Handwritten copy of United Nations Refugee Agency resettlement registration form, ca. August 1979

This is one of three copies of the same letter written to Daniel Ellsberg from Tran Ngoc Chau. Chau and his family were refugees in Malaysia at the time he wrote these letters. Chau did not have access to modern communication methods and had no way to know if Ellsberg received any of his letters. He sent the same letter multiple times to ask for help relocating his family and getting through the system of the UNHRC. He also included a copy of a mini biography he’d written detailing his family’s odyssey as refugees, showing how dangerous the life of a refugee was and still is.

Emma Lewis