The Buddhist altar perched in the middle of Lien Le’s San Pablo home seemed to stand as a testament to her family’s faith following its harrowing escape from Vietnam a half-century ago.

A ripe orange sat as offering, flanked by lights, statues and pictures of departed family members, some who made the trek to the United States, some who did not. Its mere presence signified the tug of the old world here in the new one.

The push-pull of memory has become a central theme in Le’s life since arriving in the U.S. in 1982. Her childhood in Da Nang, Vietnam, played out against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. She remembers things that only now make sense to her. An uncle disappeared on the battlefield. Men would secretly go into hiding. The family dug holes in the backyard for emergency shelter.

“War was devastating,” Le said, sitting next to the family altar. “Instability, chaos and a sense of loss.”

Some happier childhood memories also survived that turbulent chapter. She remembered her childhood home butted up against the Han River where her father tethered his fishing boat. She and her siblings would dive to the bottom of the river, digging their hands into the river’s muddy floor.

“That was my playing ground,” Le remembered. “The water was my playing ground, and also the fishing boat was my playing ground.”

The end of the war and the fall of Saigon in 1975 brought even more chaos as millions fled the communist regime. In 1979, Le’s parents and her five siblings plotted their own escape, strategizing to sneak away in three separate waves. Le, her mother and younger brother were the last of the family to leave. Her mother lined up a small boat to deliver them to a larger boat that a neighbor had arranged to ferry them away to safety.

But when they reached the larger boat, the captain wouldn’t acknowledge the arrangement and refused to take them aboard. As darkness fell, patrol boats searching for escapees edged closer. Her mother pleaded with the captain to take them.

“She begged the captain to spare our lives and then she will repay him when we get to America,” Le remembered.

During those moments, a patrol boat moved in and the captain was forced to whisk the family away or risk capture. They spent six days at sea with little food, overcome by sea sickness, until they were rescued and taken to an internment camp in Honk Kong where they remained for six months. By 1982, the entire family reunited in Oakland to begin a new life. Le was 11 years old.

She has a single photo of her from her pre-American life.

“In Vietnam you don’t have a private camera,” she said, brushing her fingers across the photo. “If you want a picture you have to go to a studio.”

The family settled into a one-bedroom apartment near Lake Merritt and began to carve out a life in the new world. They stood together for a first family portrait in the U.S., which now hangs on the kitchen wall. But the 7,500-mile gap between Oakland and the war didn’t necessarily bring peace for Le.

“The war was long gone, but the war inside me was not," she said.

After graduating from San Francisco State University, Le dabbled in accounting and later invested in real estate while raising two kids. But the war’s silent wounds still festered within. She could feel its tendrils as she traversed through life. Trauma, adversity, fear – the feelings went by many names.

“I found something profound: that freedom is not about escaping from oppression,” Le said. “Freedom is also about freeing yourself from the pain that is still living inside you.”

Through time and persistence, Le found healing through deep soul searching and meditation. Her personal journey toward healing gave her the sense that maybe she could also help others struggling with the same trauma, whether a product of war or anything else. She began offering virtual coaching and has helped dozens of others tackle their own inner pain. She asks questions, listens to their stories and helps clients journey into the subconscious in search of the source.

“My mission is to help people toward that route,” Le said. “To go deep inside and rewire the narrative and release the negative emotional charge attached to those memories.”

Even in navigating the vestiges of childhood trauma, Le’s family was forced to confront more tragedy. Le’s sister, Hiep Thi Le, a Bay Area actress who was plucked from 16,000 other Vietnamese actors to star in Oliver Stone’s Vietnam War film "Heaven and Earth," died in 2017 from stomach cancer. Her picture sits on a shelf of the family altar in the home Le shares with her parents.

“We love her,” Le whispered. “We miss her.”

Every day, Le’s parents kneel in front of the altar in the living room and chant prayers of thanks and remembrance for the departed. The homeland they were forced to leave is never far from mind. But for nearly a half-century they have melded into this new country with its foibles and opportunities. Somewhere in there, Le is finally finding peace.

“Landing here in the land of free, America, give me not just a place to survive but a place to heal, grow and a place to come home to myself," Le said.