Interview with Linda Childers, staffwriter of California Community Colleges Chancellor Office

From the Heart:

Los Medanos College's Le Pham Le Turns Her Life Experiences as a Vietnamese Refugee into a Book of Poems

 

As a young child in Vietnam, Le Pham Le remembers falling asleep to the sound of her mother's lilting voice reciting Vietnamese poetry.

These memories have sustained Le through some of life's most challenging moments.

In 1979, Le immigrated to America with her husband and four-month old son, one of thousands of "boat people" seeking refuge in a new country. She documented her experiences on the boat, and later at a Malaysian refugee camp, turning personal recollections into moving poems.

Encouraged by academic colleagues and her peers at Los Medanos College (LMC), in Pittsburg, Calif., where Le works as a coordinator in the English Lab, she decided to approach a publisher about turning her collection of poems into a book.

Le collaborated with Nancy Arbuthnot, an English instructor at the United States Naval Academy, to translate her poems into English. The two collaborated on the project at various intervals over a three-year period, and Le submitted the bilingual versions to the Vietnamese International Poetry Society, which accepted her as a new member and will release her first book, entitled "From Where the Wind Blows," in mid-October.

A graduate of the University of Pedagogy in Saigon, Le taught Vietnamese Language and Literature in her native country before immigrating to the United States.

"I have always loved teaching and reciting poetry, but I wasn't serious about writing books until recently," says Le.

  She credits Vietnamese poet, Nguyen Du, as one of her many favorite poets, and American poet, John Balaban, whose work has made a significant impression on her own literary career.

Le finds solace writing about the grief she felt after her father's death, her experiences immigrating to the United States, and the jubilation she experienced after completing her degree at LMC.

"It took me four years to finish my course of study at LMC," says Le. "I was the mother of three young children, and I worked two part-time jobs, so I only took classes in the evening."

Overcoming adversity is nothing new to Le. Forced to leave her parents, one brother, and two sisters behind in Vietnam, when she immigrated to the United States, she feels fortunate to have survived the long journey. Many other families who left Vietnam at the same time perished long before reaching American shores.

Le's poems are written from the heart, and in the tradition of Vietnamese folk poetry, Le sings the verses rather than merely reciting the words.

She remembers accompanying her father to the Vietnam countryside where they would listen to folk singers at the riverbank and in rural villages.

"I was so impressed by the way these Vietnamese peasants sang the poems without using musical instruments for accompaniment," says Le.

She has accepted invitations to recite her poems in classes at LMC and LMC'S Word Festival, through the National Public Radio Vietnamese Poetry Show, at the annual conference of the American Literary Translators Association, and her work has also captured the attention of educators across the country.

The United States Naval Academy in Washington D.C. invited her to speak at their campus last April, the Diablo Valley Literacy Council asked her to recite poetry at their 25 th Anniversary celebration, and the University of California, Berkeley, invited her to their campus in September. The National Council for Foreign Students in San Francisco has invited her to sing her poetry in October, and Stanford University has invited her to speak in April, 2004. Other educational institutions have expressed an interest in having her recite her poems, but no dates have been confirmed. Le is also at work on her second book of poems.

Le remains modest about her newfound success. Poems and literature have always been a part of her life, the only difference is she's now able to share her love of poetry with others.