Oral History Project Questions: Blog #2

• 1. How was your life like in Vietnam before escaping?

I watched the cursor blinked on the illuminated screen of my computer.

• 2. What do you remember about the Fall of Saigon as communism began to take over?
• 3. How did the war affect your life? What is your recollection of war and how did you feel about the North?
• 4. What was the preparation to leaving Vietnam?
• 5. How old were you during the time? How many people accompanied you on the journey? Were you able to leave with your entire family?
• 6. What do you miss most about Vietnam?
• 7. Could you process what was going on at the time? How did the war and its after effects impact you?
• 8. Were you able to escape on your first attempt? What were the stakes?
• 9. Who arranged the journey? What were the consequences of escaping?
• 10. What was your family economy like during the time and did that affect your chances of escaping Vietnam?

Those were the questions that I wanted to step up for the grounds of my interview and research regarding my father’s immigration to America after the Vietnam War. The questions I wrote were in attempt to get a general understanding of the circumstances he had been placed in before diving into deeper topics.

Moreover, hitting topics that were closer to heart, questions that arose led to:

• 11. What types of hardships did you face in coming to America?
• 12. What was your experience as a “boat person”? (Living conditions, time span, and mental, physical, and emotional impact)
• 13. What are your most vivid memories on the boat?
• 14. What did you eat on the boat/ how long were you traveling by sea and how were you impacted by the experience mentally?
• 15. How was your life when you reached Indonesia?
• 16. How did you feel about leaving Vietnam?
• 17. How long did the entire process take in immigrating to America?

Finally,  I wrote questions relating to his time in America and the transition he underwent during the time.

• 18. How did it feel to uplift your life and start completely fresh?
• 19. What countries were you debating on going to?
• 20. How did you adjust when coming to America?
• 21. What was the most difficult factor of transitioning in a new country?
• 22. What was the most memorable experience you had when immigrating to America?
• 23. How has your life been affected by your moving to America?
• 24. How were you treated once you arrived in the US?
• 25. Do you ever think about what your life would be like if you stayed in Vietnam?
• 26. Did you experience and past impact the ways in which you viewed the world or planned to raise your children?
• 27. How would you describe your transition in culture, language, and etc. differences present in the diverging cultures?

Moreover, setting the main questions that I planned to ask, I wanted to keep them broad or factual in order to get a grasp of the entire picture, then zone in deeper on individual aspects of his story. I hoped to be able to address my refugee’s experiences throughout the entire time period, marking the times before and after he had been affected by empire.

After the trial run we had during Seminar this past week, I’ve learned that it is better to go into the interview with questions that aren’t trying to elicit a certain response from the interviewee, but rather write questions that are detailed enough for them to branch off of and express what they truly wish to tell. Writing questions that weren’t too detailed or too broad was a challenge, but I hoped that my questions would help set the framework to my research—questions that I could build off of and ask for deeper context when needed.