Making Our Home Across the SeasStories from a Captain and a Nurse

Henry and Peggy Ho appeared to be unassuming ordinary suburbanites who worked regular jobs while raising a family. They lived the typical immigrant's "American dream" since emigrating with their two sons from Taiwan by freighter ship in the 1960s.

But behind this veneer of averageness, they had experienced numerous adventures that spanned the continents of Europe, Asia, and finally North America. Born in the landlocked province of Hunan, China, Henry Ho left the countryside to study literature at university. But with World War II raging, his patriotism and passion for adventure inspired him to leave school and enlist to defend his country. As a young naval cadet in World War II, he was dispatched to a new home in Portsmouth, England for two years. There, he and fellow crewmen were trained by the Royal Navy to take command of the HMS Aurora, a light cruiser that would become the SS Chongqing, the most powerful warship in China and flagship of the Nationalist Navy. After sailing back to Shanghai on the Chongqing, he met Peggy, a young nurse who would heal him in the hospital and become his bride. By luck, Henry was ashore with Peggy on a fateful evening when the Chongqing's crew mutinied and defected to the People's Liberation Army. Separated from his beloved ship, Henry was assigned at the end of the Chinese Civil War to assist with the naval evacuation of the Nationalist Chinese to Taiwan, his and Peggy's adopted home for the next 15 years. As a naval commander, Henry experienced firsthand military conflicts between the two Chinas in the Taiwan Strait. Seeking better educational opportunities and a more peaceful life for their young sons, they left behind a comfortable life in Taiwan to immigrate to the United States and made their final home across the seas to proudly live out the remainder of their years as American citizens.

Like many members of the Greatest Generation, Henry spoke little of their past. But his love of the written word motivated him and Peggy to vividly chronicle modern Chinese history's impact on their lives in numerous essays and short stories written in their native Chinese. Spanning five decades, these writings are a treasure trove that bears witness to their perseverance, survival, and humor as they find love and raise a family in rapidly changing post-war China, Taiwan, and America.

At a time when the value of immigration in the United States is under question, their stories are a relevant reminder of the wealth of perspective, experience, and commitment that immigrants bring to America and the breadth of opportunities that America affords to immigrants who willingly sacrifice the lives they have nurtured in the old country to adopt the United States as their own.