"My home and native land'

I spent the first year of my life not really belonging to any land. My family was part of the mass migration of ethnic Chinese fleeing Vietnam after the war, we were the "Vietnamese Boat People". My family along with dozens of other families left behind everything they had know, took their feet off of solid land and drifted upon the sea hoping that it would carry us to something better. It was this wish for land, solid land that would embrace us and be the ground in which we would plant our hopes.

I was too young to recall but I know from the stories my family tells, often with tears in their eyes or emotion filled voices that this journey was difficult. We faced threats from pirates, difficulties in navigating the sea, and the lack of food and water. Unfortunately, some people died on the boat and the only thing we could do was throw them overboard, they would never again touch land. We were eventually rescued by the Malaysian coast guard and we spent another few months in refugee camps. Yet another land that only temporarily housed us. It was not until we landed in Canada, when our plane touched down in Vancouver that my family finally felt solid ground beneath them. A land where we could truly call home. Although Vietnam was my birthplace that land is foreign to me and when I think of where I belong, it this this land Canada that I call home.