Healing as an Invitation: Discovering My Vietnamese Heritage as a Therapist

I enrolled in graduate school ready to bring the wisdom of my lived and learned experiences into the heart of a career as a marriage and family therapist. My expectations for the curriculum were mostly limited to lessons that would help me help others change. What I wasn’t expecting was for those same lessons to profoundly change me. My growth as an emerging therapist led to a reconnection with my Vietnamese father and a heritage that I didn’t know I needed. I didn’t set out looking for reconnection. But sometimes, healing doesn’t arrive as a need—it arrives as an invitation. And that invitation was in the form of a genogram.

I grew up knowing I was half Vietnamese, but that identity existed as a footnote rather than a lived experience. My father was barely a teenager when I was born, and by the time I was a year old, his guardian moved him away, and with that, my connection to him was severed. The absence of my father lived quietly in the background—unresolved but not consuming. I had learned to navigate the world without his presence and despite the challenges of growing up alongside a teenage mother. Personal growth—building identity, love, and meaning in my life—has been my life’s work. And still, I had not considered how the details of their personal narratives would add to that growth until I created my own genogram.

Through this intervention, I was able to make sense of the heart-breaking patterns in my maternal family and name the strengths our suffering bestowed upon me. An unknown burden was lifted, leaving space for an appreciation for being my mother’s daughter. At the same time, that shift left space for processing the sadness of an absent father. Having reconciled with the maternal side of my genogram, the weight of unanswered questions on my paternal side seemed heavier each day. Those questions emerged tenfold as I learned more interventions for working with immigrants and the specific circumstances around his migration to the United States in the late 1970s.

Following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, the country underwent dramatic political, social, and economic transformation under the new communist government. For many South Vietnamese, especially those associated with the former government and the United States, life became increasingly dangerous. Re-education camps, property confiscation, severe restrictions on personal freedom, and brutal retaliation led many to flee for survival.

Between 1975 and the mid-1990s, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million people fled the country, with most taking to the sea in small, overcrowded, often unseaworthy boats. These refugees became known as the Vietnamese Boat People.

The journey was perilous. Refugees faced extreme risks, including piracy, starvation, dehydration, and drowning. Many boats were attacked by pirates in the Gulf of Thailand, where theft, violence, and sexual assault were tragically common. Overcrowding and lack of navigation made the trips even more treacherous. It’s estimated that 200,000 to 400,000 people died at sea during these escape attempts.

The 800,000 who survived were often picked up by foreign ships or washed ashore in neighboring countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. Refugees were placed in temporary camps—some for months, others for years—while waiting for resettlement. The conditions within these overcrowded camps were harsh. The sanitation was poor; food and water were rationed and insufficient. Countries like the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, and France eventually created pathways for many to rebuild their lives abroad. But the pathway to healing was not as clear and straightforward.

As with most immigrants, resettlement provided both relief and new challenges. Aside from learning new languages, navigating unfamiliar cultures, and assimilating into communities, Vietnamese refugees were left to process their grief without the support of extended family or culturally attuned resources. Many did not process their trauma, instead focusing on survival and the present—rebuilding their lives and using silence as a shield of protection. Many survivors keep their stories to themselves, only inwardly revisiting the pain.

By leaving our personal stories untold, we are leaving room for uncertainty in who we are and why—leaving room for the assumption that our stories are unworthy and shameful, that we are unworthy and shameful. By exploring and sharing our personal narratives, we can define and claim aspects of our identities that nurture a sense of wholeness and pride.

For the most part, Vietnamese refugee survivors and their families are just starting to create safe spaces for collective grieving and healing. Through this movement, a heritage rich in resiliency, sacrifice, and prosperity replaces one of uncertainty.

Learning of the potential immigration journey my father experienced just shortly before meeting my mother brought me to tears. While I can’t imagine what that journey was like, I have had my fair share of grief, suffering, and regret. I know the relief of re-authoring one’s story and the power of forgiveness; and I wanted to claim my heritage on a personal level more than ever. I imagined a man whose past haunts him and envisioned a new shared narrative that would help us both heal.

Still, the decision to find him was not an easy one to make. What can be gained from addressing such a significant cutoff?

On the one hand, I could move forward as I would with a client who doesn’t have access to someone whose actions have injured them. My new perspective already instilled forgiveness and allowed me to honor the sadness of my loss without reconnecting with him. And there is a myriad of ways to explore my paternal heritage on my own.

On the other hand, I would always wonder what that reconnection could have brought for each of us. Would our lives be changed for the better in ways I couldn’t imagine? Would connecting with him initiate a shared healing?

Or would it further our pain? Would I cause turmoil in his life, leading to rejection and more issues for me to unpack? These questions were important to ask. Reconnection could lead to outcomes that are even more difficult to process than the loss itself. The risk was great, but my desire to promote healing is greater.

Of course, I chose healing.

Finding my father wasn’t difficult, but the weeks following our reconnection would bring about difficult emotions and conversations. From the start, I intentionally maintained an empathetic and nonjudgmental stance. To be honest, I don’t know if I would have had the capacity to handle the situation any better, all things being equal.

For almost 45 years, he hid my existence in stories untold and strived to make meaning in honor of the sacrifices our family made so we could have a better life. He explained that my grandparents and most of my aunts and uncles were among the many who died at sea, and he was left to grow up in a foreign land with little protection and guidance. The stories of immigration and integration he has shared with me are heartbreaking, and I’m sure the ones he hasn’t shared are worse. Like so many others, focusing on the present is comfortable for him.

Navigating the complexities circling within and around our relationship has been no small feat, but reauthoring our story in way that honors us both has been deeply worthwhile. Now, as I look at my genogram and pictures of my maternal and paternal family members, I think of their stories as complicated as they are, and I’m filled with a sense of inner courage and calmness. I’m settled in knowing who I am and why.

Having buried his secret in the silence of his past, my father wasn’t looking for reconnection. But again, healing doesn’t always arrive as a need—it arrives as an invitation. For him, that invitation came in the form of a text, and I’m thankful that invitation was accepted. In extending that invitation, I not only claimed my heritage—I discovered a deeper sense of self, now carried into every therapy room I enter.

Practical Implications: Promoting Healing in Immigrant Families:

Encourage family members—especially elders—to share their migration story, but without pressure. Storytelling can be healing, but only when it’s safe and welcome. For those interested in reading or sharing personal stories specific to Vietnamese Boat People, visit VietnameseBoatPeople.org.

Create safe, structured opportunities for younger generations to learn about their family’s journey. This could be through collaborative family genograms, family oral history projects, reading books, or watching documentaries together