Good afternoon, distinguished colleagues.  

Professor Zinoman reached out a number of months ago to invite me to speak.  I didn’t know it then when I sat in his Indochina class as a Berkeley undergrad, but his class played a critical role in where I am today.  So, I said yes when he asked.  But, when a draft agenda actually came out this summer, I was humbled that I was given the privilege of this speech.  And, having seen the others on the agenda, I confess I was a bit terrified.  So, let me dive straight in before Peter realizes he made a grave error!  

I want to start with a story.  I should note that I’ve never thought of myself as a storyteller.  But, as I sat down to think about this speech, I was flooded with stories.  Some I have shared before.  Some that quietly shaped me.  Some that poignantly show how my early years as a refugee shaped my later years as a policymaker.

So, let me start with a story not unlike what many others here know intimately.  This is a story that I tried to shut out for years.  A story that I reluctantly shared widely almost 10 years ago because of how much it shaped my life, my career, and my outlook.

It is a story that began years earlier, and it would soon star wedding rings.

In 1979, a small boat crowded with 253 Vietnamese men, women, and children drifted helplessly in the South China Sea.  One of the two engines had died, and they had been floating for three days.  Thirst.  Hunger.  Fear.  All were pervasive.  And, fear was so overwhelming that the pain of being trapped on the boat like sardines never had a chance to surface.  Then a ship appeared.  Did the residents of this drifting boat dare to hope?  Perhaps.  It was a ship on the horizon.  But it was a pirate ship, and the price of hope was ten wedding rings.  For 10 wedding rings, they would pull these desperate migrants into Malaysian waters.  

Ten wedding rings were collected.  A young man – young by my standards at least – collected those rings into a tiny sack, clamped it between his teeth, and swam to the pirates’ ship to make the deal that would save his wife and toddler daughter.  And hundreds of others.  

That man was my father.

Transition – Setting the Context

Today, as we gather to discuss “The Challenges of Peace: US-Vietnam Relations since 1975,” I stand before you not just as a former White House advisor who worked on Southeast Asian affairs for two presidents, but as living proof of how profoundly those relations have transformed both countries and countless individual lives.

My story begins where many discussions of US-Vietnam relations do: with the fall of Saigon.

The Weight of History

I was born in Vietnam shortly after that fall into a family that found itself, as the communist government saw it, “on the wrong side of history.”  My mother was a nurse, my father had worked for the U.S. military, and my uncle was an officer in the South Vietnamese Army.  We were living reminders of an old order that the new government was determined to erase.

When I was two years old, my parents made the agonizing decision that parents throughout history have had to make: they chose exile over oppression.  My parents have never said it was for me, but I have no doubt they wondered what kind of a future I would have in Vietnam, with parents of their history.  

Our first escape attempt failed spectacularly.  My mother and I were sent to what the regime euphemistically called a “re-education camp” for seven months.  My aunts also ended up there.  My father and uncles were imprisoned for an entire year before my grandparents could buy their freedom.

Now, I want to pause here because, when I tell this story to American audiences, they often focus on the drama of the pirates, the camps, the danger.  But what strikes me as a policy professional today is something very different: the systematic nature of it all.  The re-education camps weren’t aberrations; they were policy.  The dangerous boat journeys weren’t just desperate acts; they were the predictable result of a government that offered no path to reconciliation for those who had chosen differently during the war.

This is why the academic work you do matters so much.  When we study US-Vietnam relations since 1975, we’re not just examining diplomatic cables and trade agreements.  We’re examining the human consequences of policy choices, the ripple effects of historical moments, and the long, slow work of turning enemies into partners.

A Dangerous Passage

After our release from re-education camp, my family tried again.  My mother’s parents sold everything they had to buy passage on what can only be described as a floating death trap – a two-engine boat the size of a couple of hotel rooms, carrying 253 people.  Mind you, my grandparents would be left behind, not knowing if they would ever see their children again.  Not knowing if they would ever be able to escape.  My grandparents gave up what they had to buy passage for three of their children who had families and children of their own, my mother among them.

