Hearts of Freedom Stories of Southeast Asian Refugees

Between 1975 and 1997 some three million Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians fled atrocities in their home countries, with over 210,000 resettling in Canada. While this history is partly known to some Canadians, little has been written about it, especially from the perspectives of the refugees themselves.

Hearts of Freedom is a rich oral history based on interviews with 145 former refugees, sharing deeply moving accounts of oppression, concentration camps, genocide, and perilous escapes over land and sea. Survivors reflect on their first impressions of Canada – the unfamiliar snow and cold, the unexpected kindness of neighbours, and occasional encounters with racism. Through their experiences, we come to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Canada’s refugee programs. These stories reveal how refugees’ attachment to Canada grew over the years and how multiculturalism policies facilitated that.

Ordinary Canadians played a decisive role in the first mass refugee movement through newly created private sponsorship programs – a role for which the United Nations awarded the Nansen Medal to the Canadian people in 1986. Coming at a time when we are assessing the benefits of immigration and refugee policies and programs, Hearts of Freedom documents the lives and contributions of people who have suffered the worst excesses of war to rebuild their lives in Canada.