Coming to America
Amerasian Homecoming Act; 1987
Interviews and Paperwork
Even after the anti-American fever died down in Vietnam, people in Vietnam were still highly skeptical of Americans, and many didn't trust information about immigration opportunities due to fear of being targeted by northern communist spies, being sent to re-education camps or worse.
When the Amerasian Homecoming Act passed in 1987, it garnered both a large amount of doubt and hope for Amerasian children and their families in Vietnam, as it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to leave the country that never welcomed them, but many also feared the news was a potential ploy by the Communists to rat out and detain any dissenters in the South, sending them to work camps in the process.
"When the Orderly Departure program came out, it was really interesting. So many of us had to hide who our fathers were, destroy all the evidence of them, that's why they classified us as refugees when we arrived." - Ti Liu
"Everybody that came here had to go through a lot of medical examinations, make sure we were fit to travel and not spread anything in America ... The entire interview and preparation process took about a whole year to complete." - Ti Liu
"Once all the paperwork was complete and they found a sponsor to help us, the process sped up a ton. We flew to Thailand for about a week first in transition while they figured out all the logistics, then they sent all the Amerasians to San Francisco, and from there they sent out all the Amerasian families to different parts of the country." - Ti Liu
The Interview Process
"Since we burned all our paperwork, the interviews were the only way to verify our identities, there wasn't any DNA testing in the 80's either." - Ti Liu
Paying for Passage to America
"To come here, we had to pay back the plane tickets and the accommodations to get here." - Ti Liu
Ti's acceptance letter into America
Official Interview Questions Pg. 1
Official Interview Questions Pg. 2
"All you had to do was have money and people could draw up everything you need. The American government basically paid the Vietnamese government for these families to leave Vietnam, and we had to sign a contract to reimburse them once we arrived." - Ti Liu