Boat People Story

Curious story about the maid.

Her cousin was one of the refugee "boat people" who fled Vietnam in 1975. Many people feared imprisonment or death in the hands of the North Vietnamese, so they sold everything they owned and joined groups of other refugees on un-seaworthy boats bound for America. It was widely known that these people had wads of cash on them, so the boats were targets for pirates from the Phillipines and other islands. Many of the boat people resorted to tearing their clothes and rubbing dirt all over themselves to appear poor.

The boat that this woman was on was attacked. Every one of the 120 vietnamese were robbed and murdered. The maid's cousin was 7 months pregnant, and begged for her and her child's life. Finally the pirates agreed and set her adrift alone on the boat- the sole survivor from Vietnam. After a week on the open sea, she was picked up by an American ship and brought to America.