Vietnam Veteran William LeQuyLai

Interview Date & Time: Saturday, March 28, 3 - 5:30 PM
Interview Location: Boat People SOS 5330 S. 3rd St., Louisville, KY
Interviewee(s): William LeQuyLai, Vietnamese Veteran
Oral History Team:
Interviewer 1 – Van Tran
Interviewer 2 – NgocUyen Nguyen
Recorder & Note Taker – NgocUyen Nguyen, Van Tran, Ha Phan
Photographer & Videographer – Frank Bui
Forms – Thao Tran
Set up – Deanna Tran
Transcriber/Translator –Ha Phan

Summary: The interview took place on a beautiful sunny Saturday. To our relief, Vietnamese Veteran Mr. William LeQuyLai (bac Lai as we call him in Vietnamese) showed up at 3:15 for his rescheduled interview. The interview kicked off on a hesitant note, as Lai questioned our interviewers, Van & Uyen, on the details of our project and Crane House’s involvement both in the project and the community at large. Van did a great job addressing Lai's concerns, both through answering his direct questions and in a formal greeting she prepared in Vietnamese.



Brian, the executive director of Crane House, arrived with his son Turner and was introduced to Lai. Shortly after, an offer was made to take Lai and members of the Elderly Association on a tour at Crane House in order to assure him that Crane House is a friendly cultural organization with apolitical leanings. Addressing Lai's concerns took a good twenty minutes, which is far longer than the time it took for prepping any other interviewee thus far.

From the very beginning, Lai proved to be an outgoing interviewee, as he started by explaining his reasoning for changing his name to "William" after becoming a U.S. citizen with comical play on words. Having lived through both the French occupation and the Vietnam War, Lai had a lot to share with our team.

Lai’s style of answering was both comical and colorful. His answers were always full of personal stories, interspersed with Vietnamese curse words, French words and English words. Van was the main interviewer for the day, asking most of the questions. Uyen sat in as back-up and support. Frank worked in the background taking pictures and videotaping.

The interview lasted about two hours, longer than the amount of time projected, and it still seemed as though Lai didn’t get to tell all of his stories. For example, the question of how Lai left Vietnam took more than 30 minutes to answer, as Lai had to take us through his life listing his numerous attempts to earn a living after the Vietnam War, in order to sufficiently answer. Surprisingly, it was finally through selling ice cream on the back of his bicycle that Lai finally was able to earn enough money to support his family, made social connections and obtained the opportunity to escape Vietnam as one of the many Boat People.

We took our first break after an hour and a half. The second half of the interview was short, the answers seemed almost rushed due to time constraints and our worries that not all questions would get asked.

We closed the interview with Lai showing us some of his artifacts he’ll be lending to our exhibit. Upon request, Lai read to us a few verses of poetry that he had composed. Despite the years that have passed, he was still able to recall and share jingle-like verses that he had “composed” during his ice cream selling days to attract customers.



Lai is a man of many words and many stories. He gave us many answers, and at times asked that his answered be kept “off the record.” Interviewers struggled to let him tell his story, yet at the same time keep the interview at a desirable pace. Van did a great job for her first interview. Her command of the Vietnamese language and her experience of being a boat person were great assets, as they seem to help her better understand the interviewee’s answers.

Thao worked with Lai to sign off forms that granted us over 30 objects to our exhibit. Lai kept one object, saying he would lend it later.

He also requested that he hear the edited edition of the interview before signing the main form of consent. His caution is understandable (considering all the hardship he has lived through), and we agreed to his conditions.

From this interview we learned that our project needs to be better explained for our interviewees so that they can feel more comfortable sharing their personal stories and that there are unaddressed concerns in the community regarding Crane House and what it stands for.

The interview brought out several other things we need to work on: collaborative efforts between interviewers when doubling up, time management, gaining the trust of our interviewees, explaining the project’s purpose to interviewees.

This report was prepared by NgocUyen Nguyen.