From Vietnam To Sweden To The States: The Travels of a Cedar Falls Student: Hi-Line Blog

Karl Sadkowski/Opinion Editor

Many people have backgrounds that we don’t know about and cannot appreciate. These people are everywhere; they may live in other countries, speak other languages or attend other schools.

But these people are in Cedar Falls High School as well. 

Peter’s story begins before his birth. After the Vietnam War, political and economic instability wracked the country and prompted many to attempt escape elsewhere. On a wooden boat with about 50 other people, Peter’s 19-year-old father and uncle had long left the Vietnamese coastline when a terrible storm wrecked their boat. Peter’s father, being one of the six survivors of the wreck, floated for 10 hours hanging onto a piece of the ship’s wood, distant from any sight of land. He only just remained conscious when a rescue boat saved him, but the men on the rescue boat who saved him also were Vietnamese police officers.

Back again in Vietnam, one police officer was driving Peter’s father to a nearby prison when he stopped at his girlfriend’s house to say hello. Peter’s father took this opportunity to claim he needed to urinate badly, to which the officer reluctantly let him go outside, watching him from the house’s window. When the officer momentarily turned away from Peter’s father, he ran to a house nearby and begged its owners to hide him. Although the police searched the neighborhood, Peter’s father could not be found or tracked since no mug shot was ever taken of him.

Peter’s parents eventually met four years later when his father began working for his mother’s older brother. According to Peter, a lot of men were attracted to his mother, “but I guess my dad had the charm.” Together, they decided to escape Vietnam as refugees from the country’s continued instability by smuggling themselves out of the country. They ended up in the Philippines in the late 1980s and lived there for five years until Peter’s older brother was born. His brother had a cleft lip and needed better medical treatment than was available there.

At one point, a friend of Peter’s parents left the Philippines for Sweden. He sent them a letter with a picture telling them how much better life was there, which encouraged them to apply for Swedish citizenship, in part for Peter’s brother’s sake. When a Swedish representative arrived in the Philippines to conduct interviews for those who had applied for Sweden citizenship, Peter’s fortunate parents were granted citizenship and departed for Sweden in 1993.

Peter was born in Södra Sjukhuset, Sweden, July 1, 1993. Thus, he grew up speaking Swedish as his first language, but also spoke Vietnamese with his parents at home in Rågsveds. Popular opinion said that Rågsveds was one of the 10 worst places to live in Sweden, although locals discredited this with their own perspective.

In the summer, Peter spent most of his time outside playing soccer with his friends. He was six years old when he started playing soccer, and he joined his first team when he was eight. The name of his team was Rågsveds IF, after the town he lived in. When Peter and his friends wouldn’t play soccer, they “would do stupid things.” One instance he remembers is when his friend had “green apple” firecrackers and threw one through the mail slot of a house. They watched it explode from outside, through the window and ran away when someone came from inside the house.

For Peter and his friends, the time surrounding Halloween was egging season. On one occasion, after egging a house in the dark evening, they ran a short distance away from the house, laughing, until a drunken man came from inside the house and grabbed two of Peter’s friends. The others, including Peter, ran away and later met up with their two friends after they had escaped from the drunken man.

Peter and his older brother, Philip, joined a soccer academy during middle school. Although only in the seventh grade, Philip’s playing level was beyond his age, and he often played with more advanced teams in games.

“He was fast. Imagine a seventh grader playing with ninth graders,” Peter said.

As the brothers grew older, better-ranked regional soccer teams began to recognize Peter for his skill. Several club teams who played at the regional and the national level asked him to practice with them.

Knowing that Peter had potential in soccer, his academy coach told him recruiters from Arsenal Football (soccer) Club would come to watch their team play.

Unfortunately, Peter was unable to show off his skills in front of the recruiters. Had it not been for some upsetting news Peter and Philip received from their parents, Philip may have ended up playing professionally for Arsenal.

In the winter of 2007, Peter and Philip discovered that their family would move to the United States to be closer to their relatives, who still live in Georgia, Texas and Iowa.

“I didn’t want to move. I didn’t mind it in Sweden,” Peter said.

A week before they left, he told his best friend, who at first did not believe Peter, but “after a while, he knew I wasn’t joking.”

They had been friends for a very long time.

“It was emotional… He was devastated.” Peter only told his news to his three closest friends. “The others just had to figure it out.”

He was finishing his seventh grade year in school when he and his family arrived in Georgia that same winter. He faced new difficulties when he arrived in the United States, an emigrant unused to American culture and society. The English-Swedish language barrier was one such difficulty. Because he studied English once a week in school in Sweden, he could speak several English phrases. However, his English teachers spoke and taught in British accents, which also led to miscommunication between Peter and his American teachers.

“Asking for teacher’s help, I couldn’t ask a proper question,” he said. “I didn’t feel secure. I felt uneasy.”

In junior high school, “I didn’t feel like I could speak. I felt trapped. Like the other kids would laugh, but I feel more comfortable speaking now.”

He once told a teacher, “I can’t” in his new junior high school. However, because of Peter’s British English accent, she likely misunderstood “can’t” for a much more vulgar term and became very angry with him. Peter, with no rude intentions in his statement, was baffled by his teacher’s anger.

Culturally, he also noticed how much separation between ethnicities occurs in the United States — in Georgia, black people stuck together, Asians stuck together and white people stuck together. Conversely, in Rågsveds, everyone just got along and didn’t worry about skin color or ethnicity.

In describing his own feelings of being a racial minority in the United States, “I felt left behind in the way that people treated each other. At first, I just hated it because I didn’t get to see other ethnicities. In Sweden, I hated schools that had only white people.”

Now living in the United States, “I just got used to it, I guess.”

After two years in Georgia, his family moved again to Cedar Falls for work in 2009. Peter entered Cedar Falls High School as a sophomore.

Today, he continues his love of soccer by playing on the CFHS varsity men’s soccer team. He also is a member of the high school’s Harmony group. The second person in his family to attend college, he will attend Wartburg College this coming fall and is considering studying nursing.

“I like to help people, and I feel the need to be more male nurses,” he said. “I was also thinking of finishing up school, going back to Europe, starting my life there again.”

Peter wants to move back to Europe and live in Sweden, Norway or England.

“When I get kids, I want them to play soccer," he said.

Peter still talks with his closest friends in Sweden on Skype.