Xa Lili was just six years old when full-blown combat erupted in war-weary Vietnam. A century of colonial rule, followed by a bitter struggle for independence, had left the country divided, a focal point in the global conflict between Communist and Free World ideologies. When the US withdrew and Vietnam was reunified under Hanoi, Lili was swept up in an unprecedented swell of humanity fleeing a landscape devastated by war. Her story, spanning the years of her childhood to young adulthood, represents the heritage of more than a million Asian-Americans living in the United States today.