Jessica Adler (Hoang Seang Ear): From Vietnam to American Diplomacy
A four-year-old boat refugee who later helped resettle refugees from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok.
- Fled
- Vietnam
- Status
- Refugee
- Arrived in the U.S.
- about 1980
- Service
- Deputy Refugee Coordinator, U.S. Embassy Bangkok (2006)
- Region
- Southeast Asia
Hoang Seang Ear was four years old in 1978 when her father, an ethnic Chinese businessman who had already fled Cambodia, steered a crowded boat with 437 refugees out of Vietnam. After a dangerous crossing, the family reached Pulau Galang in Indonesia and later spent two years in a camp at Terampas. A Presbyterian church in Vienna, Virginia, sponsored their resettlement.
She took the name Jessica, studied at George Mason University and the University of Hawaii law school, and passed the California bar. By 2006 she was Deputy Refugee Coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, visiting camps on the Thai-Burma border to help a new generation of refugees.