Voyage Into Freedom
Still haunted by their journey, Golden Venture's passengers dream of a better life in U.S.
By Mae M. Cheng
STAFF WRITER
June 2, 2003
Dong Xu Zhi works at a Chinese take-out restaurant in the Bronx and shares a small, converted two-bedroom walk-up apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side with six other immigrant men.
The men sleep on bunk beds with all their worldly belongings stored atop wooden boards erected on the tiny wall space next to their sleeping areas.
At the small table in a makeshift kitchen that serves as the apartment's only common area are the remnants of the two luxuries that Dong's roommates allow themselves - empty bottles of Heineken beer and a plastic cup filled with cigarette butts.
For Dong, 48, any free time he has from his job is spent searching for hope and patience as he pores through his Bible, a Chinese version he received while detained in York, Pa. He and 56 other immigrants smuggled aboard the Golden Venture were jailed there for nearly four years after they were apprehended when the ship ran aground off the Rockaways on June 6, 1993.
A total of 286 immigrants, including Dong, left their families and homes in Fujian, a province on the southeast coast of China, between 1990 and 1992 to be smuggled into the United States. The immigrants, mostly men, risked their lives during a months-long, perilous journey in the hull of the rickety Golden Venture.
In recent interviews conducted in Mandarin and English, many of the immigrants who are continuing to seek legal immigrant status in the United States told of the modest lives they have lived for the past decade, years spent in limbo.
The men, many of whom are scattered along the East Coast, have cobbled together a livelihood by working 12- to 15-hour days and six- to seven-day weeks at Chinese restaurants or other low-paying jobs. They dream of getting green cards - that is, permanent residency in the United States - and eventually owning their own homes and businesses. They keep their hopes alive by saying prayers, making infrequent calls to their wives in China, and admiring the pictures of their now-grown children.
Over the years, Dong's well-worn Bible has been highlighted with green, red and yellow markers and etched with notes in blue ink.
"These last 10 years have been so difficult," said Dong, who like most of the other Golden Venture passengers had promised the "snakeheads" - their smugglers - about $30,000 in payment for the trip to the United States.
"Some nights, I wake up thinking of the hardship on the boat ... I also think about the time in detention a lot. Many times I got sick in jail.
"But if I had to do it again, I would still come to the United States," Dong said. "There's nothing like the freedom here."
Dong is among 37 people smuggled aboard the Golden Venture who are named in an amnesty bill introduced in Congress in January. If passed, the measure would grant them legal immigrant status.
Without permanent residency status, the men are in a classic catch-22 situation: unable to travel to China themselves and ineligible to bring their families to the United States. Many of the immigrants have gone more than 10 years without seeing their loved ones. Some have never met their sons or daughters because they left home around the time of their children's births to escape the punitive Chinese government policy that limits a family to having only one child.
"My family asks when we can be together," said Dong, a father of three. "I tell them I don't know, whenever I can get a green card."
Out of the shipload of 286 immigrants, 10 died when they jumped overboard in an attempt to elude authorities. About 12 opted to be sent to Latin America countries. Only a few dozen received political asylum or were granted other means of staying permanently in the United States. More than 150 were ordered deported.
Among those who were sent back to China, a number were detained by Chinese officials and fined. Some considered their lives to be so difficult that they found their way back to the United States illegally.
Dong Yi Chen, another Golden Venture immigrant who is now 43, is one of those returnees.
After arriving on the Golden Venture, Dong Yi Chen had been detained in York for about three years when his asylum case fell through and U.S. immigration officials sent him back to China. Authorities told him that the circumstances had changed in his native country and he would not be persecuted if he returned, he said.
When he arrived home, according to Dong Yi Chen, he was jailed, fined and forcibly sterilized, the thing he had been trying to avoid when he left China the first time. In 1999, he paid smugglers about $20,000 to be brought to the United States again, this time under the guise of a visitor traveling with a tour group.
"This is what happens with the Chinese government," said Dong Yi Chen, who has a wife and three children still in China. "You don't have a voice there. Whatever they want you to do, you don't have a choice. ... My family is so unhappy there. They have no freedom."
Today, he lives in the New York City underground world of undocumented immigrants, finding survival by working at one Chinese restaurant or another. He currently has a pending asylum application.
"We're hoping that the United States will give us a green card and a start at a new life," Dong Yi Chen said. "Until then, we have no choice, but to keep thinking about tomorrow because today is so difficult. ... We hope for a better life for our children and their children."
By contrast, Zheng Xin Bin, 47, could be considered to be living the life Dong Yi Chen is yearning for.
