The Hearts of Freedom: Stories of Southeast Asian Refugees exhibit was unveiled at the Canadian Museum of Immigration (CMI) at Pier 21 on Tuesday night.

Hearts of Freedom looks at the lives of refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who risked their lives traveling to Canada during the Vietnam War, Lao Secret War and the Cambodian genocide.

During the opening night, Terry Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee who traveled to Canada with his family in 1975, spoke about their journey by boat where they were often robbed by pirates.

“I still remember vividly pirates breaking our drinking water and bathing themselves with our water,” Nguyen says.

Nguyen was part of the Hearts of Freedom interviews that Dr. Stephanie Stobbe, curator of the exhibit and associate professor at Menno Simons College at the University of Winnipeg and her team conducted. 

Dr. Stobbe along with other researchers conducted 170 interviews in five languages coast to coast. 

The Hearts of Freedom team compiled the interviews to create the exhibit to tour the 10 cities where the interviews were conducted. 

“This project is really important to me, and is very meaningful because my own family came as refugees from Laos. And I came with my family as a child,” Stobbe says. 

Between 1975 and 1980, 62,000 Southeast Asian refugees resettled in Canada; by 1991, there were 94,255 Vietnamese Canadians, 18,620 Cambodian Canadians and 14,840 Laotian Canadians, Hearts of Freedom reports.

The exhibit showcases three panels.

“We have a panel on escape journeys and refugee camps,” Stobbe says. “And as you move along the panels you read about the government policies and sponsors.  And then from there, you move to the settlement and integration.” 

The traveling exhibit will be stationed at the CMI until Dec. 3.

Listen to the story below: