The Diocese of San Bernardino has begun a new YouTube video series entitled, “Journeys of Hope,” that dives into the stories of those who have taken the journey of migration to the United States, seeking safety and prosperity in a new land. The first immigration story is of Father Duong Nguyen, SVD, Director of the Diocesan Office of Mission. Here is his testimony, as told in “Journeys of Hope,” available on the diocesan YouTube channel in February.
My name is Father Duong Nguyen, I am a Divine Word Missionary, I am a religious priest, who has been serving in this diocese for over 10 years. As a Divine Word Missionary, we bring the good news of Jesus Christ into the world and we walk with people and help people in their life of faith, so that they may grow spirituality. I’m also an immigrant. My journey coming to the United States is something that has had a deep impact on my life and is something that will continue to have an effect on my journey of hope.
I was a political and religious refugee. I came to the United States in 1983, when I was 10 years old. The reason I came here to the United States was that my parents, after the Vietnam War, were living in a very difficult time. My family were farmers, so our livelihood depended on the land. When the communists confiscated the land, we had nothing. Our village was not well liked because we were a Catholic village, very much anti-communist. So, we were persecuted. My family left Vietnam on a fishing boat and we escaped as refugees to Malaysia and afterward to a camp in the Philippines, and then we arrived in the United States.
My journey to the United States was filled with dangers and challenges. When we escaped from Vietnam, we were on a small boat. The captain put everyone down on the bottom of the boat where they used to put the fish. We sat with our knees up to our chest with our neighbor right next to us. We had very little breathing room down below. When we left Vietnam, one of the first things we encountered was a storm. For the first time, I saw a wave very high. I was sitting down at the bottom of the fishing boat, but I could see the wave already higher than my head, higher than the boat, and the wind and the waves rocking the boat back and forth. At that very moment, I was scared, I was afraid. In that moment the only thing that I turned to was to God, to pray. I was only eight years old around that time, yet I prayed to God to save me. Help me from this danger, so that I may be alive.
When we came to the United States, we didn’t have any money, we didn’t have any home, we didn’t have anything at all. So, my uncles, and the non-profit organization War Relief began to help us in our first steps in the United States. As we began to live in the United States, we recognized that the Catholic Church was important, our faith is important because every Sunday we would go to church and here is where we get our spiritual nourishment, here we listened to the Word of God and allowed God to enter into our life more deeply and we were able to give thanks to God for having journeyed with us and walking with us in our journey coming to America.
My faith is very important to me. When I was in Vietnam living in the Catholic village, my parents, my grandparents, my neighborhood, the priesthood, the community helped introduce me to God at a very young age. They catechized me, they taught me about God and I learned how to pray, so when I was in Vietnam, I already knew that God was with me. When I was at sea, I prayed to God and God answered me. When I was in refugee camp, in the midst of uncertainty, not knowing where I would be, God continued to draw closer to me. When I landed in the United States, God continued to be with me. God continued to walk with me and continued to work with me and journey with me and to help me to grow in faith. In that faith I learned how to pray, how to draw closer to God.
I entered the seminary when I was only 15 years old and having been a priest now for 20 years, my experience of journey coming to the United States has had an impact on how I do ministry because what I have received I learned how to give. My experience has helped me to open up my heart to other people, to reach out my hand to those who are suffering, those who are in fear, because today I still identify myself as an immigrant coming from Vietnam to the United States. My experience has changed me, to live out what Jesus says, ‘whatever you do to the least of my brothers you have done for me.’ It helped me to look at the situation where there are many migrants, there are many of those who are living in fear, there are many of those who are suffering in this very particular moment. I learned how to listen to their stories; I learned how to walk with them. I learned how to share what I have with them and I learned how to be with them. My experience has taught me that God has loved me and I need to learn how to respond back how I can love my brothers and sisters who might be experiencing the same journey that I have gone through when I was just a little boy, making this journey of hope and finding a new life in the United States. That new life has given me safety, has allowed me to dream, has allowed me to grow and have strength to live out my calling as a Divine Word Missionary priest.