Chatting with customers and ringing up sales in his gas station
and convenience store, Khe
”
Kevin
”
Le looks like any other hard-working citizen. But what many of
Le’s customers can’t see is the hardship he faced a quarter of a
century ago as a young refugee fleeing war-torn Vietnam. A two-year
journey that took him through jungles, rivers and the fields of
Southeast Asia, never knowing whether he would make it to the
U.S.
Hollister – Chatting with customers and ringing up sales in his gas station and convenience store, Khe “Kevin” Le looks like any other hard-working citizen. But what many of Le’s customers can’t see is the hardship he faced a quarter of a century ago as a young refugee fleeing war-torn Vietnam. A two-year journey that took him through jungles, rivers and the fields of Southeast Asia, never knowing whether he would make it to the U.S.
Le left Vietnam with his dad, stepmom and stepsister when his father realized that life under the Viet Cong would be impossible. His dad had worked as a nurse for the Americans during the war and was blacklisted by the new government, who ripped up his passport and other documents. Fourteen-year-old Le did not have a chance to say good-bye to his mother before leaving and told his sisters that he was heading to Saigon, the capital, for a few days.
The trip started with a bus ride to a town near the Cambodia border then a boat ride to the capital, Phnom Penh. The family stayed on the boat for two weeks, while the guide made additional arrangements. Eventually he put the young family on a bus and entrusted their care to another guide who was supposed to lead them to a refugee camp in Thailand. But the guide disappeared, leaving Le’s family stranded in Cambodia for close to three months because of fierce fighting that had started up between the Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge – a guerrilla group that violently controlled Cambodia for half a decade in the late 1970s.
Eventually, they hit the road again, traveling on top of trains, buses and walking in the jungle for several days, stopping to sleep for only a few hours.
“There were Viet Cong everywhere and if they would have caught us, they would have sent us back and we’d be put in prison,” said Le, who today owns Hollister’s Home Town Gasoline, located on the corner of San Benito and Third streets.
“We had to walk through rice fields, up to our thighs in water,” Le recalled of his journey through Cambodia. “My sandals broke and I continued barefoot, tripping over roots and my feet bleeding.”
They were close to the Thailand border, but they weren’t out of danger yet. Through the dark canopy of the jungle, they heard sounds of distant explosions and were aware that they could be spotted by soldiers at any time.
In several days, the family reached NW9, a refugee camp in Cambodia run by the International Red Cross. Le’s parents could finally send word to relatives in Saigon asking them to pass the good news to family members in Seattle. The family spent the next several months moving to different camps.
In spring of 1981, a year-and-a-half after fleeing Vietnam and extensive interviews with the Red Cross and the U.S. Consulate in Thailand, Le and his family got word that they finally had received refugee status. In November of 1981, when the wheels of their plane touched down at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Le looked out the window and caught a glimpse of his new country.
“I saw a lot of fog and mist and thought to myself, ‘Is this heaven or what?'” he recalled.
Six months after arriving in the U.S., Le moved to San Jose and has lived there ever since. He attended high school and graduated from San Jose State University where he studied finance. In 1996, his mother finally joined Le in the U.S. with his two sisters.
In 1994, Le married a Vietnamese-American woman and began a family, who he spends his time with when not busy working.
“Life is stressful in the U.S. but there are more opportunities here … for my kids’ education, for work, for many things,” he said. “This is my home.”
Karina Ioffee covers education and agriculture for the Free Lance. Reach her at (831)637-5566 ext. 335 or [email protected]