The journey that followed reads like something out of a novel, except novels of course are fictional.  One engine died, leaving us drifting for three days.  That’s when the first set of pirates found us, leading to my father’s underwater negotiation with the wedding rings.  They made good on the promise to pull us in, but we drifted again.  A second set of pirates ransacked our boat and smashed our water tanks, and a woman died of a heart attack during that assault.

It was four more days adrift before Malaysian authorities finally found us and pulled us to shore.  They saved us.  They gave us a chance by bringing us to a refugee camp on Pulau Bidong.

This refugee camp is where I had my first memories.  I remember this big room – something like a community center – where I played, getting to tell nursery rhymes over the loudspeaker.  There was a sense of community among people who had lost everything but still found ways to take care of each other’s children.

My parents and their siblings sold their few remaining belongings to take care of us.  My uncles hiked miles to gather firewood.  My mother told stories of how my uncles also rescued rice that had sunken underwater, drying it in the harsh sun, and finding ways to feed the family.  And through it all, there was this extraordinary thing: hope.  Not just hope for themselves, but hope that their sacrifice would mean their daughter could have a different kind of life.

On December 3, 1979, one month shy of my fourth birthday¸ we arrived in America – California, specifically – with $20 in my parents’ pockets en route to Ohio.  They also had the phone numbers of a few friends in Oakland, and it is these friends who kept us in Oakland, promising to help us start over.  I was this close to growing up as an Ohioan.

This story is one my father told and retold repeatedly.  As a child growing up, I dreaded it every time it came up.  I remember these big gatherings with family and friends – always filled with food, lots of kids running around, uproarious laughter (and often blackjack, if I’m honest) – these gatherings that somehow always returned to these “war stories”.  At least that’s what it felt like to this little girl.  If I were lucky, I’d run out of the room.  At other times, I’d be trapped and would have to listen to the stories.  Again.

As a child, I didn’t want to hear these stories.  We tell children fairytales and fables of heroes and heroines.  Now, I recognize some of our fairytales and fables can be a bit violent – every Disney movie starts with a death – who can forget the opening of Bambi? – but they are fictional.  They are not stories about death and suffering of people you know and love.  I didn’t want to hear about how, on a lucky day in re-education camp, six grown men would share an egg.  I didn’t want to hear anymore about how they kept my pregnant mother – and me as a two-year-old – in prison.  I already knew how malnourished she was that my baby brother died hours after being born; I didn’t want any more reminders.  

Even the stories that demonstrated the deepest human compassion were too much for me.  Like the story of a man who took to me because he missed his grand-daughter so much.  You see, toward the end of my mother’s pregnancy, our jailers showed a little mercy and let her join my father on the men’s side of prison so he could take care of her.  She was allowed to bring me.  There, this man, separated from his family and his beloved grand-daughter, took to me in her place.  Imprisoned with nothing left, but, because of his love for his grand-daughter, he cut the strap off a bag he had – one of his few remaining belongings – to make me shoes with straps.  He showed me this kindness and generosity when he had nothing.  He owed me nothing.  He didn’t have to do anything.  But he did.  And this story, to me is a story about human compassion – compassion that emerges in the unlikeliest of places and under the most trying of circumstances.  At least that’s what I saw as an adult.

As a child though, even this was too much of a reminder of a war I didn’t have to fight and wished the adults around me would put behind them.  Move on and forget.  Stop telling the stories.  That’s all I wanted.  Perhaps they didn’t want to forget.  Perhaps telling his story was a way for my father to process and heal his trauma.  The trauma of the imprisonment.  Of the passage.  Of losing his son.  Of never seeing his parents again.  Whatever the reasons were, I, as a little girl, did not appreciate them.

But little did I know that these stories would shape who I am today.

Choosing a Path

I’d like to fast forward to another story.  I was a 23-year-old entering my second year of a master’s program at UC San Diego.  I was getting a degree in international relations with an emphasis on Southeast Asia.  But I was lost – not sure what I wanted to do with myself.  I chose international relations because I liked to travel.  I chose Southeast Asia because I spoke Vietnamese and because of a certain class taught by one Professor Peter Zinoman.  I had no clue what I would actually do with this IR degree.  My parents had no clue what an IR degree was.  

