CANOGA PARK : Refugee Lets Go of the Past Through Art

Sitting on the floor of a dank Saigon jail as a child, Vinh Dinh often dreamed of America.

Helping his mother sell black market medicine, or waiting for a boat to rescue him and his family, Vinh let his mind wander, picturing what it would be like to attend an American school and live without the constant fear of arrest.

And after 10 years of failed escape attempts and repeated arrests, Vinh, his mother, brother and sister finally made it to Malaysia and then the United States five years ago.

Despite his early struggles, Vinh has maintained a nearly perfect grade point average at Canoga Park High School where he is a junior, and awed his teachers with his artistic talent. Quiet and self-effacing, Vinh seems much older than his 17 years, unconcerned with the things that usually consume teen-agers.

“It’s like that thing about ‘still waters run deep,’ ” said Mary Noordhof, an English teacher at Canoga Park who noticed Vinh’s artistic talent last spring. “You would never guess from the outside what lies beneath.”

Vinh started his first art course this fall at the West Valley Occupational Center, but his ink and pencil renderings resemble the works of a much more experienced artist.

He started to draw just two years ago, sticking mostly to pencils and pens, occasionally dabbling in watercolors. He draws whenever he gets the chance, at all hours of the day and night. He said it helps him let go of the past.

“When I draw, I forget about everything else,” he said. “Sometimes I forget to eat and to sleep.”

Vinh said he would like to be a professional artist after college, but is worried about money. The family can barely make ends meet as it is--they’re still paying off their transportation costs from Malaysia and the Philippines. Vinh’s mother, Phin Pham, works as a manicurist and brings in little extra money for luxuries like art supplies.

“I checked the book in the career center,” he said. “Artists don’t make very much money.”

In the living room of the modest house they rent in Canoga Park, the family members recently recounted the difficulties they faced in Vietnam after a neighbor turned their father in to the government in 1975, leading to his arrest and eventual escape.

“They kept asking us where my father was,” said Ha Dinh, Vinh’s older sister who attends Pierce College. “We had to be careful of every word we spoke.”

Vinh’s father, who worked undercover for the American Embassy in Saigon, fled the country after being jailed for two years, and the family has not seen or heard from him since. Knowing that her daughter and two sons would be denied entrance to college in Vietnam because of her husband’s work, Pham remained determined to get them to America even as dozens of escape attempts failed.

And now that they are here, the Dinhs have vowed to succeed.

“The studying isn’t work,” Vinh Dinh said. “We feel lucky because there are all those people back there who didn’t get out.”