‘We didn’t find home, but we were free’: Fowler MP Dai Le recounts life in the Philippines as a Vietnamese refugee

Key Points A young Dai Le and her family fled Vietnam as Saigon fell and travelled to the Philippines by boat. The Philippines is a first asylum country where refugees go prior to permanently moving to another country such as Australia. While the Philippines wasn’t home to Dai Le and her family, she says the country gave them a sense of normalcy and freedom. “The Philippines really did the best that they could to provide for the Vietnamese refugees…but in our mind, it was never a place where we would have roots and build.” Fowler MP Dai Le and her…