The only thing I knew was that I wanted to repay this country somehow – this country that saved me and my family.  In my naïveté, I figured I’d just get a government job – I had heard it was easier to join government straight out of school.  I would put in five years and then return to California to be near my family.   

I’m not sure where I got this notion.  I’m really not sure.  Maybe it was always there, slowly seeping into me each time I heard a story about my family’s journey.  Or about someone’s journey.  There was never a lack of stories.

All I know is that I got it in my mind I needed to show my gratitude and that that should come in the form of government service.  Never having been exposed to a government civilian, I just figured it was time to go to those career talks.  One day, I went to one with a representative from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  I still remember the room – it was the same room where I had my Politics of Southeast Asia class.  And I remember the rep.  She came from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.  She spoke of this program – one created by President Carter to bring graduates with advanced degrees into government.  She described the application process and the stiff competition.  She described the opportunities, like how one person got to go work at NATO headquarters in Brussels.  Remember how I said I liked to travel?   Well, this program would pay me to travel for work and even to live abroad.  I was hooked.  

I had no idea what the Office of the Secretary of Defense was.  I had no idea what work I’d perform.  That didn’t matter.  I had found the job I wanted.  And, lucky for me, that’s the job I got.  In the fall of 2000, my security clearance finally came through, and I took my oath of office – one I would repeat a few more times – and I joined the Department of Defense.  Five years passed.  The work was fun.  I did get to NATO headquarters, where I spent 3 months, and a few other countries.  I stayed for another five years. The work was intense and interesting.  I met world leaders; I negotiated on behalf of the United States; I helped shape responses to crises.  For example, I’ll never forget being on the task force responding to the South and Southeast Asia tsunami that hit the region on Boxing Day 2004.  Every day, we saw the death toll rise, and it was devastating.  It was overwhelming most days, and it was the first time I just broke down at my desk.  But, eventually and steadily, we could also measure the help we were delivering.  The amount of drinking water being filtered.  The number of patients seen.  The amount of rubble cleared.  For weeks, we worked 20-hour days to coordinate that relief.  It was physically and emotionally exhausting, but I had never been so proud.  Sign me up for another 5 years.  The work became addictive.  In 7 weeks, it will have been 25 years since I first took the oath of office to be a U.S government official.

I have come full circle.  

I am here because my family was forced to flee, and America opened its doors to us.

I have been given opportunities I did not know existed and therefore could never have dreamt of.

But those early years were not easy.  Setting up life.  Assimilating.  Learning how to fit in.  It was hard for all of us.

Early in 1980, just months after arriving, an insurance company took a chance on my father.  BTW, he still works there…45 years later, though he promises to retire soon.  But he knew few people, and the Vietnamese community was not yet large.  He recalls not selling a single policy in the first six months.  To make ends meet, he painted apartments in our building.  I recall clearly one day when he told my mom he tried to hide his hands in a meeting because he realized there was still paint splatter on them.

There was the transition to pre-school.  Saint Vincent’s Day Home, just a few miles from here in Oakland.  I remember the tears of a terrified little girl who didn’t know a single word of English.  I remember a little girl who just wanted to go home but, at the same time, wanted to play in what I always felt was the most magical playground.  My solution after the first day of school was to ask my father to teach me one sentence.  I wanted to master one sentence before my second day of school.  This sentence would be critical to my happiness.  It would make school less scary.  It would make my transition bearable.  And, so I practiced all night long.  Even as a 4-year-old, I understood that practice makes perfect.  I remember this clearly.  The next day, I proudly – and bravely – deployed it.  “Teacher, can you please push me on the swing?”

And to make it, my parents worked to the bones.  My mother put her nursing background to use and her fluency in Vietnamese and four Chinese dialects to work, finding employment with a doctor’s office.  She was on her feet 10 hours a day and prepped patients without today’s endless supply of latex gloves.  I remember her chapped fingers that would tear through the hosiery she was expected to wear but honestly couldn’t afford.  Then on weekends, my parents would – together – spend whole weekends driving from one home to another across the Bay Area to explain insurance policies.  It was my father’s job, but it was a joint venture for the two of them.  And, right there with them was me and my baby sister.  I guess those business weekends were in fact family affairs.

