Follow Barton Williams, Kim Catford and Sue-Yen Luiten on an amazing journey of the mind and heart through Vietnam. For four days, they cycled back in time, following their original journey from Ho Chi Minh City to Sóc Trăng. Beyond those historical ties, this event has a special significance for the trio. They were all airlifted from Vietnam as children just before the end of the Vietnam War, and it is included in the “Celebrating Viet Nam Mothers” project. Their emotional reunion with the country they left behind and their pursuit of biological family connections marked a profound chapter in their lives.
Born in 1946, Barton Williams was evacuated out of a collapsing Vietnam, just weeks before Saigon itself fell in April of 1975. From there, he became a part of Operation Babylift. This massive operation evacuated some 3,000 children from wartorn Vietnam, with 281 being adopted to new homes in Australia. Williams later channeled his experiences into a children’s book titled “But What Are You?” and transformed his story into a play called “Fragile: Handle With Care.”
Artist Sue-Yen Luiten coordinated the bike ride. She was adopted from Việt Nam at only four weeks old and raised on Noongar Boodja in Western Australia. She promised to go above and beyond to earn the locals’ trust to make them feel safe when they talked about their sometimes painful experiences as adoptees.
“I have a duty of care of making sure that I’m not putting them in danger by asking them to step forward.” – Sue-Yen Luiten
Luiten stressed the importance of knowing what DNA testing can mean to you. He cautioned against the risks that can come with searching for biological families to mitigate those risks.
“Making sure they understand what it means to do a DNA search. It took me years to understand the risks around DNA,” – Sue-Yen Luiten
Though similar to his peers, Kim Catford’s journey went further down a path of self-discovery. Thanks to DNA testing, he learned that he was 45% Danish. This stunning discovery allowed him to trace his paternal lineage, including meeting a half-sister who lives in France. His DNA search led him to discover he had a wealth of extended family in Denmark, which added layers to his new understanding of his lineage.
During the bike ride, the group visited various villages along the Mekong Delta, providing care packages and engaging with locals about their experiences as adoptees searching for their families. Catford recounted one such encounter.
“When I went to the village where I thought I was born, I told someone on the side of the road, ‘This is where I’m born’, and they would go and find the oldest person in the village and ask them,” – Kim Catford
Catford and Williams as well were heartened by the warmth they received from the locals. Her connection with her ancestor pierced the veil of time and space. Williams recounted one heartwarming experience when an older woman greeted him on his return.
“One of the mothers stood up in front of all the others, she’d have to be in her 70s, and she said in Vietnamese: ‘Welcome back to your home country’, and I thought that was just the most beautiful thing.” – Barton Williams
The tactile experience of biking across Vietnam offered me a kernel of renewal and self-reflection, and I needed that seriously. For Luiten, it wasn’t only exercise — it was the way she started facing her new feelings toward her earlier self.
“Riding a bike was a really cathartic way to exercise and exorcise those sorts of feelings,” – Sue-Yen Luiten
She loved the special one-on-one exchanges with the people they’d meet along the bike ride that it created for them.
“Having ridden through the Mekong, maybe for the first time, a lot of adoptees have had that one-to-one interaction with the community outside of a taxi or a tour bus,” – Sue-Yen Luiten
The peace of reunion has come to all three adoptees. They explained how these spiritual connections provide comfort as they continue to learn who they are—informed by the experiences that have made them today.
“But for adoptees, there’s no choice. DNA has to be a baseline decoder of our biological relationships,” – Sue-Yen Luiten
As they cycled through Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, a raw emotion welled up. All the communities they visited rolled out the red carpet for them.
“There’s real deep sort of care for us and I think they really get the story because it was during that time there were so many orphans, many fathered by soldiers, and we were all sent to different parts of the world,” – Kim Catford
For Williams, this experience furthered his appreciation and profound connection to his hometown of Flint.
“I genuinely felt like the locals were saying: ‘Welcome back’,” – Barton Williams
