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An unforgettable Voyage…
Memoir of an 8-year old boat person who fl ees post-war communist Vietnam in search of a father and
brother rumoured to have escaped to the West. Braving sea storms and pirates in a overloaded fi shing
boat, Hiep and her younger sister are rescued by British sailors and interned in a series of horrifi c Hong
Kong refugee camps. Surviving by their wits, these displaced children of the sea create their own primitive
society amid the dispirited and desperate adults awaiting sponsors in the U.S.
At the age of eight in 1979, the Vietnam-born actress and her seven-years-old sister were separated from
their parents and left their village in central Vietnam as boat people. Their mother and older brother stayed
behind with her other children. The sisters lived in refugee camps in Hong Kong for three months, where they
were reunited with their father. They then immigrated to California before reuniting with their fi ve other
siblings. Her mother fi nally reunited with the family four years later.
Hiep was a premed student at UC-Davis, majoring in physiology, when she came to the open casting call with one
of her sisters for the Oliver Stone fi lm Heaven & Earth (1993) that was being held at San Jose State University
because several of her friends were doing it for fun. She was one of the sixteen thousand Vietnamese Americans
seen by casting scouts for the fi lm and was the one, out of the thousands, who got the starring role of Le Ly
Hayslip. Despite having no acting experience, she had half-dozen callbacks before she was fi nally chosen to
play the role of Le Ly Hayslip between the ages of thirteen to thirty-eight.
Since that time, She acted in several fi lms and television shows. She has graduated from college. She was the
owner and operator of the China Beach Vietnamese Bistro in Venice, California. She is now owner and Chef of
Le Cellier Restaurant Wine Bar in Marina Del Rey, California. complications from stomach cancer on Dec. 19,
2017 in Los Angeles Hiep passed away. She was 46.
Above all, Hiep is the proud mother of two.
Author Hiep Thi Le
Co-founder Jill Powell
Since I’ve know her from, Hiep always turned something negative into a positive. As a child, she faced her
dangers, adversities and self doubts with an innocence and sense of adventure which refl ects the true resilience
of refugee children separated from their families and left to fend for themselves.
-Le Ly Hayslip (Heaven and Earth )
Most of us ‘come-of-age’ not just once, but many times as we navigate life’s passages. Hiep’s harrowing,
true-life journey from innocent village girl to street-wise refugee–told with charm, humor, and precocious
wisdom–turns a boat-person’s Lord of the Flies into a true Vietnamese Exodus: the portrait of a blossoming
young American painted with a bamboo brush. Like a river fl owing to the sea, Hiep’s story sweeps us past many
amazing people, places, and events that most of us can scarcely imagine. It’s a voyage you won’t want to miss.
- Jay Wurts, coauthor of When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