Zheng, another Golden Venture immigrant who is now living in the Washington, D.C., area, was granted asylum and was able to petition for his family to come to the United States two years ago.
Zheng works at a Chinese restaurant while his wife stays home and takes care of the household chores and their two children - a son, 21, and a daughter, 16. Despite the fact that his children have only been in the United States for two years, Zheng joked in Chinese about how his son and daughter already speak better English than he does.
Zheng's children are attending high school. His son has not been doing well in school, so Zheng said that the son will probably try to find a job after he graduates this year. Meanwhile, his daughter is a straight A student with an eye for photography.
"They really like it here," Zheng said of his family. "It's comfortable for them, and it's nice to be together."
Despite his legal immigrant status, Zheng still works 13- to 14-hour days with only Sundays off.
"This life is hard," Zheng said.
Life is not much easier for Pin Lin, 37, who lives about five hours from Caracas, Venezuela.
Lin agreed to voluntarily leave for Venezuela after being caught and detained for about three years in York. With the help of a minister in Pennsylvania and another in Venezuela, Lin got the equivalent of permanent residency in the South American country and opened a store that sold cosmetics. Because of the poor economy in Venezuela, he had to close his store and now makes sales from his home.
In October, Lin filed papers with U.S. immigration officials to gain a work visa to return to the United States, where he believes there are more economic opportunities.
"I'd be willing to do any kind of work in New York," said Lin, who was reunited with his wife and two teenage children in Venezuela last year.
"It's because of my family that I went to the United States in the first place," Lin explained. "The lifestyle is better and there are more opportunities. If it were just me, I could suffer through anywhere."
Lin says he is envious of his Golden Venture counterparts who remained in the United States.
Regardless of the different paths the Golden Venture immigrants have taken in the last decade, one thing has been true for all of them. They are still haunted by memories of their treacherous journey across the stormy Atlantic and their years of detention in a strange land.
"I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it," said Scott Chen, 32, of Corona, who explained that he left China shortly after seeing his unborn first child forcibly aborted because government officials said he and his wife were too young to have a child and still keep to the one-child policy.
"Because on the boat we had nothing to eat, only peanuts and rice and no water to wash our bodies," said Chen, who is seeking permanent residency through the amnesty legislation.
Still haunted by their journey, Golden Venture's passengers dream of a better life in U.S.
By Mae M. Cheng
STAFF WRITER
June 2, 2003
Dong Xu Zhi works at a Chinese take-out restaurant in the Bronx and shares a small, converted two-bedroom walk-up apartment on Manhattan's Lower East Side with six other immigrant men.
The men sleep on bunk beds with all their worldly belongings stored atop wooden boards erected on the tiny wall space next to their sleeping areas.
At the small table in a makeshift kitchen that serves as the apartment's only common area are the remnants of the two luxuries that Dong's roommates allow themselves - empty bottles of Heineken beer and a plastic cup filled with cigarette butts.
For Dong, 48, any free time he has from his job is spent searching for hope and patience as he pores through his Bible, a Chinese version he received while detained in York, Pa. He and 56 other immigrants smuggled aboard the Golden Venture were jailed there for nearly four years after they were apprehended when the ship ran aground off the Rockaways on June 6, 1993.
A total of 286 immigrants, including Dong, left their families and homes in Fujian, a province on the southeast coast of China, between 1990 and 1992 to be smuggled into the United States. The immigrants, mostly men, risked their lives during a months-long, perilous journey in the hull of the rickety Golden Venture.
In recent interviews conducted in Mandarin and English, many of the immigrants who are continuing to seek legal immigrant status in the United States told of the modest lives they have lived for the past decade, years spent in limbo.
The men, many of whom are scattered along the East Coast, have cobbled together a livelihood by working 12- to 15-hour days and six- to seven-day weeks at Chinese restaurants or other low-paying jobs. They dream of getting green cards - that is, permanent residency in the United States - and eventually owning their own homes and businesses. They keep their hopes alive by saying prayers, making infrequent calls to their wives in China, and admiring the pictures of their now-grown children.
Over the years, Dong's well-worn Bible has been highlighted with green, red and yellow markers and etched with notes in blue ink.
"These last 10 years have been so difficult," said Dong, who like most of the other Golden Venture passengers had promised the "snakeheads" - their smugglers - about $30,000 in payment for the trip to the United States.
"Some nights, I wake up thinking of the hardship on the boat ... I also think about the time in detention a lot. Many times I got sick in jail.
