Success Was Ocean Away : Commencement: A vast sea and the English language didn’t stop the determined youth who will give Saddleback High School’s valedictory address.

It took Saddleback High School valedictorian Bang Phi Dang nearly nine years to prepare for his commencement address.

When the 17-year-old delivers his speech to his fellow graduates on Thursday, he will urge them “to take advantage of the opportunities America has to offer.” It will be a speech born out of years of hardship and adversity.

“It’s not hard to succeed if you have the drive and determination to succeed,” Dang said.

But Dang has done more than just succeed. He has persevered. He has not just struggled with adversity, he has overcome it.

In November, 1982, when he arrived in California from Vietnam by way of two refugee camps in the Philippines, Dang could barely say more than “hello” in English. Today, he has a 4.695 grade-point average and, by summer’s end, he will have amassed enough college credits to earn an associate’s degree from Orange Coast College. In the fall, he’ll continue his advanced work in computer science and electrical engineering at Caltech.

Dang, a slight youth, is remarkably reserved for his age. He speaks of his past in a careful, deliberate manner, seemingly emotionally detached from the hardship that shaped his personality. He is articulate and his speech carries scarcely a trace of accent. His experiences have, in effect, made him prematurely mature, his teachers say.

“When you go through adverse experiences, you grow a lot,” said Jack Ollestad, Dang’s physics teacher. “He’s gone through a lot that a lot of kids haven’t gone through and that’s matured him more.”

For Dang, the adversity started at the age of 2, when his father, Phi Dang, was captured on a battlefield in South Vietnam two weeks before the fall of Saigon and interned in a Communist re-education camp. Dang didn’t see him again for six years.

By the time his father was released in 1981, Bang Dang was a young schoolboy enrolled in a strictly controlled, government-run Vietnamese elementary school. Dang said the school was not the optimum environment for a child eager to learn.

“They are very oppressive” in Vietnamese schools, Dang said. “All the materials are controlled. Everything is censored. You can’t express your feelings or thoughts. You have to be careful about what you say in school or you’ll be whipped.”

In mid-1981, Dang, his two brothers and his father boarded a rickety boat and set out on the ocean. (Dang’s mother and two sisters were left behind, but a short time later they emigrated to Canada, and the family was eventually reunited in Santa Ana.) After 12 days at sea, Phi Dang and his three sons arrived in the Philippines, where they spent the next 17 months in two refugee camps.

Conditions were poor, but the camps turned out to be a valuable experience for Dang. The free exchange of ideas in schools run by American volunteers provided his first glimpse of a non-censored education. But even after attending schools in the camps and in America, Dang still had a problem grasping the new system.

“He didn’t express his own ideas willingly or comfortably (at the start of his senior year),” said Christine Lammers, Dang’s teacher in advanced-placement English. “My classroom is an open exchange of ideas. Bang was just amazed that we could discuss (a subject) freely and openly. After five years of California education, he realized it’s OK to have ideas different from the instructor.”

Dang stepped onto American soil for the first time on Nov. 23, 1982. He was 8 years old. His arrival here, however, did not end his troubles. In some respects, they were just beginning.

“It was very difficult when I came here to the U.S. at the end of ‘82,” said Dang, who was enrolled in fourth grade when he arrived. “I was very reticent the first year. I remember one time--I will always remember this--I was hiding in one corner (of a classroom) always avoiding all the other kids because I didn’t know what they were saying.”

But, Dang added, the language barrier only heightened his resolve to succeed.

“Some of the kids were teasing me because of my handicap in English,” he said. “But it also gave me an inspiration, a determination to succeed in learning English.”

As in all of his other courses, Dang excelled in his study of English, and it quickly became clear that he was more than just an average student. In fifth grade, just a year after his arrival and still struggling with his new language, he was placed in a pre-algebra class.

By sixth grade, he no longer needed his English as a Second Language class, and his math skills were so advanced that his junior high school principal conducted special lessons in second-year algebra for Dang and two other prodigies. In seventh grade, he was sent to Valencia High School in Placentia for advanced algebra. He skipped the eighth grade entirely.

Dang attributed his academic success to the loving support of his family and the intellectual stimulation provided by his teachers. “I was always very successful because there’s always been someone there to care for me,” he said.

But his teachers said that at times, they feared Dang was damaging himself with an all-work, no-play attitude.

“He gives off an aura of a kid who has a little more depth than someone of his age group,” Lammers said. “I’ve been delighted to note in the last couple of months that he’s lightened up a little bit. He essentially has grown up--he’s learned that life isn’t only study.”

Dang, who participates in a wide range of extracurricular activities, agreed that he has lightened up somewhat. His Vietnamese culture, he said, emphasizes unceasing work, but through a wide range of extracurricular activities, he has managed to relieve some of the pressure.

“I see the lifestyle of American kids as being more balanced than that of Vietnamese kids,” he said. “Without some activities, sooner or later that stress is going to build up.”