Fifty years ago, my father, a refugee from South Vietnam, landed at the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport. A photographer from the now-obsolete Santa Barbara News-Press captured an image of him smiling exuberantly, arms wide, on the verge of embracing his brother-in-law, Charles Love. The photo appeared on the front page of the newspaper the next day. The article describes 15 Vietnamese family members reuniting under Love’s sponsorship.
Charles Love was a GI in Vietnam where he met and married my father’s older sister. They settled in Love’s hometown of Santa Barbara to start a family of their own. Over the course of several years, the Love family brought a total of 40 family members from Vietnam to Santa Barbara.
During the height of COVID-19 pandemic, I felt the urgency to capture my family’s story. Not knowing who might die from COVID, I decided to interview my family members who had made the journey to America in 1975. One by one, my parents, aunts, and uncles sat down for video interviews to recount their coming to the United States.
My dad sat at a kitchen counter, a face mask hanging from his chin (the way he preferred to wear it), and recounted how he arrived in Santa Barbara on July 11, 1975, as a 28-year-old. How people welcomed him with open arms at the airport.
Following the airport reunion, they went to a two-bedroom rental house on De la Vina Street that sparingly accommodated their large group. The landlord was a friend of a co-worker from Information Magnetics.
My uncle recalled how they found work right away and were thankful to the local companies, such as Old Mission Santa Barbara and Jeannine’s Bakery, that were willing to give new immigrants an opportunity.
My aunt described people dropping off fruits and vegetables at their door. The local Goodwill allowed them to shop for free. A preceding News-Press article quoted Love stating, “Friends, strangers, and local church groups have been wonderful, offering help.”
Three years after arriving in the United States, working tirelessly, my dad purchased his first house near San Marcos High School. In 1980, he and a few of his siblings opened a Chinese restaurant on upper State Street where my parents held their wedding reception.
Eleven years after his arrival, my father became a U.S. citizen. After selling the restaurant, he worked for nearly 20 years as a cakemaker at a family-owned bakery. He spent the following 20 years taking care of his aging parents until their death, and then he helped raise his grandsons. My father is entering his eighties in the very same house where he and my mother raised me and my three siblings.
This past March, Charles Love passed away, just months shy of the 50th anniversary of our family’s arrival in Santa Barbara. Many from the original group of 40 family members gathered to pay their respects to the man who changed their life trajectory forever.
Not many are in a position to sponsor dozens of people from another country as Love did, but we are all capable of kindness.
My family arrived fleeing war, not knowing English, and having very little money. It was the kindness of strangers and neighbors that made a difference. These people later became co-workers, classmates, and friends.
My family dreamed of a better future, and America did not let them down. We are thankful to the members of this community and the kindness they showed my family.
That is the America that we know and celebrate as we reflect on the last 50 years.
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