Pa Houa Lee Kongkeo, 33

Continued from Xia Lee’s (Pahoua’s mother) story, 1978:
“It was evening when we decided to cross the Mekong River for the first time. We were crossing in a group of fifty. Since I wasn’t a strong swimmer, I was tied by inner tube to my uncle and aunt. My immediate family – mother, father and two sisters – went into the water ahead of us. Suddenly, the communists started shooting toward us as soon as they heard voices. It was a terrifying moment. Some bullets must have hit the ropes that connected me with my uncle and aunt. I found myself floating backwards, alone. I screamed for help and called for my mother and father. I yelled until I couldn’t anymore. No one heard me. No one came back for me. I drifted further and further, until it was just me among the many dead bodies in the river.

It started to get cold as the currents of the Mekong took me into what seemed like oblivion. Maybe it was my frozen arms that clung tightly onto the inner tube that wouldn’t let me go. I had been in the chilly waters for nine hours before I floated into a shallow area. Vietnamese soldiers were out fishing and saw me float by. They dragged me out of the water and brought me to their captain. By that point, I was so cold that I couldn’t say a word. I was drifting in and out of consciousness and didn’t know how long I would be able to stand on my own.
I didn’t know what they were going do to a 9-year-old female Hmong child. I couldn’t speak their language and didn’t know what their next move would be.

The captain took one look at me and ordered his men to get clothes, a blanket and food for me. There was something about him that made me feel secure. I stuck by his side for fear that others might not be as kind to me as he was. Others told him to just kill me because I was a Meo, a derogatory name given to the Hmong people. I was a sub clan beneath their kind. He told me he had fifteen days to find someone to take me in; otherwise he would have to kill me. He took me to five villages around that area to see if anyone wanted an orphaned Hmong child.
The captain said ordinarily when they found Hmong, they killed them. He said I should feel lucky he decided to keep me alive. He showed me first-hand the types of things they did to my people.

A Hmong woman they had captured was on her knees, crying while holding her infant baby with one hand and using the other to plead with them not to kill her. They coldly shot her through her baby, right to her heart. She died instantly. When they came across children, they picked them up and threw them in the river as though they were rocks. They didn’t want to waste ammunition on them. They savagely tortured and killed so many Hmong. Bodies were all around the campsite.

There was so much killing, cruelty and death.

It was the fifteenth day. My execution time of 6:00 p.m. was approaching. I cried as he walked me into the jungle. He shot once, and the bullet bounced inches from my feet. He shot again. That also missed me.

Unexpectedly, a woman’s voice screamed through the trees, yelling, ‘Stop! Stop! Don’t kill her. I want her. Don’t kill her!’”
Pahoua was believed to have died at the Mekong River while crossing with her family at age nine. She was raised by an older Laotian couple who did not have any children of their own. One day while Pahoua was selling meat at the market, a Hmong tourist asked about her ‘stiff’ Laotian accent. She said she was Hmong and told him her name and her Hmong parents’ names. The tourist returned to California and announced the information over the intercom at a popular Fresno Hmong New Year.

After thirteen years of separation, Pahoua was reunited with her Hmong family in 1994 in Appleton, Wisconsin.

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Excerpt from Pa Houa's story, written and photographed by Kou Vang