The work never stopped.  The stress was always high.  

At the same time, we were incredibly fortunate to meet people who opened up their hearts and homes to us to help us settle in.  There were work colleagues from my dad’s office, people who always checked in on me and invited us to share holiday meals with them.  There was Mrs. Judy Meyers, my first-grade teacher, who will also be with me in my heart.  You see, one day, she asked the class about our Christmas traditions and how we decorated our Christmas trees.  When it came to me, I started to cry.  I was six years old and had never had a Christmas tree.  First, we are Buddhists.  Second, a Christmas tree would have been a luxury.  She hugged me and calmed me down.  Days later, as we were saying our goodbyes before the Christmas break, she pulled me aside.  She had bought me a miniature Christmas tree.  You know the ones with the mini Styrofoam ball ornaments?  She wanted me to be able to share in this tradition.  It remains the best Christmas gift I have ever been given and could explain my obsession with Christmas trees.  As a Buddhist married to a Christian, I’m the one who insists on putting up a tree every year.

This is just one story of many that speak to the kindness and generosity we were shown as we settled into this adopted homeland.  

So, yes, it was hard, but we were given a chance.  

Building a Career in Service

I was given a chance.  This little girl from Oakland went from memorizing those 8 words – “Teacher, can you please push me on the swing?” – to working in the White House.  Twice.  For two presidents, one of each party.

I think my story illustrates something important about how America nurtures talent from unexpected places.

With an IR degree in Southeast Asia, my first full, permanent position in the Department of Defense was naturally to work on…. Russia and Ukraine.  Over the next decade, I worked my way through various roles in the Department – nonproliferation policy, transnational organized crime, and, yes, Southeast Asian affairs.  Each position taught me something different about how American power works, how policy gets made, and how individual decisions can ripple across the globe.

By 2010, I was directing an office with a $25 million budget, overseeing policies to combat everything from maritime piracy to terrorism finance.  The refugee child who had once faced pirates was now developing policies to fight them.

The Irony of Service

That would be just one job where my personal and professional lives would be juxtaposed.

There would be others, and therefore there are a few more stories to tell.

In 2006, I accompanied Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to Hanoi for an official visit.  We had just landed from Singapore and checked into the Melia hotel.  I then received a phone call.  The Secretary had invited me to join him and a few delegation members for a private lunch.  At lunch, he asked me about my story.  I fought tears and overwhelming emotions to tell him and others a little of my family’s story.  I was the youngest there and the only woman – there was no way I was going to cry.  So, I shared just a little – just enough – I couldn’t find the strength to tell the full story and still keep the tears at bay. 

The next day, I sat behind him as he met with the Vietnamese Minister of Defense and discussed their mutual interest in deepening bilateral defense relations.  These leaders – leaders of militaries once dedicated to destroying the other – had shaken hands and were sitting across from each other.  These leaders – representing once-warring countries – were committing themselves to finding a way forward together.  I was witnessing the deepening of relations with the same military that sentenced my uncle to nearly 10 years of hard labor camp, the same military that sent my entire family to prison. 

In 2007, I got my dream job at the White House as Director for Southeast Asian Affairs, crafting policies for the very region my family had fled.  I led the U.S. response to major crises in Burma, worked on expanding security relationships, and coordinated diplomatic efforts across the region.  In 2008, we announced that President Bush would welcome Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to the White House.  Planning for that meeting fell to me.  Working closely with colleagues from across the U.S. Government, I spent months working to make it a successful meeting.  I refined the agenda.  I bird-dogged the deliverables – government speak for agreements that would come of the meeting.  I negotiated the joint statement between the two leaders.  I was working overtime on behalf of my adopted country to deepen relations with the country I fled.  From trade to education to dioxin remediation to security, I was working to find ways for us to do more together.  And, of course, the United States was seeking to do more because we saw in Vietnam a potential future partner.  This large country with a young, highly educated population and high approval ratings of the United States could be a trade partner.  It could be a geopolitical partner.  It was in the national security interest of the United States to draw Vietnam closer.  That’s what I was helping to do.