"But if I had to do it again, I would still come to the United States," Dong said. "There's nothing like the freedom here."
Dong is among 37 people smuggled aboard the Golden Venture who are named in an amnesty bill introduced in Congress in January. If passed, the measure would grant them legal immigrant status.
Without permanent residency status, the men are in a classic catch-22 situation: unable to travel to China themselves and ineligible to bring their families to the United States. Many of the immigrants have gone more than 10 years without seeing their loved ones. Some have never met their sons or daughters because they left home around the time of their children's births to escape the punitive Chinese government policy that limits a family to having only one child.
"My family asks when we can be together," said Dong, a father of three. "I tell them I don't know, whenever I can get a green card."
Out of the shipload of 286 immigrants, 10 died when they jumped overboard in an attempt to elude authorities. About 12 opted to be sent to Latin America countries. Only a few dozen received political asylum or were granted other means of staying permanently in the United States. More than 150 were ordered deported.
Among those who were sent back to China, a number were detained by Chinese officials and fined. Some considered their lives to be so difficult that they found their way back to the United States illegally.
Dong Yi Chen, another Golden Venture immigrant who is now 43, is one of those returnees.
After arriving on the Golden Venture, Dong Yi Chen had been detained in York for about three years when his asylum case fell through and U.S. immigration officials sent him back to China. Authorities told him that the circumstances had changed in his native country and he would not be persecuted if he returned, he said.
When he arrived home, according to Dong Yi Chen, he was jailed, fined and forcibly sterilized, the thing he had been trying to avoid when he left China the first time. In 1999, he paid smugglers about $20,000 to be brought to the United States again, this time under the guise of a visitor traveling with a tour group.
"This is what happens with the Chinese government," said Dong Yi Chen, who has a wife and three children still in China. "You don't have a voice there. Whatever they want you to do, you don't have a choice. ... My family is so unhappy there. They have no freedom."
Today, he lives in the New York City underground world of undocumented immigrants, finding survival by working at one Chinese restaurant or another. He currently has a pending asylum application.
"We're hoping that the United States will give us a green card and a start at a new life," Dong Yi Chen said. "Until then, we have no choice, but to keep thinking about tomorrow because today is so difficult. ... We hope for a better life for our children and their children."
By contrast, Zheng Xin Bin, 47, could be considered to be living the life Dong Yi Chen is yearning for.
Zheng, another Golden Venture immigrant who is now living in the Washington, D.C., area, was granted asylum and was able to petition for his family to come to the United States two years ago.
Zheng works at a Chinese restaurant while his wife stays home and takes care of the household chores and their two children - a son, 21, and a daughter, 16. Despite the fact that his children have only been in the United States for two years, Zheng joked in Chinese about how his son and daughter already speak better English than he does.
Zheng's children are attending high school. His son has not been doing well in school, so Zheng said that the son will probably try to find a job after he graduates this year. Meanwhile, his daughter is a straight A student with an eye for photography.
"They really like it here," Zheng said of his family. "It's comfortable for them, and it's nice to be together."
Despite his legal immigrant status, Zheng still works 13- to 14-hour days with only Sundays off.
"This life is hard," Zheng said.
Life is not much easier for Pin Lin, 37, who lives about five hours from Caracas, Venezuela.
Lin agreed to voluntarily leave for Venezuela after being caught and detained for about three years in York. With the help of a minister in Pennsylvania and another in Venezuela, Lin got the equivalent of permanent residency in the South American country and opened a store that sold cosmetics. Because of the poor economy in Venezuela, he had to close his store and now makes sales from his home.
In October, Lin filed papers with U.S. immigration officials to gain a work visa to return to the United States, where he believes there are more economic opportunities.
"I'd be willing to do any kind of work in New York," said Lin, who was reunited with his wife and two teenage children in Venezuela last year.
"It's because of my family that I went to the United States in the first place," Lin explained. "The lifestyle is better and there are more opportunities. If it were just me, I could suffer through anywhere."
Lin says he is envious of his Golden Venture counterparts who remained in the United States.
Regardless of the different paths the Golden Venture immigrants have taken in the last decade, one thing has been true for all of them. They are still haunted by memories of their treacherous journey across the stormy Atlantic and their years of detention in a strange land.
"I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it," said Scott Chen, 32, of Corona, who explained that he left China shortly after seeing his unborn first child forcibly aborted because government officials said he and his wife were too young to have a child and still keep to the one-child policy.
"Because on the boat we had nothing to eat, only peanuts and rice and no water to wash our bodies," said Chen, who is seeking permanent residency through the amnesty legislation.