PRIX MOSAÏQUE AWARDED TO WEST ISLANDER
Thi Be Nguyen was just shy of her fifth birthday when her family arrived in Montreal in December 1979. She counted among the 13,000 Vietnamese “boat people” who fled their country and made Quebec home after the fall of Saigon in 1975.
“My most vivid first memory (of Montreal) was attending a sort of day camp where I learned French and English,” Nguyen said. “I remember it was my birthday, Feb. 28, and I received my first birthday present — a little fur key chain.”
Nguyen, now 41, has spent the last 20 years dedicating much of her personal and professional life to promoting diversity in society and the workplace. On the personal front, she lives in Pointe-Claire with her Swiss-Canadian husband and two children.
“I’m a living example of diversity,” she said.
On the professional front, she is diversity ambassador with Banque Nationale, working directly with the president on outreach and diversity initiatives.
Nguyen was recently honoured for her work by the Média Mosaïque diversity wire service. This is the fourth year the TOP20 Média Mosaïque award has been presented to 20 Quebecers who work to enable and encourage cultural diversity. The winners are selected from 150 nominees.
Nguyen joined the other honourees, including Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil and aboriginal activist Widia Larivière, who was co-initiator of the Quebec chapter of the Idle No More movement, for a gala presentation at Plaza Antique, May 26.
“Community engagement and diversity is a passion for me. It’s personal,” Nguyen said. “I was a refugee. It wasn’t easy. My parents started from zero and worked very hard.
“But I feel lucky. If we hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have had the same options in life or received the same level of education.”
Nguyen grew up watching her parents, who worked tirelessly to establish financial and social footing in their adopted country, initially with the help of 10 generous sponsors. The couple eventually opened an auto body shop that they operate to this day.
Nguyen completed a commerce degree at Concordia University in 1998 and began working at Banque Nationale as a teller in 1999. She is a member of board of the Jeunes Chambre de Commerce de Montréal. The board represents 13 cultural communities.
In 2014, Nguyen established UniAction, a non-profit organization that gathers philanthropists from different cultural communities to raise funds and help people struggling with poverty and other challenges achieve their goals.
In 2015, to mark the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the arrival of 120,000 refugees — dubbed “boat people” after fleeing Vietnam on overcrowded boats and ships — in Canada, Nguyen organized an exhibit at the Pointeà-Callière Museum that looked at Vietnamese culture and history as well as the traumatic exodus.
Her father attended the opening ceremony, but could not look at the photos or the curated objects.
“The wounds are deep,” Nguyen said. “My father was tortured. My parents lost loved ones. It’s still difficult.”
Nguyen spent the last year collaborating with director and producer Marie-Hélène Panisset from Les Films de L’Hydre on a documentary called A Moonless Night — Boat People, 40 years later.
The film uses multiple testimonies and interviews to create a portrait of people torn from their homeland due to tragic circumstance, the people who helped them re-establish on the other side of the world and the futures forged. You hear from sponsors of Nguyen’s family, award-winning novelist Kim Thúy — who also arrived in Montreal following the exodus from Vietnam — and the last captain of the last boat to leave Vietnam before the fall. The documentary also highlights the significant role played by the Longue-Pointe Canadian Military Base. The base was the welcome point for thousands of Vietnamese boat people who arrived in Montreal.
“The documentary was a way to thank the many people who helped us,” Nguyen said.
The film had a private pre-release screening last month and another private event is planned in June. The date for general release is to be determined.