Kathy Mangum
Photographs are so important to me. My parents grew up in southern Vietnam and met each other just after the war. My father was a soldier who fought for the south, and after the war, drove a bus in Saigon to try and make ends meet. When my parents got married they were too poor to afford wedding pictures. Then, when the communist regime began sweeping through the south, my parents had to flee with the clothes on their back and a three month old baby girl in their arms (that was me!) Before leaving on a small, rickety boat under cover of night, my grandfather paid to have our picture taken (my mom and I) so he would have something to look back on in case we didn't survive. After three separate pirate attacks, drifting on the South China Sea, shipwreck, and a year languishing in a refugee camp, we made it to the United States through the sponsorship of a local church in Virginia. After all of that, that one, wallet-sized photo survived the journey. It is something I can cherish, share, and pass on. So you see, photographs are so important to me, and I hope they are to you, too.