Before Bernadette Slowey was 8 years old, she had been evacuated from two strife-torn countries as the forces of change closed in.
Slowey has fond memories of of her life as a small child in chaotic Saigon, where she was born in 1971 to a Vietnamese mother and an American GI. Her memories of Tehran are not fond.
Born Bernadette Fattig, she spent much of her childhood in Nebraska, where her racial makeup made her stand out, different, the object of taunts, shouts and ridicule.
Still, she remembers having friends there, and was glad to return to Grand Island after hastily departing the Iranian capital in late 1978 as the anti-shah turmoil bubbled over.
Her life has covered a lot of miles, under a lot of cloudy skies, but she persevered. Maybe, her travails made her stronger.
The 34-year-old, with a husband, Joe, and two children, was just promoted to vice president of bank support for TCF Bank, with the marketing and human resources departments answering to her.
Today, Slowey serves on many boards and volunteers with several community organizations. She has served on boards with the Cancer League of Colorado and the Denver Sports Commission. She volunteers with Junior Achievement, Urban Peak and Mile High United Way.
Last June, Slowey completed a half-marathon in Hawaii to honor her mother for the American Stroke Association’s Train to End Stroke program. She raised more than $5,000.
Susan Barber, who runs the Leadership Denver program at the Denver Metro Chamber Foundation, is a fan of Slowey’s.
“She has wonderful enthusiasm and energy that she brought to the Leadership Denver program, and she brings to our executive council,” Barber said. “She’s just one of the easiest people to work with. She has done much for the community.”
Slowey remembers living in an apartment in Saigon in the early 1970s.
“There was always some kind of chaos on the street,” she said. “It was bustling back then. I have a fond memory of Saigon in my early years, going to the zoo and going to school, singing ‘Frère Jacques.”‘
Her father left Vietnam in 1974. He spent a year arranging for his family to join him in Nebraska. Slowey and her mother got a flight out of Saigon on April 21, 1975, four days before the city fell to the communists.
She had vague recollections of another little girl, younger, who was around all the time, maybe a cousin. But that little girl wasn’t on the flight to America.
In 1995 she returned to Vietnam with her mother to visit family. During family discussions she learned that the girl was her sister. She was kidnapped in early April of 1975, likely sold on the black market into slavery. She would be 32 now.
Slowey dreams of starting a foundation for children of war to honor her missing sister, Rose.
After living three years in Grand Island and Lincoln, Neb., Slowey’s family joined her father, who was working for Bell Helicopter in Tehran. She remembers a lonely, isolated existence in Iran: attending the embassy school, having to stay inside her home and never being allowed outside to play.
She and her mother “were literally the first Vietnamese to come to Nebraska. Nobody knew who we were, or what we were.”
Her mother had to learn how to shop at a grocery store, how to read labels. Her mother took the brunt of the prejudice, but Slowey became ashamed of her heritage.
“I lost the knowledge of the language. I didn’t have a lot of Vietnamese people to talk to. It was a very difficult time,” she said.
“I remember there were some kids who were throwing rocks and saying I needed to go back to my country.”
She developed a thick skin, Slowey said.
“As a kid I didn’t understand prejudice. I didn’t understand why we were so disliked. I developed friends after I began to learn English and I didn’t have an accent.
“People are really afraid of what they don’t know. It was about me learning to break down barriers. I have got a sales nature in me. That’s why I went into marketing.”
When she was in the ninth grade her family moved from Grand Island to Littleton, and her life opened up.
She made lots of friends at Arapahoe High School.
“I just loved the high school experience. It was just so different from growing up in Nebraska. I had a ton of friends. … I had a lot of things on my social agenda.”
She was captain of the volleyball team and vice president of the senior class.
Her friends liked to come over and sample her mother’s Vietnamese cooking.
“I stopped being ashamed of my Vietnamese heritage,” she said. “My personality began to flourish.”