When I returned to the White House again in 2013, the irony became even sharper.  The refugee child who fled Vietnam in a crowded boat was now advising President Obama on policy toward Vietnam and working, again, to find ways for our two countries to do more together.  During my tenure, I had the opportunity to help shape a historic meeting in the White House.  In July 2015, President Obama welcomed Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV).  This was the leader who embodied everything my parents had taught me to be bad about Vietnam.  He embodied the pain, the trauma, and the destruction my family endured.

And yet, once again, I was entrusted to plan this meeting and make it a meaningful success.  Once again, I negotiated the joint statement.  I was pushing for public commitments to policies that would have been unthinkable in post-war Vietnam – like a commitment to workers’ rights and fundamental freedoms.  Once again, I was doing everything I could to make my adopted country more connected – through trade and security and science and education – through every path – to make it more connected to the country I fled.  As I sat in the Oval Office for that meeting, I had this overwhelming sense of pride.  I was proud that, once again, this little girl who had once been introduced to President Bush as “a boat baby” was representing her country.  Her adopted country.  The only one she knew.  The only one she loved.

And, here’s the thing, in all of these consequential meetings, I was trusted with advancing America’s strategic interests.  Not a single Vietnamese official asked how someone born in Saigon was across the negotiating table.  Not once did any U.S. official question whether someone with my background could objectively represent U.S. interests.  

That’s the measure of how much both countries have changed since 1975.  But, that’s also a measure of the greatness of my adopted country.  Vietnamese officials never questioned me as a U.S. official and that’s because, in America, you can become American.

The Long Arc of Reconciliation and Career Growth

This career progression – from NATO policy assistant to chancellor of a defense college – happened against the backdrop of the broader transformation in US-Vietnam relations.   Vietnam went from being one of America’s most bitter enemies to a strategic partner in just four decades.

This didn’t happen through grand gestures or dramatic breakthroughs overnight.  It happened through the patient, unglamorous work of building relationships, one conversation at a time.  Vietnamese students coming to American universities.  American businesses investing in Vietnamese factories.  Veterans from both sides meeting to share their stories.

My own career is a small part of this larger story.  Every time I walked into a meeting with Vietnamese officials, I was carrying not just official U.S. positions, but also a personal understanding of what reconciliation can make possible.

The Human Dimension of Diplomacy

Let me share a moment that crystallized this for me.  I was meeting with a Vietnamese diplomat about regional security issues.  We were discussing China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea when he paused and said, “You know, my father fought against the Americans during the war.  He often wondered what became of all the people who left on those boats.  I think he would be amazed to know that one of them came back to work on making our countries partners.”

That comment stayed with me because it captured something essential about how nations heal from conflict.  It’s not just about governments deciding to cooperate; it’s about people on both sides allowing themselves to imagine a different relationship.

Lessons for Today’s Challenges

As I reflect on my journey from refugee camp to the White House, I see lessons that extend far beyond US-Vietnam relations.

First, reconciliation is possible, but it requires patience and perspective.  The Vietnamese boat people of the 1970s and 1980s weren’t just fleeing communism; we were fleeing a country that couldn’t imagine a place for people who had made different choices during the war.  Today’s Vietnam, while still a one-party state, is looking for ways to work with its diaspora, even those who left under difficult circumstances.

Second, refugee policy isn’t just humanitarian; it’s strategic.  The Vietnamese Americans who fled after 1975 didn’t just benefit from American generosity.  They absolutely did.  My family and I did.  But, we also contributed to American prosperity and strengthened ties between our countries.  When Vietnamese officials visit the United States today, they meet with Vietnamese American business leaders, community organizers, and yes, even former White House advisors who can bridge both worlds.

