Evacuated from War-Torn Vietnam to Australia, They're Now Racing Against Time

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They departed Vietnam as infants. Fifty years later, they returned to seek their biological parents.

In a journey over a decade in planning, thirteen adoptees — primarily from Australia — and their families cycled 284km across four days in April from the capital Ho Chi Minh City to Sóc Trăng in the far south.

Organiser Sue-Yen Luiten mentioned: “Since 2015 — marking the 40th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War — it became clear that we, as adoptees or children separated from our birth families due to the war, were .”

“We’re on the quest for our mothers, but we’re also searching for fathers, uncles, aunties, siblings.

“Anyone who might have a history of missing someone from their family who may have left the country.”

The Celebrating Viet Nam Mothers bike ride was Luiten’s brainchild — she was adopted from Vietnam in 1974 at just four weeks old, growing up in Western Australia.

“Having ridden through the Mekong, maybe for the first time, a lot of adoptees have had that one-to-one interaction with the community outside of a taxi or a tour bus,” Luiten said.

“That really does make you think … have I just ridden past my mother or my father along the path?”

With the help of local organisations, the group visited villages along the Mekong Delta, providing care packages of rice and oil to elderly residents and speaking to them about adoptees searching for their families.

Event attendee and Vietnamese adoptee Kim Catford said: “Sue had a dream of wanting to do a bike ride through Vietnam to reach out to vulnerable families so we could give out care packages.”

“And to provide DNA kits for mothers that were separated from their children prior to 1975, during that American War period.”

A group of people riding bicycles along a road surrounded by tropical green leafy jungle, led by four people wearing blue and white cycling outfits and helmets, who wave to some children standing outside a hut on the side of the road.

Adoptees cycling through villages in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, striving to raise awareness about their ongoing search for their biological families. Source: Supplied

Barton Williams, who was , just weeks before the fall of Saigon, said it was the first time he didn’t feel like a tourist in his birth country.

Of 3,000 children airlifted out of Vietnam in April 1975, some 281 found a new life — and family — in Australia.

“I genuinely felt like the locals were saying: ‘Welcome back’,” Williams said.

“One of the mothers stood up in front of all the others, she’d have to be in the 70s, and she said in Vietnamese: ‘Welcome back to your home country’, and I thought that was just the most beautiful thing.

“It brought a tear to everyone’s eye. And made us think, we have got a connection, whether we get a DNA match or not.”

DNA testing key

Catford, who was adopted by South Australian parents in 1974, knows firsthand the power of DNA testing.

Although his search for his Vietnamese mother continues, DNA helped uncover his paternal family.

“All my life I was told I’m mixed race, thinking my father probably was an American soldier,” Catford said.

“I did the DNA test and to my surprise I was 45 per cent Danish. The even bigger surprise was having close matches.”

A large community hall filled with Vietnamese people, each with a large red bag in front of them, with several people walking down the centre aisle.

The group delivered care packages and spoke to communities in southern Vietnam. Source: Supplied

Catford discovered his father had left Denmark and emigrated to the United States, joined the US Air Force and served in Vietnam.

Through DNA, he was able to meet his extended biological family in Denmark.

“They put on the most beautiful reunion for me and my wife and we went there last year,” he said. “Aunties, uncles, cousins, second cousins … I’ve even got a half-sister who lives in France.”

Catford and Luiten say DNA testing is a game-changer for Vietnamese adoptees.

They said many adoptees are mixed race, many have inaccurate or incomplete birth records, and some have faced painful experiences bonding with people they believed were their parents, only to later discover they were not.

Luiten said there are also cultural sensitivities and privacy concerns to navigate in providing kits to Vietnamese locals.

“I have a duty of care of making sure that I’m not putting them in danger by asking them to step forward,” she said.

“Making sure they understand what it means to do a DNA search. It took me years to understand the risks around DNA.

“But for adoptees, there’s no choice. DNA has to be a baseline decoder of our biological relationships.”

A large group of around 20 people ranging from middle aged to very old, posing for a photo around a table.

Kim Catford (centre) met his extended family and a half-sister in Denmark last year. Source: Supplied

But Luiten said dozens of local women came forward, requesting DNA kits, and Catford said he felt locals were keen to help adoptees searching for their families.

“When I went to the village where I thought I was born, I told someone on the side of the road, ‘This is where I’m born’, and they would go and find the oldest person in the village and ask them,” he said.

“There’s a profound sense of care for us, and I believe they truly understand the narrative because, during that era, there were so many orphans, many fathered by soldiers, and we dispersed to different parts of the globe.”

A middle-aged woman of Asian descent wearing a black t-shirt that reads 'Celebrating Vietnam Mothers' holds a microphone with her hand on her chest. Behind her, out of focus, is a stage with a curtain featuring the Vietnamese flag, and a group of people watching her.

Organiser and adoptee Sue-Yen Luiten spoke to community members about their search for family and DNA testing during their journey. Source: Supplied

Healing journeys and new bonds

Williams, who started to delve into his past relatively recently, said the reunion and bike ride were incredibly cathartic.

“It allowed me to actually talk about it, whereas in the past I hadn’t talked a lot about my past and my adoption,” he said.

Williams said he first wrote about his experience in a children’s book But What Are You?, a story of a boy who gets sent from Vietnam to Australia in a cardboard box.

He later transformed the story into a play called Fragile: Handle With Care, about Operation Babylift, which has been staged at the Edinburgh Fringe and, more recently, the Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Through the process, Williams met Catford and Luiten and years later decided to participate in the bike ride with them.

Having both grown up in Adelaide, Williams said he and Catford formed a strong bond through their similar upbringings.

“We just connected straight away, and he felt like a genuine brother to me,” he said.

“Being around other adoptees … we all just got each other and didn’t have to explain anything, because people knew what you’re going through and the emotions that you’re going through.”

A middle-aged man, a middle-aged woman in the centre and another middle-aged man, all of Asian descent, wearing bike riding glasses and blue and white shirts that read 'Vietnam Family Search', smiling at the camera, with palm trees in the background.

(Left to right) Barton Williams, Sue-Yen Luiten and Kim Catford during their four-day bike ride from Ho Chi Minh City to Sóc Trăng. Source: Supplied

A professional support person travelled with the group to also help manage what Luiten said can be “very intense feelings” for adoptees.

“Riding a bike was a really cathartic way to exercise and exorcise those sorts of feelings,” she said.

“The literal physicality of processing and smelling things and seeing things and riding in your own thoughts and then having someone or other adoptees so close to be able to just turn around and have those conversations.

“Collectively, that was really special. There was a connection to the country in lieu of being able to find any more details or facts.”

Luiten, Catford, and Williams all say the experience has transformed them, bringing them peace regardless of whether they find their own families.

They’re also hopeful their work may uncover answers for the thousands of other adoptees around the world.

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