Lan Le has lived in Massachusetts for over 40 years, after her family came here as refugees in 1981. They fled war-torn Vietnam by boat when she was just 9, and spent time living in a refugee camp in Macau before settling in the United States. She has no real connection to her birthplace and has since raised her nine U.S. citizen children in the U.S., where she holds a green card.
But now she, like thousands other immigrants, faces the real risk getting torn from her U.S.-born children and sent to a country she doesn’t know.
It’s a complicated story, but Le faces potential deportation after having been involved in a crime perpetrated by a group of people a quarter century ago. She was subsequently arrested and convicted in 1997, and was incarcerated until 1999 in MCI-Framingham. Le declined to give any details of her conviction, but community leaders say she is now receiving double punishment for the same crime. Since her release, she has devoted her life to being a loving mother and an active member of her community, they say.
Le, one of the 50,000 or so Vietnamese people living in Massachusetts, as of the latest census, is far from alone in her struggle against the U.S. immigration system. Publicly available data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shows that from October 2020 through December 2023 over 18,000 immigrants were arrested by ICE in New England. Less than 1,900 of those individuals had criminal convictions.
Le’s story is explored in a new two-part podcast “Louder for Lan!” produced by the Asian American Resource Workshop. Lan Le’s journey to become a community leader that advocates for working-class families across Greater Boston is explored in depth. Diving into her personal experiences – including her incarceration and her efforts to become a better mother upon release and her work as a community organizer – the series seeks to highlight the devastating effects of imperialist wars in Asia and the prison-to-deportation pipeline that rips immigrants away from their home and their families, even after they’ve completed their sentence.
At a release party for the podcast hosted by AARW on a recent Sunday, several dozen people gathered in the Great Hall of the Vietnamese American Community Center in Fields Corner to hear from Lan Le and show her their support and preview the podcast. On one side of the room, the wall was covered in posters laid out to show the timeline of the deportation crisis. The event also served as an opportunity to engage in activism through a letter writing campaign to members of Congress in support of the Southeast Asian Deportation Relief Act, or SEADRA for short. The legislation would effectively disallow ICE from detaining or deporting refugees from Southeast Asia who arrived in the United States prior to 2008, would make those refugees permanently authorized for employment, and end in person check-ins with ICE for refugees with an order of supervision.
Before two audio clips from the series were played for us, Le took the microphone to address the audience. She introduced herself by talking of the struggles of adjusting to life in America as a child, the lack of resources at that time, and having to adopt a caregiver role in her household as a child. She talked about her plans to ask for a federal pardon since the lawmaking process is slow and the SEADRA legislation will very likely not become law prior to her immigration hearing in December. Then the group listened to audio messages — “love letters” — to Le from her colleagues at AARW, which only reinforced the understanding of the love that Lan Le’s community has for her. They talked about her relentless passion for her work as an organizer and her love for her family.
Two clips from the podcast series were played for those in the room. In the first clip, we hear Lan Le talk about the shame she feels, and feels that other women often feel too, over having made mistakes in the past that effect their immigration status and the difficulty in sharing their story with others.
“I know a lot of women out there who have impacted by immigration but not too many people come forward because they scare of they own family, the kids that know what they did is wrong. Or to friends could be, I mean, it could be a lot of reason that’s why women don’t come forward to join with us.”
She shared her hopes for creating a space where women can freely and openly discuss these struggles with each other. “So that’s why the reason why they keep holding and holding into it and one day when they can’t hold it no more, it could be some awful things happen, it could be suicide. It could be like something that we don’t that we don’t know.”
She talks about creating some sort of space, which she can’t quite name but suggests maybe “a release rehab, whatever that is.” She envisions this space as a place where women like her can express what they think in the way that she is through this podcast. “So they’re able to go out there, you know, in front of everybody, to speak out what they think, like what I am today. So yes, that what in the future that I want.”
In the second podcast clip, we get to see Le’s constant concern for others recognized by her daughters Jen, Michelle, and Angel, in conversation with AARW. “She’s not very selfish. I would say she’s not selfish at all” ponders Le’s daughter Jen. her other daughter chimes in with the word “Selfless!” Her other daughter is in agreement just based off the very nature of her mother. “She’s liker, literally a mother of nine and a grandmother of four. So, like, you’re just taking someone aware that’s like a part of our family.”
“It’s tough to live in this country” Le told the Sampan afterward in a sit-down interview. Le spoke about the many challenges of navigating life in America for refugees. She told of struggles with the language barrier and having little idea of how to access needed services.
Asked how she holds onto hope, Le replied, “I do have hopes and dreams. I hope the government and the world will know that this is happening to me right now. It’s not just me, it’s all of my community who are impacted by immigration. …. It’s a hard situation but I have to keep fighting for it.”
“I am nervous if they’re gonna (take)me away from my family, my children, my community, but I’m very happy that I have a lot of support behind me but I’m very sad to see the government take a person like me back to where I don’t know or don’t have connections.”
Lan Le expressed her hope to stay and see her family continue to grow and prosper, her youngest child only being in 10th grade.
“She needs me to support her and also I want to be with her. My big problem right now is I just hope I am able to ask for a pardon, to ask for some type of relief that will give me a chance to stay in the United States with my family.”
“I think all deportations should end, not just for Southeast Asians, but for the whole world, so we can have another chance.”
You can listen to the “Louder for Lan!” podcast and support Lan’s fight by visiting aarw.org/lansfighttostay