Third, individual stories matter in diplomacy.  Every time I represented the United States in discussions with Vietnam, I was living proof that former enemies can become partners, that refugees can become bridge-builders, that the children of one generation’s conflict can become the peacemakers of the next.

The Continuing Challenge

But let’s be honest about the challenges that remain.  US-Vietnam relations today are strong but still complex.  Human emotions – even decades later – can still be raw.  We cooperate on security issues while sometimes disagreeing on human rights.  We’re major trading partners while still working through our trade relationship.  Vietnam values its strategic partnership with America while maintaining its independence and its relationship with China.

These tensions aren’t failures of diplomacy; they’re the natural result of two very different countries with different systems and different histories, cultures, and perspectives learning to work together.  The challenge isn’t to eliminate these differences but to manage them constructively.  The challenge is to find the common ground based on understanding and mutual respect.

My experience suggests that personal relationships built on mutual respect and honest acknowledgment of past difficulties can help navigate these complexities.  When Vietnamese officials know that their American counterparts understand their history and culture, difficult conversations become more productive.

What My Story Reveals About America

I want to return to something I wrote a few years ago: “Only in America is a story like this possible.”  I still believe that’s true, and let me explain what I meant.

It’s not that America is uniquely generous.  America is generous, but many countries have welcomed refugees.  It’s not that America is uniquely forgiving.  Reconciliation with former enemies isn’t exclusively American.

What makes America unique – to me – is the combination of pragmatism and idealism that allows a country to turn former refugees into foreign policy advisors, to see former enemies as potential partners, and to believe that individual success stories can scale up into national transformation.

My parents risked everything because they believed America would give me opportunities I could never have had in Vietnam.  They were right, but perhaps not in the way they expected.  They thought they were giving me the chance to have an education and a comfortable life in a free country.  They didn’t imagine they were giving me the chance to help shape the relationship between the country we left and the country that took us in.

Looking Forward

As we think about the future of US-Vietnam relations, I’m optimistic.  Both countries have learned that cooperation serves their interests better than confrontation.  Both have populations that see each other as partners rather than former enemies.  Both face common challenges, from cyber attacks to regional security, that require coordinated responses.

The refugee child who learned to ask for help on an American playground grew up to understand that nations, like people, sometimes need to ask for help too.  And sometimes, the most effective help comes from those who have walked a similar path.

My journey from Saigon to a Malaysian refugee camp to Oakland to the White House didn’t just change my life.  It gave me a unique perspective on how countries can transform their relationships when they’re willing to look beyond past grievances toward shared interests and common humanity.

Closing Reflection

I began this talk with a story about my father swimming to a pirate ship with wedding rings clamped between his teeth.  Let me end with a story of my own wedding ring.  I’m married to a man from a slightly different culture.  He’s from Shreveport, Louisiana, where rice and beans are savory while rice and beans, for me, are chè and the best of desserts!  When we met, my husband didn’t like phở.  He had had it once in New Orleans but didn’t like it.  This was a dealbreaker for me.  I was clear that this would not work if he didn’t come to appreciate phở.  I took him for his second taste of pho, and, well, we’ve now been married for 14 years.  

I made phở a staple in his life, and he made king cake a staple in mine.  We now have two sons of our own.  My sons love phở and king cake.  Tet is an important holiday for me and for them, and there are Christmas decorations up in our home every year.  They Americanize “ông ngoại” and “bà ngoại.”  They pronounce it as “ohng ngoai” and “ba ngoai”, but they are a perfect mix of Vietnamese and American – a perfect cocktail of different cultures, histories, traditions.  And no one bats an eye when we walk down the street, holding hands, as a family.

That’s what reconciliation looks like.  Not forgetting the past, but not being imprisoned by it either.  Moving forward and building on the best of our past and present for our future.

The challenges of peace in US-Vietnam relations aren’t behind us.  They’re ongoing, requiring constant attention and care from scholars, diplomats, business leaders, and citizens of both countries like you. 

But, if a refugee child can grow up to advise presidents on relations with the country her family fled, then I have to believe that any relationship can be transformed through patience, understanding, and the recognition that former enemies can become partners, and sometimes even friends.

Thank you.